To the Endorsements!

Election day.

Whom to choose?

John McCain?

McCain’s policies, his clarity of thought and the cohesiveness of his vision leave a lot to be desired. He is anything but cool when cornered and anything but well-read or well-versed on the major issues facing the nation today. He runs on his record, which has some impressive interludes, like his fight against pork spending or his alliance with Feingold to reform campaign finance. For every feather in his cap, however, there are several capitulations of principle—often directly negating one for which he received a feather. His long career started didn’t start off that great and it’s ending even worse. His final years are definitely not his best years.

In his choice of Palin as vice president, he put into question his dedication to stopping government waste as she seems to have run just the kind of administration he’s been purportedly fighting all these years. He is not an outsider, he is a deep, deep insider who’s politically opportunistic and calculates without principle in order to get ahead. This is a not a recrimination so much as an acknowledgement that he is a politician. What he calls himself is not what he is. His speech is often hate-filled and bitter and his policies are unsound and unlikely to achieve that which he claims they will. Often, it is transparent to even the nominally informed that nothing will change should his policies be enacted; the guilty go unpunished and the unfortunate acquire a greater load to bear.

He failed in his second large challenge as the financial crisis proved clearly too much for him to encompass mentally—every one of his proposals to fix the situation was dead-on-arrival. His campaign and his advisors have failed to provide him with any measure of sagacity or intelligent guidance, and so his last argument for being president fails. That it was the same argument that Bush had—namely, that he himself was a jocular, but relatively uninformed fellow, but that he would surround himself with a coterie of crackerjack realists more than ready to handle all the problems that the world threw at America—did not help him one bit, as America had just spent the last eight years watching nearly the entire administration quit or be fired in a tsunami of incompetence, evil and sheer stupidity the likes of which it is arguable America had never seen before.

McCain seems to be going off the rails with barely-contained anger. His strong support of the politics of hate with an explosion of increasingly erratic and implausible accusations have only undermined his cause much more. The baiting style of his running mate need hardly enter into a decision not to vote for him. Charges leveled against him that he is running for Bush’s third term ring all too true; his policies, where they differ at all from those of Obama, veer toward Bush’s more fanciful signing statements, which means that the best to hope for from a McCain presidency is increased stagnation of the type we’ve experienced in the twilight of Bush’s second term. America would, in a sense, realize its mistake quickly, then grimly hang on until 2012.

Barack Obama?

Obama brings much more to the table than McCain. He is intelligent, well-spoken and thinks quickly on his feet. He is well-versed—nay, steeped—in policy of all types. It seems as though he hardly needs advisors, so well-thought-out—and long—are his arguments in interviews. This is likely precisely because his advisors are so good at keeping him informed, but equally because he’s capable of absorbing so much information. His heart seems to be in the right place; he thinks of an American that earns $250,000 per year as being able to take care of himself and not needing to be protected further by tax-law that continues to burden the majority—especially now when that majority is starting to hurt and will likely hurt much, much more in the near- to mid-future.

He is an inspiring speaker, but neither a socialist nor a liberal. He is not anti-war; he’s in fact for increased militarization and pre-emptive strikes and unilateral action with neither U.N. approval nor even that of the country into which he plans to invade. He has clearly and concisely said so on many occasions. He is well-aware of the coming energy crisis; he understands the deep troubles in America’s farming, food-distribution and manufacturing industries. He sees moral issues with hyper-consumerism and has said so, again and again. He is not, I repeat, not a socialist. He is a centrist with his head on (mostly) straight.

He is a realist who wants to change the system not necessarily because he is philosophically or morally opposed, but because it is clearly not working. A pragmatist is far better than nothing, but still, there are issues Obama will not touch. Even in the depths of a financial crisis, with handouts to only corporations in yet another homage to the trickle-down effect, even with the increasingly insane coverage by a heavily corporate media, he does not openly question the rotton-ness at the core of America: that corporations have formed the 0th level of government, floating above the other branches and completely unrestricted by the Constitution. A pity, considering how well-versed Obama is in Constitutional law. He’s probably well-aware of the problem, but views it as an election-killer, so his political instincts tell him to stay away.

His most devout followers will claim that, once elected, he will magically transform into a more liberal president, but that is a pipe dream. He supported retroactive immunity for telecoms companies that helped the Bush administration spy on Americans—in fact, he said he would continue the program. He supported bailing out the banks, but claims he will address the ills of the economy (i.e. that it is fraud-ridden and unregulated) once it stabilizes. This, too, is pragmatic, intended to avoid sinking into a depression in order to apply a principle too quickly. Is he right? He’s at least well-informed and can argue his side well. He will be the second coming of Bill Clinton, policy-wise—that’s at the worst; we can, of course, always hope for much better—and America should be delighted to such a competent, intelligent and careful leader.

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is not much of a politician. He has principles and stands by them. He is well-aware that he will not be elected, and runs every four years to get his message out to a wider audience. In the intervening years, he continues his work as well, though with even less notice than the paltry coverage he enjoys during campaigns. Though his message overlaps to a degree with that of Obama, there are significant differences. The largest difference is a refusal to kowtow to corporate power in any way. He has been a tireless supporter of the poor, the worker, the disenfranchised. He talks endlessly about the rising economic influence of the prison-industrial complex (an issue rarely mentioned by Obama, though near and dear to much of America’s black population, surely).

Nader is a true progressive, a true populist, a true liberal and interested in true justice. For that, Nader should earn admiration that Obama doesn’t deserve, since he is a more political animal, willing to suppress principle to the dose of pragmatism that will get him elected. Nader is also quite old, but seems to have arrived at his 74 years with considerably more wisdom and quickness intact that McCain, two years his junior. He writes and interviews a lot, offering a coherent, consistent view of an America that could be, the America that is promised to us as children, a fair, good, even-handed and principled America that takes care of its citizens and rewards hard work and treats everyone the same. He is not naive enough to believe that this will come to pass anytime soon, but, like Obama, offers it as a goal toward which we should strive. Unlike Obama, he doesn’t sully it by conceding principles in order to win. He contends that the two-party system is corrupt, with both parties functioning as corporations representing other corporations. Nader claims that both parties are the same, but he’s only right on the big issues. McCain has put the lie to that claim by distancing the Republicans considerably in terms of principle and basic humanity. Nader, at any rate, works outside the system, while Obama is riding the wave with one of the two corrupt parties. Perhaps he can reform it, perhaps he can’t. Nader doesn’t want to reform that which should not exist.

Unversal health care coverage, anti-war, ending the drug war, reduction of the military budget, reduction of the military, elimination of corporate welfare through subsidies to oil companies, airlines, the nuclear industry, automobile manufacturers, and, not least, the financial industry are all issues that Nader unswervingly supports without consideration of political viability. Read Nader’s issues objectively and see whether you don’t agree with him just a little bit more than Obama. Issues like “End Corporate Personhood”, “Carbon taxes”, a “National Initiative”[1] and an impeachment of “Bush/Cheney” are all off the table for Obama, but on the table for Nader. Sure, it’s probably a dream to imagine that any of these things could change, but isn’t that what Obama’s all about? Hope? Dreams? Change? Isn’t that what great leaders should do? They should have the guts to point out that which is so deeply entrenched that its removal will be near-fatal, but that without its removal, we’re doomed to a slow, agonizing death. Leaders should stand on principle and recommend hard choices when they’re the best choices.

Conclusion

If you’ve gotten this far, you’re probably looking for the endorsement. There is none. If you’ve read the text above, you’ve already decided which parts you want to believe. There is no wrong vote if you vote your principles; just make that they’re yours and not assumed wholesale from somewhere or someone else. Think. Then vote.

If you’re a conservative, you’ll be well-served by Barack Obama. If you’re kinda, sorta liberal, vote Obama. If anti-war or anti-corporatism is a big issue for you, vote Nader and let Obama get himself elected without your help. If you think McCain is insane, but Obama is too manipulative for your cynical tastes, vote Nader. No one but dyed-in-the-wool Republicans who either don’t pay attention to issues or vote on a single issue[2] should vote McCain.

This country will do much better under Obama than McCain, but giving Nader veto-power over Congress for four years might actually prevent the Congress from giving more of our country away to special interests and corporations and would have unparalleled entertainment value.