I was thrilled to see Hillary Clinton taking the lead in New
Hampshire Tuesday night, and not—as you might think—just
because she’s a woman [Hillary Clinton Has a Vagina and So Do I,
Erica C. Barnett, October 30]. It’s because of the two
frontrunners, Hillary’s tougher, more experienced, smarter, and more specific than
Obama. (Given the dismal showing by my favorite, John Edwards, in New
Hampshire—locked in at 17 percent—it’s safe to say he’s out
of the running.) It’s not just that I’ve failed to be electrified by
Obama’s “dynamic” personality and message of “hope”; it’s because, on
policy grounds, he isn’t saying what I want to hear from a Democratic
frontrunner going into an election that’s the Democrats’ to lose.
Savvy, battle-tested voters in New Hampshire didn’t seem as taken by
Obama’s lofty rhetoric, and seemed to be focusing on his flawed policy
prescriptions, like me. At press time, the presumed frontrunner lost to
Clinton, 36 percent to Clinton’s 39 percent. Here are a few reasons
Obama’s not my guy.
First of all, his energy plan is the least progressive and most
status quo of the three. The plan, released last October, includes
every pale-green, fake-environmentalist scheme you can imagine:
Expanded nuclear, doubling or tripling (!!!) of corn production for
ethanol, a carbon sequestration scheme that relies on technologies that
don’t yet exist, and so-called “clean coal,” which isn’t really clean
at all. Yes, he talks about greener technologies like cellulosic
ethanol and plug-in hybrids; and yes, he would implement a fully
auctioned cap-and-trade system whose proceeds would pay for investments
in clean energy development. But on the whole, Obama’s done little more
than pay lip service to clean energy and environmental reforms while
supporting industries that are fighting them—speaking out against
mining reforms, for example, that would have eliminated a notorious
mining law that allows companies to mine public lands for free. He also
attacked Clinton on ethanol—for not supporting corn farmers
enough.
Politically, Obama’s an appeaser. He issued a convoluted response
when news broke that he planned to make a campaign appearance with
Donnie McClurkin, an “ex-gay” homophobe, then allowed McClurkin to use
his campaign as a platform to spread his homophobic message to
thousands of African-Americans. He’s attempted to reach out to
Republicans, both by triangulating on several key Republican issues and
by stating directly that he would include Republicans in his
administration. In 2005, he even wrote that Republicans were not,
contrary to what Democrats believed, a “sharply partisan, radically
conservative, take-no-prisoners” party, calling those descriptions mere
“labels” and “jargon.” Um, really? Maybe his positions have changed
since then, but I find it alarming that Obama would dismiss as “labels”
a description of the Republican Party that was and is undeniably true.
The Democratic Party needs people who will fight the Republicans on
their own terms, not appeasers more interested in getting along than
winning.
And speaking of parroting Republicans (and their talking points):
He’s bought into the false idea that Social Security is in a “crisis,”
going so far as to use that word. Social Security is not in a crisis.
To quote New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, “This isn’t
1992. The DLC isn’t the Democratic party’s leading edge. The center
isn’t somewhere between Joe Lieberman and John McCain. I can’t
understand how Obama can be this out of touch.”
The thing that bugs me the most about Obama, though, is that he’s
the only major Democratic-Party candidate who wouldn’t give Americans
universal health coverage. Unlike Edwards’s and Clinton’s plans,
Obama’s would not include a mandate that every adult participate;
without a mandate, the plan just isn’t universal. The whole point of
universal health care is that everyone pays into the system, even if
they don’t think they need health care at the time; in return, everyone
gets coverage when they need it. Without a mandate, healthy people
could choose to wait until they have a health problem to buy in,
forcing those who bought insurance when they were healthy to subsidize
those who waited until they weren’t. Obama has responded to critiques
of his plan by, once again, parroting Republican speaking
points—saying, in essence, that his opponents’ plans would
“force” Americans into buying health insurance. “Socialized medicine,”
anyone? Obama’s plan just won’t work.
Hillary isn’t my favorite, either, but the way she’s handled her
opponents’ attacks—with grace and forbearance, even when they got
nasty—has been impressive. I’m glad she’s still in the race.
