Obalinton
Clinton or Obama?
Tough choice. When the candidates started announcing they were running I was very excited about the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the first female president. What a change that would be! My state of Washington currently has a female governor, and both of our U.S. senators are women. They've done an great job so far (in my opinion), and I think that women in high-profile positions of leadership in our country is something that was too slow to happen and is very long overdue.
My enthusiasm for her was based on her husband's presidency when we had one of the greatest peace-time economic expansions in our country's history. The prospect of history repeating itself was also a factor in my support for Hillary. How often in history do you get a chance for the following scenario to play out twice consecutively?
Scenario: President Bush takes the country to war and runs up a huge deficit, followed by President Clinton coming in and balancing the budget and restoring international relations. Rinse & Repeat.
It would be interesting to see that happen.
Of course there is now a chance that that won't happen because of Senator Obama. The idea of our nation's first African American president is also appealing to me, but it doesn't seem quite as radical a change as having a woman in the position. I also like the fact that Obama would be a young senator from Illinois who was able to get the chance to be elected president because of a young senator from Illinois who later went on to become president and abolish slavery. How sweet is that?! History coming full circle.
I've now come to the conclusion, after watching tons of debates and reading every piece of news on the race (I'm a news junkie), that I would be happy if either candidate won. I was just happy watching the New Hampshire debates and realizing that of the 4 people on the stage for the Democratic portion, only one of them was a white male. Amazing!
Obama is a great public speaker and has the ability to really motivate the populace to work together to achieve shared goals. It would be nice to have a less divisive figure in the White House after 8 years of a closed-minded, go-it-alone, I'm-dumber-than-my-daddy-and-that's-not-saying-much president. His downside is that he has a reputation as being a newbie to the game and I'm not sure he has all of the political capital he will need to bring with him to Washington, D.C. to get things done.
Clinton is a strong political figure who I believe has the capacity to truly change the way our country is functioning and how we are viewed by the outside world. Her downside is that she is also a divisive figure and I'm worried that partisanship would grow under her.
Either way, I'll be happy as long as we can get away from these Republican "lower taxes, spend everything!" and "let's go to war!" mantras. Admittedly though, I am still leaning strongly toward Senator Clinton. She's not quite the orator that Obama is, but she has the skill set to take this country back in what I think is the right direction.
I'm hoping that there will be a clear nominee by the end of the month so that the Democrats will have a leg up on a Republican race that can't seem to get narrowed down to two or three. I realize that I left John Edwards out of this, but I don't feel that he is relevant (unless he somehow wins South Carolina). That, and he doesn't excite me very much.
All of that being said, I really wish that this process was over already. It seems it will be forever before Bush leaves the White House.
On a less political note: I was very surprised at the big response I received from posting again last night. I didn't realize there were so many people out there who followed what I wrote (or in this case, wasn't writing). I'm kind of flabbergasted by it. I've also got a lot of catching up to do myself in terms of seeing what all of you have been up to. At least I have something to look forward to for the next few days while Michael is in London.
And now, because it was pointed out to me that I didn't sign off like I used to:
Loving all of you; meaning it.
Toodles Noodles!
~Jimmy
Tough choice. When the candidates started announcing they were running I was very excited about the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming the first female president. What a change that would be! My state of Washington currently has a female governor, and both of our U.S. senators are women. They've done an great job so far (in my opinion), and I think that women in high-profile positions of leadership in our country is something that was too slow to happen and is very long overdue.
My enthusiasm for her was based on her husband's presidency when we had one of the greatest peace-time economic expansions in our country's history. The prospect of history repeating itself was also a factor in my support for Hillary. How often in history do you get a chance for the following scenario to play out twice consecutively?
Scenario: President Bush takes the country to war and runs up a huge deficit, followed by President Clinton coming in and balancing the budget and restoring international relations. Rinse & Repeat.
It would be interesting to see that happen.
Of course there is now a chance that that won't happen because of Senator Obama. The idea of our nation's first African American president is also appealing to me, but it doesn't seem quite as radical a change as having a woman in the position. I also like the fact that Obama would be a young senator from Illinois who was able to get the chance to be elected president because of a young senator from Illinois who later went on to become president and abolish slavery. How sweet is that?! History coming full circle.
I've now come to the conclusion, after watching tons of debates and reading every piece of news on the race (I'm a news junkie), that I would be happy if either candidate won. I was just happy watching the New Hampshire debates and realizing that of the 4 people on the stage for the Democratic portion, only one of them was a white male. Amazing!
Obama is a great public speaker and has the ability to really motivate the populace to work together to achieve shared goals. It would be nice to have a less divisive figure in the White House after 8 years of a closed-minded, go-it-alone, I'm-dumber-than-my-daddy-and-that's-not-saying-much president. His downside is that he has a reputation as being a newbie to the game and I'm not sure he has all of the political capital he will need to bring with him to Washington, D.C. to get things done.
Clinton is a strong political figure who I believe has the capacity to truly change the way our country is functioning and how we are viewed by the outside world. Her downside is that she is also a divisive figure and I'm worried that partisanship would grow under her.
Either way, I'll be happy as long as we can get away from these Republican "lower taxes, spend everything!" and "let's go to war!" mantras. Admittedly though, I am still leaning strongly toward Senator Clinton. She's not quite the orator that Obama is, but she has the skill set to take this country back in what I think is the right direction.
I'm hoping that there will be a clear nominee by the end of the month so that the Democrats will have a leg up on a Republican race that can't seem to get narrowed down to two or three. I realize that I left John Edwards out of this, but I don't feel that he is relevant (unless he somehow wins South Carolina). That, and he doesn't excite me very much.
All of that being said, I really wish that this process was over already. It seems it will be forever before Bush leaves the White House.
On a less political note: I was very surprised at the big response I received from posting again last night. I didn't realize there were so many people out there who followed what I wrote (or in this case, wasn't writing). I'm kind of flabbergasted by it. I've also got a lot of catching up to do myself in terms of seeing what all of you have been up to. At least I have something to look forward to for the next few days while Michael is in London.
And now, because it was pointed out to me that I didn't sign off like I used to:
Loving all of you; meaning it.
Toodles Noodles!
~Jimmy