Change.

.

He represents a transformation of American politics

Barack Obama has the amazing ability to relate to almost everybody in the entire room when he addresses an audience.  At the forum on Saturday, a group member gave a story about what her daughter went through, needing eye-drops, pills, and I can't remember, but maybe even shots, to keep her vision, almost daily.  Obama was confronted with a question regarding pre-existing conditions.  

First, he met the girl, spoke to the her for about 10 seconds whispering off the microphone.  Then he responded to the question by telling them about his mother.  She died at the age of 53 or 54 and when she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she wasn't wondering whether/how she was going to pay for it, she was looking through health care documents.  As it turned out, the health care company played ovarian cancer off as a pre-existing condition.  And that it would be made law that health care companies could not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.  

This isn't the first time Barack Obama has displayed his ability to relate to people.  General McPeak has endorsed Barack Obama because he experienced this first hand when Barack Obama visited a military base.  
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Reason #2
Barack Obama's ability to relate to people is suplemented by his ability as an orator.  He is one of the most gifted speakers of our generation, and God knows America needs that after eight years of GWB and "Help kids read good" and crap like that.  
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Reason #3
These two reasons, and many many more have helped Obama reach out to Independants and Republicans.  With one of the most liberal and progressive voting records in the senate, (according to most rating systems) The fact that people are willing to look past their issue disagreements to reach across the isle and plan to vote for him, is going to be amazing for the primary, and the general election.  

I will try to give you my in depth response in the morning.

So far we almost all the comments about support for obama has been idealistic in nature.

Quite a few of his supporters I speak to also speak of their support for him in idealistic terms , rarely do I hear support for him based on policy .

Now I am not criticizing him or his supporters , just throwing in my two cents.

He is my second choice of the candidates in the field as well based entirely on idealistic reasons , the reason I am supporting Clinton is because I know she would get the job done on healthcare , the economy , iraq , iran .etc. not because she  is a great orator , fresh face etc.

Actually the polls do bear that out , all you have to do is to look into the internals of the poll and you would notice that the reasons given by those supporting Hillary are mainly based on policy issues iraq , iran , healthcare etc while personal attributes are ranked low but if you flip it and look at the internals for the reasons giving by Obama supporters for supporting him personal attributes rank higher than policy issues . You would see change ,fresh face , bi partisanship etc which are all point to  idealistic attributes.

Obama is fundamentally different than Clinton on IR... see this summer's you-tube debate on meeting with leaders, Iran, and Iraq(though Clinton has reformed on this issues as of late), torture (though Clinton has reformed on this issues as of late), cluster bombs (though Clinton has reformed on this issues as of late), Nafta (though Clinton has reformed on this issues as of late)...

On lobbying ethics.  Obama was asked by the democratic caucus to propose an ethics package when he arrived to the Senate.  Unfortunetly he went too far according to Schumer and Clinton, who led the effort to shut it down in caucus.  We are not going to solve an problems until we solve our ethical ones.  Clinton, of course, defends lobbyists and doesn't really have a reform proposal.

Lastly social security.  I don't know how old you are, but the fact it, and I havn't seen any credible financial source deny this, that social security will be in the red in 30-40 years.  Now is the time to solve the problem instead of pander.  Because it will become a crisis if it is not fixed now by raising the cap.  Hillary, on this and any number of issues, dodges what is politically unpopular.

An important thing to remember is that 80-90% of a president's agenda is circumstantial - that is not relating to what they intended to do, according to presidential historians.  So judgement and ideals should be your first consideration.

Dear OrangeFur:

You are very wise to support Hillary for President.  After ten months of steady campaigning, if Obama hasn't convinced you, then he probably isn't the candidate for you.  

There are some very aggressive, even ruthless Republican candidates right now who have every intention of taking over the reins from George Bush in 2009.  Obama's so-called "new form of politics" isn't going to cut it in the general election.  

These are the facts.  You have chosen the right candidate.

the reality is that all 3 are about the same on policy. insults about one or another being a corpocrat or whatever are silly.

edwards to me is an empty suit phony and his supporters Naderites who somehow aren't bothered that his lurch to the left is about as obviously politically calculated and transient as can be.

hillary i love and  admire, and sometimes I'm tempted to support her -- I'll certainly be ecstatic to support her if she wins the nomination: she's a committed, long-term liberal, she's smart as hell, and experienced both on the Hill and in the center of the White House maelstrom. i'd also be thrilled to be voting for a woman andhelping  break that barrier.

obama, though, is great  on policy, one of the things i look for in a candidate at this stage is their advisors. Platforms are malleable political documents that will be tossed once any of these guys gets into office. But a choice of advisors is really indicative and Obama's are top flight on both foreign policy and domestic. I have to admit that Hillary choosing to work with Sandy Berger bugs me -- stuffing documents down his pants is just...corrupt. In any case, beyond advisors, I do think Obama has a transcedent intelligence and connection that can help him resolve problems and really reassert the U.S.'s place in the world.

but, honestly, for me it's virtually 50/50 between Hillary and Obama. I am a bit upset at how much Obama has distorted Hillary's record....frankly my worst fear coming into primary season was that they would rip each other apart. And...now...it seems that's what they're doing, which is a shame.

I support Hillary for her grasp of intricate details of policy and her experience of having been in the White House. Every new president stumbles out of the gate; that's the way the job works. Nothing prepares you for it. We cannot afford to wait a year or so for the White House to rev up under Edwards or Obama.As for Edwards, he has apologized for almost every centrist bill be voted for while in the Senate (bankrupcy bill alone is a disqualifier; he's a Johnny come lately). As for Obama, he promised on Meet the Press that he would serve out his full term. Clinton made the same promise in 2000. The difference: she kept the promise, he lied. In 2006 Clinton told voters she might run and to take that into consideration.Who will say anything and who is a truth teller? As for ambition, who runs for president without having ambition? (Maybe Bush but that's to just to show up daddy.)

Hillary's foreign policy is questionable and based entirely on domestic political considerations.  There are no greater challenges facing the US in the next few years than those relating to international affairs, for obvious reasons.

Senator Obama has consistently been ahead of the curve on foreign policy and for those with the nous to understand has been saying, and doing, all the right things.  AUMF?  Kyl/Lieberman?  She failed her driving test already.

So just to make sure we understand each other: You are supporting Obama for his foreign affairs experience? He has stated, and Joe Biden has concurred, that the most important foreign affairs experience he has was obtained in Indonesia as a 10 year old. If living in a foreign country as a child is foreign experience, we should amend the constitution and get behind Schwarzenegger or Granholm.

If Kyl/Lieberman were that important, why didn't Obama show up to argue passionately against it? (Don't tell me he didn't know - senators were advised the night before.)

As for AUMF, Mr. Obama himself has stated that if he has seen the intelligence he might mave voted for it.

What else ya got?

First, I believe Obama's foreign policy is significantly superior to any of the other candidates currently running. That is one of my main reasons for supporting him. I think Obama is the one most likely to get us out of Iraq in as carefully and quickly a fashion that can be done, and I trust him the most to make good decisions vis-a-vis Pakistan, Iran, Israel/Palestine, China, Russia, etc. For some examples see here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazi ne/04obama-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://shaun_appleby.mydd.com/story/2007 /11/8/34024/1009#readmore
http://shaun_appleby.mydd.com/story/2007 /11/14/17731/428#readmore
http://shaun_appleby.mydd.com/story/2007 /11/28/61916/822#readmore

Also, I just generally think that Obama is the man for the moment. Politics is all about timing, and now is the time for Barack Obama. This is something that wasn't apparent to me at the beginning of the year but been clarified for me over the course of the campaign. Obama is in some ways the risky choice in this election--untested in governance and untested politically, a new face that isn't the known commodity some of the other candidates are. That's all true. In another time, in a less critical and momentous time, he may not be the right choice.

But I would argue that it is precisely because of the peril and promise that the next decade will hold for all of us that Obama is the right choice now. We face huge challenges both foreign and domestic--energy, climate change, a changing economy, a failing education system, broken health care, terrorism, poverty, and above all else, what undergirds and supports the previously mentioned problems, there is the hatred and the fear of the Other. These are our common enemies, and we know what the common solutions are--it is not on policy where, for example, the three top candidates really differ. It is not for a lack of solutions that we are seemingly unable to act and tackle these enormous problems. Its is because of a lack of will. It is because we are afraid, and fearful, and divided. And I believe what an Obama presidency offers is the possibility of partially escaping that fear and partially reconciling those divisions--not fully, never that, but just enough, enough so that we can get past the zero-sum political deadlock and finally act. If we are to leave the next generation (my generation) a better life than than of the last, then we will need that change. We will need it now.

Okay, so why do I think so? My reasons are primarily divided into two sorts.

1) Obama's unique biography and message. He is a black man with a white mother from Kasas and a father who was a Muslim from Kenya. He lived in Indonesia for four years when he was a child. Read Dreams From My Father, an autobiography he wrote himself, for more. The very fact of electing him will send the clearest possible signal to the world, and to ourselves, that the Bush-Cheney era is over and that America has renewed the promise of its birthright once more. In his very life story, Obama embodies what I consider the very compelling idea that we are all connected as one people, that fundamentally we are more similar than we are different--Black and White, Americans and Africans, Christians and Muslims, Republicans and Democrats. This is also his explicit message. Obama calls on all of us to give in to our better selves, to hope and believe and act even in the face of adversity, and perhaps most importantly to stop being afraid: afraid of the Other, whether they be immigrants or blacks or gays or muslims or republicans. Fear is our enemy, not each other. Fear is the great destroyer of democracy and liberty and the great inhibitor to collective political action. As Obama said in his convention speech: "E pluribus unum: out of many, one." I am reminded too of the words of Abraham Lincoln, who said in his House Divided speech: "We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through." Obama doesn't seek consensus simply for the sake of consensus. He does it to get things done, to form and fight the battle through against the great challenges that we face right now.

2) Obama's unique talents. I think he is clearly among all living politicians the one with the greatest potential to become a transformative leader. His deep intelligence, his deliberative style of thinking and way of approaching issues, his charisma, his rhetorical skills, and his ability to bring "discordant, and even hostile elements" together around a common cause are simply unmatched by anyone else. It is this almost conservative temperament, a common sense approach to governance at once pragmatic yet not without idealism, that greatly recommends him in my view for the office of the Presidency. Now do I think that Obama fulfilled his obvious potential? No, not yet. As a leader he is very much a work in progress. He has been often disappointing. Would I like him to be even more progressive than he has been? Yes. Would I like if he had more experience, particularly executive experience? Yes, absolutely. But I do not measure Obama against the perfect hypothetical candidate. I measure him against the other candidates who are actually running. And his actual existing experience and record stacks up favorably against those candidates. Obama opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning with a highly prescient and highly public speech. In the legislature he has a proven track record of achieving impressive and difficult progressive accomplishments by reaching out to different interests and finding common ground, including great work on political reform, an important issue for me. He has served longer in public office than either Edwards or Clinton. And I think his articulated vision for foreign policy, among other things, is the best of the field.

I like Hillary Clinton. She would probably be a decent president. But she will probably not be a great one. I can't be sure if Obama would be a great and transformative president. Maybe he was not ready and he could falter. Any of our candidates could do the same. But out of all of them I believe Barack Obama is the one who is most likely to be truly great. And greatness is what America needs now, that is what this moment in history demands--nothing less.  

Well, sorry OrangeFur.

The comments seem to have degenerated into the same old food fight.

Best advice I can give you:

Keep listening to all the candidates, then vote your gut versus voting for the candidate you think has the best chance.

You'll never regret going with your gut.

I like Obama because Obama-Care unlike Hill-Care would allow me to buy healthcare insurance for pennies on the $ if I want to.

I don't like people who have never experience what it means to be poor and without food or other basic necessities trying to mandate me into buying what I could not afford.  

I'm pro-choice on healthcare insurance. I'm for Obama.

Again, I'm waiting for the detailed REAL experience she has had governing.  Being first lady is NOT giverning experience.  By that rationale, Laura Bush would make a great GOP candidate.  

Your vote is very important ... if one day it doesn't count like a couple of mine didn't count...that's why my advice is to independently come to your own personal decision.

Sorry to take so long to comment on my own diary--work was busier than I expected today. I appreciate all the constructive comments, and I'm glad there are lots of Democrats out there who are excited about this election and are inspired by their candidate.

I can't say I've changed my mind--I'm still for Hillary Clinton right now. I guess the problem, if you want to call it that, is that while I admire and respect Senator Obama, I somehow don't get the spark of inspiration that quite a few others have gotten. To me, he's a very good Democratic senator, and the kind of elected official who makes me proud to be a Democrat. (This doesn't apply to everyone--Zell Miller, William Jefferson and Joe Lieberman come to mind as exceptions.) I guess I don't quite see him as bringing a new kind of politics as being one of the better parts of our current politics. He does things that politicians do--he criticizes his opponents (it probably didn't help that the first debate I watched in its entirety was the Oct. 30 one in Philly), tries to finesse or avoid hard issues, and shies away from excessive controversy.

I don't mean that in a negative way, though it probably sounds that way. It's the reality of our politics. All of them do this kind of thing--for example, I'm sure that in their hearts Clinton, Edwards, and Obama all support gay marriage, but won't say so out loud. (The only folks I can think of as exceptions are probably Russ Feingold and the late Paul Wellstone.)

I'm glad that a lot of Obama supporters think that we can achieve a new politics of more consensus and less division and acrimony. I hope that it's true. But I fear that the Republicans aren't going to cooperate--we can't even get them to support SCHIP, a political no-brainer if there ever was one. There's a lot of genuine disagreement about fundamental issues, and I don't think the Republicans will give any Democratic president much slack. But maybe I'm wrong--in fact, hopefully, I'm wrong.

To me, the presidents who have really transformed our society were FDR and Lyndon Johnson, because of their enduring policy accomplishments. Social Security, Medicare, and the civil rights bills still form the structure of what we think society should look like, all these years later. I think the next Democratic government will have a similar opportunity--universal health care and the environment present two unique opportunities to make a lasting impact on our society. And right now, I think Hillary Clinton is best suited to do that. But I understand reasonable, smart, informed, well-intentioned people disagree, and I'm appreciative that some of them took the time to post in this diary.

Thanks again.

I support Obama because, as a Dem, I want to be represented at the top of the ticket by a candidate who actually opposed the Iraq War when it counted--from the beginning.  He's the only viable candidate who did.