I have a theory about Obama, who I am now supporting after Edwards dropping out:
Bush being so awful is what made Obama possible. Maybe we ought to thank Bush. The majority of the American people have such a bad taste in our mouths, we are so disgusted and revolted, even ashamed, by the radical badness of the last seven years under this administration that we are attracted by some kind of equally radical change to clear the slate.
Barack Obama, by his very person – a bi-racial, self-described “skinny kid with a funny name”, product of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas – represents something radically different in US history. Nominating and electing him will allow us to make a sharp break with the Bush / Cheney / Neocon disaster, break free of some psychological chains that have held us back as a people and move forward in the 21st century.
Comments?
The polar opposite of Bush was Bill Richardson. Unlike Obama and Bush, Richardson has literally decades of government experience. Unlike Obama and Bush, Richardson specializes in foreign policy (the jackasses braying about his “Soviet Union” comment forget that unlike everyone else running, Richardson actually was doing foreign policy back when they were in office…the USSR never came up in Hillary’s and Obama’s policy cram sessions between fundraising calls). And unlike Bush and Obama, Richardson is a technocrat, not a political celebrity. True though that like Obama he grew up in a different culture, and represents a different “face” of America.
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p>All that said, of Hillary and Obama, Obama is a clearer break. Hillary says that the past (92-00) was pretty good, and wants to take us back to it whereas Obama says the past was bad, and he wants to take us somewhere else.