polarizeme

I think that people don’t give Obama enough credit for what stances he *does* take and what actions he *does* take.

In a recen’t quote, Hillary Clinton said some things like, “It is about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work” and “The best words in the world aren’t enough unless you match them with action.”

ok, let’s look at it:
Clinton (as well as many, many others) keep blasting Obama for being a man of words and not action. However, let’s compare a little.
we have two senators: 1 with a full 6-year term (Clinton), the other with roughly 4 years as a senator (Obama).

Clinton and the media keep spouting all this stuff about how inexperienced Obama is as a senator; how it means that he’s too inexperienced to be the President. But… Clinton has only been a senator for 2 more years than Obama. That’s not exactly an over-load of experience that tips the scales in some incredible direction.

Next, let’s look at “action”. Clinton keeps telling everyone that she’s a woman of action, and that Obama will need more than words to prove what kind of person he is. Naturally, I agree that, while important, words do not count for everything; I agree that we need someone willing to take action.
BUT.
In reality, he takes just as much action as anyone.
Let’s take into account the fact that in his first elected years, Obama sponsored and introduced over 820 bills, broken down to:
233 regarding healthcare reform,
125 on poverty and public assistance,
112 crime fighting bills,
97 economic bills,
60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
21 ethics reform bills,
15 gun control bills,
6 veterans affairs bills
and a handful of others.

in his first year in the Senate alone, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These inculded:

- the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 (became law),
- The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law),
- The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the Senate,
- The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law),
- The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, (In committee)

and a bunch more.

want to know how many Clinton passed in her 6 years as a Senator?
20 twenty pieces of legislation. t-w-e-n-t-y.

I’d say that’s a pretty considerable difference in numbers.
I’d also say that it’s a little clearer vision of how Obama can take just as much action as Clinton can; I think it’s unfair of anyone to claim he doesn’t take action.

(all of these things can be found listed in Senate Records located at the Library of Congress www.thomas.loc.gov.)

also, in all fairness, he has stated his stance on where he’d like to go with things like foreign trade, Welfare, Medicare & Social Security. Just take a look at the economic speech he gave in Janesville, WI.

 I could end up eating my words about Barack Obama, but I’d rather be this fired up with hope in a candidate, than be spoon-fed (and force-fed) the same, unpromising, uninspiring bullshit that this country gets fed year after year by the people who run it.
As sad as it is to say, we put these people in power and then blame them for doing a bad job, instead of just informing ourselves and taking responsibility for the choices we make.

I’m going to shut up now, but I hope there are still some people out there that at least see where I’m coming from on all of this.

xoxo,
    - Tristan -

Wow.

That one word above describes, in  full, my feelings for today. Here’s why:

I got home from a long night of work Tuesday evening/Wed morning around 3am. I had been in Janesville, WI at the GM plant setting up the staging, sound and lights for what was originally intended as a VIP-style meet and greet with Barack Obama. At some point Tuesday night I was pulled aside by Obama’s campaign reps and used as the Senator’s stand-in due to my height qualifications (apparently he’s only an inch shorter than I am). I have to state that it was extremely weird.
Plans changed sometime on Tuesday and Senator Obama decided that he’d very much love to meet a crowd of the workers at the GM plant after his guided tour, thus deciding to give a longer and more detailed speech than was previously planned for. The Press, who were once excluded from the event, were sent invites, as well as the scope of the production being toned up a notch.

I woke up Wednesday morning with a whopping 1.5 hours of sleep, ate a bagel, dressed accordingly and made my way back to Janesville. Getting into the event, being that I was staff of sorts, was much easier than the dog sniffing and wand dectection that everyone else had to go through in order to attend the speech later on in the morning. I spent a good hour or so getting to talk to and hang out with two of Senator Obama’s Secret Service agents - both incredibly well spoken, well trained and friendly individuals that successfully found a balance between taking the job seriously and not having a rod up their asses. 

Somewhere amidst his guided GM tour, endless meeting/greeting and giving an absolutely inspiring and well-delivered speech (that garnered at least half a dozen standing ovations), I had the chance to stand in a room with a handful of people including (but not limited to) some Secret Service men, Governor Jim Doyle (WI), and Senator Barack Obama.

I’m going to say it right here and now:
Barack Obama is, in my opinion, exactly what we should hope for in a President.

He’s incredibly intelligent, charismatic, funny, kind, well-spoken, witty and has a pretty good fucking idea of where this country went wrong (and what needs to be done to start fixing it). Is he perfect? Absolutely not - and no one ever will be. But, in getting to talk with him, I realized something about this man: He understands the over-emphasis that’s been put on the position of the Presidency in this country; he understands the smoke and mirrors that have been put in place to make it out to be something that it’s not and detract from everything that it can and should be.

I had a chance (along with the others in the room) to talk with him briefly about some things I had on my mind. I tried to find a middle ground in conversation - something that was political, but not too much of a formal inquisition. We all spoke of the concerns that weighed heavily on our hearts (the usual - economics, foreign relations, trade policies, health care, education, etc etc), but we also gave him a chance to speak from his own. No teleprompter, no speech prepared for our questions; just a conversation between a room of people… and some well-dressed body guards. haha. The words that left his mouth were saturated in the hope of a man who has dreams for this country and truthfully wants to do something good with it for a change. He understands that there will always be good and bad Presidents. He understands that no one can do this alone. He understands that the next Presidency will not change our world, but that the policies and actions put in place will certainly pave the road for whoever and whatever comes next… and he hopes to see them follow in the same inspiring footsteps of those great leaders of our past, so that they may become the next great leaders of our future.

One situation that was excitingly awkward was when someone raised the question on whether or not he was worried about possible assassination attempts due to being the first black President (and the percentage of the population that have him labelled as a Muslim infiltrator/terrorist thanks to clueless people like Bill O’Reilly, who have way too much power and constantly refer to him as “Osama Obama”).
Summed up, his answer was something along the lines of ”yes, i’ve thought about it. and i’d be a liar if i said it didn’t scare me or even my wife michelle… but i’m not about to let that stop me. i’ve worked too hard to fail out of fear. i think my secret service guys are just plain nervous about me being asked that question, so maybe we should change the subject before they try and throw someone to the floor.”

If nothing else, I had the opportunity to look into the face of someone I had previously labeled as genuine. and I can confirm, to the best of my abilities, that he’s the real deal.
I’ll clarify:
I don’t think he’s perfect. I don’t even claim to know enough about him from this small meeting to say, for certain, that he’ll be able to accomplish everything he says he wants to. I can, however, say that I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ll say that, in my opinion, if anyone can be given the opportunity to start fixing what’s wrong with this country; the opportunity to unite people and lead them into the new age of this country… it should be him. 

Should he become the Democratic Presidential nominee, and should he begin to gather a well-contructed cabinet of people underneath himself, you can bet your life that he’ll get my vote in the Presidential elections.

But, to be fair, I’m frightened.
The people of  this country have become far too stupid to ever elect someone this smart, sincere and hopeful as our own President. That’s only my opinion…

 …and I’d love nothing more than to be proven wrong.