Thanks! Yeah, it's been hard to decide because so many people that I know, love, and respect are very fiercely and passionately pro-Hillary. But I think the big deciding factors for me were:
1) Not only is Obama "less jaded by the political system," but he's actually attempting to make things less corrupt (he's supporting anti-corporate-bribery type of legislation, where as Hillary has not.) You can read an interesting post by a geeky web comic author who I like at http://blag.xkcd.com here, which also mentions open systems/digital copyright/net neutrality issues--something that's certainly on the back burner in the face of iraq and environmental issues but is still important.
2) Lots of people really, really hate Hillary for reasons I can't quite understand (and sometime for no reason at all.) But it doesn't matter what the reasons are; I'm tired of half this country hating our leaders with a fierce passion. Obama, as far as I can tell, seems interested in talking to people, representing people, and uniting people--which is really what this country needs.
2b) He has a better website. Hey, don't laugh--I'm not just talking about the visual design (though I appreciate that as well.) It's set up not only to communicate his perspective on the issues to people, but there's also a "people" section with tons of sub-communities of people and minority groups he wants to support: queer people, students, Native Americans (he calls them First Americans, which is badass in my opinion), etc.
3) He does seem more queer-friendly but is also a nice Christian boy that people like.
4) He has charisma. Sounds dumb, but something our country's image needs pretty desperately is a leader who is respectful, literate, articulate, engaging, and so on.
I did very little decision-making based on their stances on issues, because in many cases they were practically identical or the differences were hard to pick away from all the BS floating around. I think having a president who wants to pull out of Iraq and start thinking seriously about our environmental impact will be such a huge change that I'm trying not to get too hung up on the details.
The gay rights issue actually wasn't as big of a seller for me as my two big issues (Iraq and environment), but I'm glad that Obama gets top marks for that.
1) Not only is Obama "less jaded by the political system," but he's actually attempting to make things less corrupt (he's supporting anti-corporate-bribery type of legislation, where as Hillary has not.) You can read an interesting post by a geeky web comic author who I like at http://blag.xkcd.com here, which also mentions open systems/digital copyright/net neutrality issues--something that's certainly on the back burner in the face of iraq and environmental issues but is still important.
2) Lots of people really, really hate Hillary for reasons I can't quite understand (and sometime for no reason at all.) But it doesn't matter what the reasons are; I'm tired of half this country hating our leaders with a fierce passion. Obama, as far as I can tell, seems interested in talking to people, representing people, and uniting people--which is really what this country needs.
2b) He has a better website. Hey, don't laugh--I'm not just talking about the visual design (though I appreciate that as well.) It's set up not only to communicate his perspective on the issues to people, but there's also a "people" section with tons of sub-communities of people and minority groups he wants to support: queer people, students, Native Americans (he calls them First Americans, which is badass in my opinion), etc.
3) He does seem more queer-friendly but is also a nice Christian boy that people like.
4) He has charisma. Sounds dumb, but something our country's image needs pretty desperately is a leader who is respectful, literate, articulate, engaging, and so on.
I did very little decision-making based on their stances on issues, because in many cases they were practically identical or the differences were hard to pick away from all the BS floating around. I think having a president who wants to pull out of Iraq and start thinking seriously about our environmental impact will be such a huge change that I'm trying not to get too hung up on the details.
The gay rights issue actually wasn't as big of a seller for me as my two big issues (Iraq and environment), but I'm glad that Obama gets top marks for that.
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