I've sent the letter below to relatives and friends around
the country who I know or suspect still are on the fence or
are leaning toward the Republican candidates. You may know
friends and kin who likewise are undecided or leaning toward
the McCain/Palin ticket, and if you think this list might
prove useful in perhaps leading them to vote for Barack
Obama, feel free to pass it on.
I do a lot of political writing on the internet and for
books, but I don't normally express my political views
directly to others outside of my immediate family and
intimate circle of friends in the city where I live. But
this 2008 presidential election is just too important to
America's future to remain silent. Hence, this
personal-letter approach. So here it is:
Dear ---------:
I'm hoping that you're considering voting for Senator Obama.
I have a number of reservations about some of his policies
but I am enthusiastically supporting his candidacy for a
variety of reasons, and I think some of them may resonate
with you as well:
1. STABILITY AS A LEADER
Obama seems to me to be the more reasonable and stable of
the two major candidates, solidly grounded in the values he
picked up from his mother, grandmother and other relatives,
and from his early community-organizing work. He seems much
more connected to ordinary citizens' concerns, because he
grew out of the American middle class.
McCain, who has seven homes and thirteen cars, doesn't seem
to understand how most Americans struggle economically; in
addition, sometimes, especially in the past month or so as
he's gotten more desperate, McCain seems less stable, more
flaky, and more willing to flirt with those, including his
running-mate, who by their incendiary comments wind up
inciting violence and hate. (Colin Powell, the former
Secretary of State and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, cited some of these reasons in his full-out
endorsement of Obama the other day.)
2. HEALTH-CARE AND FAIRNESS
Obama's views on universal health care seem more inclusive.
For example, McCain would grant a health-care tax credit but
would make your health-care benefits taxable income; the
average family pays $7000 to $12,000 in premiums per year,
so you might well wind up losing money. Also more inclusive
is Senator Obama's dedication to helping all kids who want
to go to college more financial help to do so.
Obama's attitude towards women is much more humane, open,
forthright and equitable. McCain voted against
equal-pay-for-equal-work bills, called his wife in public
the four-letter "c" word, and demeaned women who, out of
concern for their own health and survival, opt for
terminating pregnancies. In the final debate, McCain
suggested that the "health of the mother" (he gave the word
"health" a sarcastic spin) was a ruse, not deserving of
serious consideration.
3. SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS
Obama would appoint justices to the U.S. Supreme Court based
on qualifications and not partisan politics. McCain and
Palin both have indicated they would appoint jurists from
the far-right wing of the Republican Party. Those
appointments could unbalance the court and lock in
potentially dangerous precedents for decades to come.
Obama's judicial appointments, he's made clear, would be
much less ideologically-based, oriented more toward the
mainstream of contemporary jurisprudence.
4. JUDGMENT: RUNNING MATES
Obama chose his running mate, Senator Biden, largely because
he is ready to step into the presidency based on his 26
years in the U.S. Senate and his chairmanship of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee. McCain selected somebody who
has admitted she had no idea what the Vice Presidency is all
about and, judging from her know-nothing comments about
national and foreign-policy experience and knowledge,
clearly is unqualified to serve as President should the
occasion arise. No wonder the McCain campaign will not let
her appear before a news conference where reporters would
ask questions.
Obama's choice speaks of competency and solid judgment;
McCain's choice reeks of desperation and political
gimmickry.
5. THE PALIN SUBTEXT
McCain's choice of Palin is not only suspect because of how
and why she was selected: namely, to fire up the GOP base
and make sure they vote on Election Day, and to lure angry
ex-Hillary supporters to the cause. It's that she also
brings her extremist politics and her abuse-of-power
scandals into the race. It was clear almost immediately
after McCain nominated her that Palin was never truly vetted
on her background and positions, nor was the McCain staff
aware of her inability to respond intelligently to political
questions from the national news media.
While Palin continues to dump on Obama for his past ties to
ex-radical William Ayers, it's important to remember that
Palin and her husband Todd have connections with the
extremist, anti-U.S. Alaska Independence Party, which
preaches hatred of the federal government and has been
advocating for secession from the Union. Todd, until just a
few years ago, was a member of the party; Sarah Palin, who
attended a state convention of the party but who apparently
was not a member, in her role as governor has praised the
party and wished it well in fulfilling its aims.
She tried to get books not to her ideological liking removed
from the Wasilla library. She is categorically opposed to
all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. While she
was mayor of Wasilla, she OKd having her administration bill
sexual-assault victims as much as $1200 for their rape-kit
examinations. The Alaska legislature had to pass a special
bill outlawing such mean-spirited billing.
After a lengthy investigation (which Palin tried to stop),
the Alaska legislature last week found that Palin, as
governor, abused her power by firing state officials who
would not support her vendetta against her sister's
ex-husband, a state trooper. By doing so, the legislative
investigator concluded that she violated the state's ethics
laws. She, Todd and numerous other officials time and time
again tried to get the trooper fired, even though Palan had
been warned that this was inappropriate behavior for a
governor.
In short, Sarah Palin might be acceptable for small-town
politics, or even as a governor of a tiny-population state,
but she's an embarrassment on the national stage, and
reflects poorly on McCain's judgment in naming her. It's
clear that were something to happen to McCain if he were
elected, as President she would be, if it's possible to
imagine, even worse than George W. Bush.
6. IRAQ AND WAR POLICY
Obama would never use war as the first option, but only the
last. Obama spoke out against the war on Iraq before it was
launched, and supplied prescient warnings for what might
happen if the U.S. attacked and occupied the country. McCain
voted enthusiastically to authorize that war, and passed on
all the lies about the supposed "weapons of
mass-destruction" (which didn't exist) and alleged ties of
Saddam with the terrorism of 9/11 (which didn't exist).
The U.S. Treasury is shelling out $10billion a month right
now for an occupation/war in Iraq that all experts agree
cannot be "won" by military force. McCain, still hoping for
a military "victory," says we might be there for a hundred
years and that that's fine with him. Obama wants to start
withdrawing troops over a 16-month period, and putting that
$10billion a month to better uses inside our own country.
7. THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
Our financial system, which was essentially unregulated
(thanks largely to Republican ideology), has collapsed, and
we are heading into a long recession, which potentially
could slide into another Great Depression.
McCain, like Bush, wants to cut taxes for the rich and
corporations in an effort to stimulate the economy; Obama
seems more willing to grow the economy from the bottom up by
creating more jobs, thus keeping the middle-class and poor
from the depredations of poverty and hopelessness.
8. TORTURE/CIVIL LIBERTIES
McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North
Vietnam and thus spoke with moral authority, for years led
the opposition within the Republican Party to the Bush
Administration's torturing of "enemy combatants" in U.S.
custody, calling torture illegal and immoral. That is, until
McCain was told that position wouldn't go over well with the
rightwing GOP base in his race for the presidency. At which
point, earlier this year, he flip-flopped to permit the CIA
to utilize what is euphemistically referred to as
"alternative interrogation techniques" when questioning
prisoners in U.S. care, including "waterboarding," i.e.
near-drowning. (Neither Obama nor Senator Clinton were in
town to vote on the bill.)
Obama, who has taught constitutional law, has been much more
forthright in adhering to the moral pronouncements of the
Constitution. (But his hands are not totally clean: He caved
also when it came to approving of warrantless domestic
spying.) Still, overall Obama's defense of civil liberties
tends to be much stronger than that expressed by McCain, who
is more willing to bend to "military necessity," even if
torture is involved.
9. GOP DIRTY TRICKS
The Republicans are notorious for their voter-suppression
dirty tricks. Terrified of all the new voters who have
registered as Democrats, in state after state they have made
it more difficult for these voters and others to cast their
ballots. In addition, millions nationwide have been "purged"
from the voting rolls -- some in mean ways, such as, in
Michigan, attempting to remove from voting rolls those who
have lost their homes as a result of foreclosures or storm
damage and thus had no proof of current residency in their
voting precincts. Students were lied to by GOP-friendly
registration officials in Virginia, Colorado and South
Carolina that they couldn't vote in their college towns if
they were still listed as dependents on their parents' tax
forms.
Other voters, especially those in minority communities
(which, again, are assumed to be more inclined to vote
Democratic) are told the wrong date, and the wrong precinct,
for the election. Others are warned not to go to the polls
if they have any outstanding parking citations as they will
be arrested. Last-minute computer-generated "robocalls" go
to likely Democratic and Independent voters, filled with
outright lies that are impossible to adequately respond to
just days before the balloting starts. And so on. Best
advice: Don't even listen to last-minute negativity, from
any candidate regardless of party. And do not reward those
practicing this kind of dirty politics by voting for their
candidates. (As I write this, the McCain Campaign has
launched robocalls in at least 17 states, which are filled
with smears and lies about Obama -- this at the same time
that McCain talks about wanting to run a more "civil,
positive" campaign.)
10. MASSIVE VOTE THEFT
As a result of a myriad of GOP/CheneyBush Campaign dirty
tricks, it is reliably estimated that the ballots of
3,000,000 voters were not properly counted in the 2004
elections. This altered the tallies just enough in key
battleground states to throw the election to Bush, despite
exit polls showing that Kerry won handily.
Even eight years after the 2000 vote-counting fiasco in
Florida, Ohio and elsewhere, the U.S. continues to avoid
dealing seriously with its underlying electoral problems.
Vote-tabulation is still outsourced to a handful of private
(and in this case Republican-supporting) corporations. They
manufacture the voting machines, write and control the
secret software that both records the votes and tabulates
them later. (Stalin famously said: "It's not who votes that
counts, it's who counts the votes.")
One third of the country next month will vote on
touch-screen voting machines, which are notoriously
unreliable, provide no paper trail for possible recounts,
and are easily hackable. (for example, often you vote for
your candidate but the name of the opponent is recorded).
All votes, whether recorded on a touch-screen or fed into an
optical-scanner machine are tabulated by the same
Republican-leaning companies that make the machines; the
possibility of corrupted totals is built into the system. It
has been publicly demonstrated that a company technician or
outside hacker can within 45 seconds enter the software,
manipulate the vote numbers, and leave no evidence of
tampering.
Certainly the Republicans have no desire to alter the
current system. Why should they? It works well for them, and
they've rarely been charged with crimes in this area. But an
Obama/Biden administration and Democratic-controlled
Congress might well be more amenable to reforming the
electoral process to make it more transparent, less
corruptible, less corrupted.
Well, those ten will do for starters. I'm hoping some or all
of those reasons will help convince you to consider
supporting Senator Obama's candidacy. But if you can't, I'm
quite open to hearing from you as to why not.
Finally, please be aware that it's not just lifelong
Democrats who are urging support for Senator Obama. Lifelong
Republicans, many of them generals and admirals (including
Colin Powell), anxious to reshape their party away from its
current extreme right-wing focus so that they can win future
elections, are abandoning Senator McCain in droves.
Some are doing so because they feel McCain's been a very
poor candidate, much too closely tied to the Bush policies
with which most Americans disagree, some because they are
appalled at his judgment in choosing Sarah Palin as his
running mate, someone not even remotely qualified to be a
heartbeat away from the presidency.
If you are going to be voting for Obama, please consider
volunteering to help the campaign in these final weeks. A
landslide vote is what's called for to lessen the impact of
Republican dirty-tricks and to better ensure that major
reforms can be initiated in Washington that will help get
our country back on track. Thank you.
All best wishes, Bernie
Copyright 2008 by Bernard Weiner
