Vote For Obama: But! Keep Things In Perspective

Obama's victory in Iowa is nothing to be taken lightly. First off, he beat the family that has come to symbolize the Democratic Party. He matched the well-connected insider fundraising of that family through small donor contributions. He attracted a record-breaking number of young voters, as well as independent and republican ones, while simultaneously gaining more votes from voters who identify themselves as liberals. He won as a black man in an overwhelmingly white state. And won on a platform that was premised on change. But let's not get carried away.

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So, why the pause you might ask? It's not that my enthusiasm for Obama has changed. I know enough about both his strengths and his weaknesses to still fully support his campaign. But my worry is this: How well does everyone else know him as a candidate? My sense of things is that while most people don't know him as well as they should, they do know that Hillary has a pitiful record of triangulating and poll-based positions. Obama did not paint her that way, she did so herself by supporting silly issues such as a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning (which Obama voted against btw, and if you click the link you'll see the convincing argument as to why, but this post is about something else). So, as I was saying. I'm worried that both the legitimate anti-Hillary sentiment and Obama's inspiring eloquence have combined to inflate his candidacy and make him more vulnerable then he should be. I'll explain.

So, it's not that I think that Obama isn't an infinitely better candidate than Clinton. I do, and I've outlined why here. But it's that I don't think he's infallible. Put it this way, he's no Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul in terms of consistency. The spat about the lobbyists issue is a good example of how he's both infinitely better than Clinton, and also not without flaws.

Let's look closer at the issue. Obama promised not to take any money from federal lobbyists. This is great news. Especially when compared to Clinton who not only refuses to do the same, but generates a ton of money from these people for her campaign. But, why not take the next step and propose cutting out state-lobbyists as well? Edwards and Obama argue that state-lobbyists lobby state-legislators and thus would have no effect on the Federal government. It seems like a fair enough argument, but it's not actually not all that sound. And they're smart enough to know that. For example, Clinton attacked Obama for having a state-lobbyist as his New Hampshire campaign chair. Of course, she never mentioned that it was a state-lobbyist because she wanted to make it seem like Obama was lying about his promise. And frankly it's pretty dumb of her to open that can of worms considering that she, as the only Democrat who has not agreed to not take federal lobbyist money, is THE lobbyist candidate. But that's all beside the point. There is very much a case to be made that a state-level lobbyist working for a pharmaceutical company could in fact have federal influence.

Does that mean that Clinton is vindicated? Of course not. The only way to ensure a clean government is to refuse to take contributions from lobbyists, and starting with Washington lobbyists is a step in the right direction. But Obama and Edwards are being misleading by trying to argue that that solves the problem. My point in all this?

Let's remember that Obama is a politician. Granted he is one who is far more trustworthy than Clinton (Obama does have a strong record of working on ethics reform in both Illinois and in the U.S. Senate), but let's not get carried away. Let's also not fool ourselves into thinking that he doesn't realize the loop-hole with state-lobbyists. He does. He's incredibly intelligent and frankly far too intelligent not to realize this. Does that mean that he's pocketing millions from these people? I doubt it. In fact, we know that he's raised an incredible amount of money from people like me and you. But we also know that he's not being completely truthful either. He's campaigning to push the issue hard, because it's a great opportunity for him to highlight Clinton's refusal to do the same.

This is why it's so important to inform ourselves. Because though Obama's victory in Iowa was an incredible accomplishment and one that I do believe is based on substantial differences with Clinton, if we do not inform ourselves, the bubble can burst when we see that Obama also plays politics.

Having said that, go read the top ten reasons to vote for Obama list again. Also, click on the Obama tag on this site to see the posts about him. If you do this I think you'll agree that he's still by far the best choice in this race and one does in fact present a viable potential for change.