Why I support Obama

Some of the todays email exchanges with my friends made me think why I support Senator Barack Obama over others. After all, the others who remain in the race- Clinton and MC Cain- are liberal enough and carries more weight around in terms of experience.

I think the major reason is a fresh air of thinking coming out of Obama on the pressing issues the U.S faces today. These issues are often not understood by the voting public and seldom the candidates bring them up in their stump speeches. I had opportunity to listen to Obama in person multiple times and at least once in a very closed gathering of 200 people where he went on to discussing his plans in detail. I also met many other presidential candidates, including Clintons, in person in their stump speeches here in Iowa. After the first meeting with Obama, I told Scott, a friend of mine who joined me to hear Obama, that it needs a lot of historic understanding about the economy, health care and washington politcs to understand many issues Obama discussed that day and Scott agreed with me.

My primary concern is protection of democracies around the world and I am against any forms of war that threatens peoples life. I believe a powerful democracy like America plays a big role in protecting democracy and preventing the genocides around the world. So its important for me that America remain strong economically so that they maintain the influence they have in international organizations like UN.

The Democracies around the world are being threatened and the so called pro-business strategies are benefiting the countries like China and as we see now they are aggressively spreading their businesses to Africa and Middle East. Dictators in those countries welcome China and prefer them to US as they will not ask a thing about democracy. Also at domestic front, the pro-business strategies are creating more unemployment - look at Ohio and Detroit and the blue collar worker who are unemployed .

Its true that some businesses here are benefiting a great deal from outsourcing ( IT and Manufacturing). Its also true that the consumers here get goods cheaper than anywhere else. But this model is not economically viable as unemployment means less purchasing power and in this consumer driven economy less demand for goods means a recession. On the other side, the corporations who benefited out of outsourcing shared the wealth with their shareholders and paid millions of dollars as bonus to their executives. A recession would impact the businesses first and the vicious circle starts from there.

I am not in favor of protectionism. The problem specific to the US now is the free trade policies once highly favorable to them started backfiring. Main reason is Chinese pegging the exchange rate of dollar and flooding their goods in the US market. This will slowly destroy the local manufacturing base create more unemployment and less purchasing power. I am in favor of bi-lateral free trade as if thats based on the comparative advantage. Also I should point out here that Americans enjoy a great price advantage now because developing countries compete for dollars and often the manufacturing in such places are done exploiting the labor class. So we are not talking about a free bilateral trade here . The U.S businesses , out of greed, do not ensure that China and other developing nations adhere to the high standards that are maintained in the US.

I am slightly worried about China strengthening its position in international business(I have nothing against China and some of my close friends are from that nation- I just disagree with the Government there as they lack transparency). Its perfectly OK for them to develop economically but there should be some parallels like the US so that interests of international communities are not compromised. The way China creating a new generation economic colonization in Africa, heavy investment in Middle East, large scale investment in Wall Street banks and US treasury bills - All these tell me soon China will have similar influencing power that America enjoys now in UN and other International organizations. The US government is at least transparent to their citizens and that's a great relief.

Also look at the way the health care and insurance companies running their businesses - surely there is a clear lack of Government policies as the corporate greed is undermining the citizens welfare. Primarily the government is a welfare provider to the citizens and laissez-fair , as we see, is benefiting the top rank officials more and not really the ordinary citizens.

Strong democracies like America should not fail because of business greed. Republicans ( read the current leaders clearly lack the vision for the future. There was a time free economy produced fantastic results but that time America was leading the manufacturing and services sectors. Bush and MCain do not understand the economics and made more enemies than friends around the world. Finally a war-lover like MCain is the worst thing that could happen to America.I know from Indian experience that how terrorists are born - you need diplomacy not war to stop them. America's past involvement in Middle East created the every threat America face now and a war probably cannot eliminate that threat. Also, the new ways of fighting- like suicide bombers - are hard to fight back.

Obama seems to understand what the real problems the U.S is facing right now. Whether he has the ability to deliver what he promises is a debatable topic. In case of republicans, they even refuse to accept the required role of government and need of diplomacy to solve the international conflicts and make the country safe for the citizens. As we have seen so far, Obama is a shrewed politician who wants to get to the top of the establishment so that he has the power to deliver on his promises. The way he stood up against Clinton machinery so far definitely tells something about this guy. Its not just the oratory skills, its the dedication of backing up with groundwork and winning against tough opponents is what I bet on.

I found this article in New Yorker months after i wrote this blog. Thought it brilliantly summarised why Obama should be the choice.

The Choice

Change You Can Xerox - Shame on you Obama

I am sure Senator Clinton regretted ridiculing Obama by saying " This is change you can Xerox". The Austin audience booed it and the regret on her face was visible immediately after she spitted those words out.
The Texas debate was slightly favoring Obama though it ended up with a standing ovation for Hillary for her closing remarks. The Hillary supporters probably expected her to beat Obama by drawing contrast on her health and economic plans but that was not achieved and that means she did not stop his momentum in Texas. So as analysts point out, Hillary has a steeper mountain to climb.

Today, there was another evidence of a frustration Hillary is brewing for a while . At Cincinnati , during her stump speech, she shouted "Shame on you Obama" for him trying to distort her message and records. She had the fliers Obama's campaign is floating that state she voted for NAFTA and Obama's health care plan is superior than hers.

Hillary was definitely angry and i don't think its because of the fliers but the frustration has been brewing for a while as she is not able to get her messages across to the people. Recently, Obama eating into her votebanks in Wisconsin is speaking the dangers ahead in Ohio and Texas. Ohio especially suffered a lot of job loss because of the manufacturing outsourcing to China so highlighting her stand on the NAFTA would definitely hurt her.

May be Hillary's health plan is superior as an idea but its often failed whenever someone tried to implement a similar idea. That does not mean that one should not hope for a better one. These ideas , including Obamas , are complicated and needs the congress/senate approval to implement. And there are powerful lobbies/pressure groups to protect the interests of businesses and medical professionals. However, people don't understand any of these complexities and end of the day people would vote for a candidate inspires them not the one with a great health plan. May be that favored Obama so far.

As Hillary says, Obama's speeches are full of change slogans - change the way politics work now and change the way Washington works- and he resorts to same old political tactics of tearing down the opponent s by sending fliers comparing the candidates and often highlighting his as a superior. Politics is a big game and you will be destroyed if you are not competitive in the same old dirty tricks . This proves again how much shrewed Obama as a politician and he plays all the tactics required to get to the top of the establishment and I believe his vision for this country is much superior than any other candidates out there now offers.

Change is just a word unless you have the power to execute . And I bellieve that's what Obama is trying to do.

Clionton's Troubled Campaign - Opportunity ?

Hillary Clinton loaned five millions of her money to the campaign and many of her organizers will work without a pay. This would be a big news if there was no Mc Cain went through such severe troubles six months ago. Mc Cain even fired his staff and almost shelved the plan to campaign in many primaries. Huccabee also faced the cash crunch . But both of them stayed in the campaign trail longer than expected and they emerged as front runners of Republican now. Also if the candidate has a wider appeal, somehow they managed the funds and some were smart to get maximum return on whatever funds they got.

Everyone knows Obama raised more funds since February 5th. And once Hillary's trouble news was aired, she raised a lot more money. That happens as none wants to see their favored candidate is trailing because She/he does not have funds to compete. May be loaning 5 million to herself was a strategy by Clintons - That's what I thought when i heard the story first- cconverting a problem into an opportunity.

Her campaign also challenged Obama to have a debate every week which he refused. Debates are free air time for the campaigners and usually the trailing candidates ask for more debates. So we could reasonably assume that Clinton is not ready to spend more and they have some sort f fund crunch.

The most disturbing of all these news came today that Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis, quits. There was always a talk about changes in the direction of campaign whenever she lost. It started in Iowa where she brought in Maggie Williams and that move supposedly reduced Patti's power as chief of staff. Clinton lost all three states voted yesterday so Patti's stepping down today clearly shows the urgency in the camp to stop Obama's momentum.

Any one who worked in organising a group for achieving a common goal will know what kind of damage a last minute changes could create. I am sure a group of staff would now be unhappy and it would take a while for the new manager to get a handle on the situation. Good thing is that Williams was with the campaign in a responsible position so its not hard for her to bring about a change in direction. Though Solis quotes family reasons, questions answered are : is it because she outspent or is the ground work she was doing just not enough ?

I always read the Clinton had the best campaign team and the best resources and support. She was the 'inevitable' when she launched the campaign and see what a 'hopemnger' could do so far.


As I write this I am also watching Maine caucus results- Obama is leading there with a significant margin. So this news coupled with the organisation changes in her campaign is definitely a bad news. Who knows - Clintons could turn this around as an opportunity.

What's in your Ballot?

The Super Duper Tuesday ended as expected with an almost tie between Clinton and Obama if you calculate only the pledged delegates. If you add up Super delegates Clinton showed an edge but again not a significant gap to strengthen her nomination. Clinton winning NY, CA, MA and NJ was impressive but Obama winning many more states than her was much more impressive. The results of Tuesday definitely demonstrated momentum Obama's campaign has . A bigger surprise would have been that Obama won more delegates than Clinton.

Today the additional three states- Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska joined the Obama camp and he doubled the lead of delegates on Clinton. The momentum we sensed for Obama is clearly evident now and the margin by Obama defeated Clinton speaks just that.

Obama's JJ Dinner speech just after the victory on 9th Feb clarified/acknowledged the apprehensions people had on 'Hope' theme and the crowd cheering there tells me what to expect on Tuesday in Virginia primaries.

Now everyone is concerned what the Democratic party would do if none of the candidates get a 2025 delegates by the time of convention. The super delegates are not pledged and there could be lot of horse-trading happening to determine who the nominee would be in such uncertainities. The Democratic pledges delegate allocation- a proportional allocation - make sure that both candidates are getting some delegates so its quite unlikely that there could be decisive lead after all primaries are done. As Huccabee says, miracles could happen but more realistically I feel after the Ohio , Texas and Pennsylvania one of the candidates would come out as 'inevitable' and the super delegates may not be able to do much if they mean to win the final election. And i am pretty sure that candidate is going to be Obama.

What's that make him inevitable ? He won more states and he did an outstanding job in bringing the young voters together . He even proved in red states and showed that he is less of a polarising figure when it comes to race and gender. This is what democratic party really needs to win the general election. The Republican front-runner Mc Cain is going to play(scare) the voters with national security concerns and immigration issues. Young generation is not concerned about these two issues and they seems to be more worried about the shape of the economy and the way politics is conducted now. Obama stands to win those votes more as comapared to MC Cain. So its extremely important the party don't kill the enthusiasm of these folks by fixing the deal in their smoke room of super delegates.

A question remains: What if they are going to do if Hillary wins more pledged delegates ? I think she should be the nominee respecting the democracy and Obama should not settle for a Vice President ticket. This is because Hillary is going to be defeated by Republicans in the general election as both Hillary and Mc Cain are liberal establishment candidates and Mc Cain has more experience and approval among voters. Also he could claim majority of the independent candidates , a area Hillary finds it difficult to break in. If that happens, Obama should continue to promote his ideas and keep his followers excited for next four years. Settling for a VP ticket could kill all the enthusiasm around him and ultimately he will be a looser. So the 'Dream Ticket' is quite a nightmare , according to me.

How many days to fill the gap

Every trailing candidate says poll results do not speak much. Especially in Obama- Clinton race, many of the polls are proved to be wrong. Clinton now leads Obama in most of the polls by single digits except in her own state New York. LA Times endorsement of Obama as an inspiring leader really changed the scene in California quite a bit .

So as CNN analysts say, longer the campaign, less the gap between these two candidates would be. So that means Super Tuesday may not be the end of this race for Democrats and i will not be surprised its a tie with a lot of endorsements Obama picking up on his way to Super Tuesday. LA Times justified why they endorsed him . He is the only person who could restore the tarnished image of the US before the rest of the world and he is willing to talk to people who the US otherwise do not like to talk. Few things could solve through a war or threat .Any one knows from history that war based peace restoration was short-lived and diplomacy is the need for the hour.

He is surely inspiring and there is something unique about his leadership style . He appears to be totally believing what he says and there is no record that he is otherwise . Same time he is more than shrewed than a bright politician and i believe that's his strength when it comes to use the establishment to drive his ideas. We rarely see such leaders.

There was a time just before the South Carolina victory I thought Obama would be a scapegoat of divisive politics . Though i knew he would win SC i was worried what his national appeal would be after that. But SC turned out to be another booster like Iowa and now i think he is the most eligible candidate to be the next president of USA.