o. ba. ma. self. i wanna vote, oba, maself!

ershnaps you remember my barackaway beach homage back in may, ramone. am i a prescient bastard or what?

anyway, i know this glowing endorsement is coming on the heels of his iowa victory and the toes of today's nh primary - which he seems primed to do well in - but i did mention, at least on facebook, that i was throwing my hat in obama's corner (is that even an expression?) prior to iowa, so i am in the clear vis-a-vis any accusations of fair weather fandom. b's iowa victory speech just got me extra-invigorated, is all. im extrigorated!

i mean, watch that clip (and, while were at it, whoop that trick). does this dude seem presidential or what? i think he might even be a better speaker than bubba. he has that whole 'they sayy-d this day would never come' mlk jr-black-preacher-pronunciation-thing goin on - how can you not want this man as our leader, repping this whole fachachta country?

ill make no secret of it; i generally cast my ballot based on generalities. like, generality one: with few exceptions, im gonna vote democratic. my top concerns are the biggie, broad issues, like being pro-choice, and not giving tax breaks to the wealthy, and supporting things like stem cell research and the protection of the environment, and for the very most part, the democrats fall on my preferred side of these issues.

generality two: i dont pour over the deets of the proposed policies of the candidates. for one thing, im fairly lazy; for another, when everything shakes out, i doubt one democrat is gonna be able to enact such different (read: better) policies than another - as gail collins eloquently wrote in a recent op-ed:
The critical “it” is not really about reforming health care or getting out of Iraq or stopping global warming. We all know there’s only the thinnest of lines between Obama and Clinton on these matters — a line that would instantly be obliterated by the mangle that is known as the United States Congress.

so i basically have a choice between obama, clinton (who im gonna call hilary now and again just to differentiate her from bill) and edwards. and i choose obama.

to buttress this endorsement, i present you with three litmus tests, each of which say obams away:

red. the who-would-i-want-as-my-boss test.
i place a premium on the likability of a candidate. sure i do. why not? doesnt the question 'would i want to break bread or take a stroll or play scra with or follow the directives of this person?' count for something? yes, yes it does. b.c the president is gonna have to negotiate, face-to-face, with the aforementioned congress, governors, foreign leaders, et al. and all other things being equal (as per collins), the more appealing person is gonna fair better in these negotiations than the one who is a black hole of charm. and the more likable person will be a better overall leader, of us all. who is gonna follow or listen to someone they wouldnt even want to split a sandwich with? im talking to you, hil. and edwards seems nice enough, but a bit phony. bottom line: id want obama as my boss.

white. the we-need-the-exact-opposite-of-bush test.
sometimes i think that, simply speaking, we just need a qualified* person who is the exact opposite of g.w. bush as our next prez, above all else. dubya has been such an unmitigated disaster, that it's not that much of a stretch to think that the anti-dub would be a great success. so who is most opposite of bush? here i present each of the major candidates with an 'opposite of bush raiting,' (OBR). and im gonna include the republicans in this one, just to be fun.

note: to be both as fair and expedient as possible, i used the very first pic that popped up in google images for each candidate (as of today, 1.07.08).

hilary.
OBR: a small tree, which may grow inedible berries.










edwards.
OBR: a rare, delicate flower, which requires constant care and still usually ends up dying.









obama.
OBR: a really nice sweater.










huckabee.
OBR: a lopsided shrub.










romney.
OBR: an obtuse hedge sculpture.










mccain.
OBR: a little nasty weed.
comment: i dont mean shwaggy herb, nor am i using 'nasty' in the janet jackson positive sense, like 'joba chamberlain's slider is nasty.' . i mean, a straight-up weed. i mean, mccain is a nasty little sumbitch whom we cant seem to get rid of. (my spiel on the hypocrisy of hanoi hilton john mccain is legendary in some parts.)





blue. the pancakes & croissant test.
this test is fairly simple and self-explanatory:

pancakes. years from now, when im serving pancakes to my kids on a lazy saturday morning, and we get to talkin bout the ol' days, and they ask me who i voted for in 08 - for whom could i be proud to say i cast my ballot? well, for one thing, i couldnt be proud to tell them i voted to solidify a second political dynasty, on the heels of another one. i dont want to tell them i did my part for the executive branch to be held, exclusively, by two nuclear families over a 24-28 year span. i mean, are we a republic, or a monarchy? what's the pt of term limits, if we go father-husband-son-wife? (in that case, why not just declare or import an 'official' fam, like the tudors or the hapsburgs, and save all that federal money spent on 'elections.' )

secondly, i dont want to tell them i voted for the rich cherub (edwards), b.c to my kids, he's gonna look exactly like every other prez weve had.

croissant. this past april, the french elected nicolas sarkozy as their prez. this really struck me, and eveyone else obv, b.c, among other things, sarkozy has such an un-french name, and i believe had said that the french were getting lazy and needed to work more, and has jewish roots (joots?). my pt is that even though i knew little about him, it was clear the french, just by electing him, had chosen to shake up their country, go in a different direction than usual.

the morning after our november election, i want some french dude, looking over his croissant to the newspaper below, to see that we did the same. that we elected someone with such a different name, and look, etc. that we showed the world we had chosen to completely change course from the past eight years. the only candidate who can show the world that, literally just with his name and face at minimum, is obama.

ok, this post got totally unwieldy, but i think i made some good pts.

* - some people say obama is not 'experienced' enough. this is nonsense. the only 'experienced' candidates for the presidency are incumbents. nothing else can properly prepare someone for that job. any first-term prez is gonna learn on the job. so maybe hil would have slightly less of a learning curve. who cares? id rather have obama learning on the job for a year, then tearing sh*t up, than hil learning on the job for six mos., before she makes her madcap dash to the center, just like bill did.