Here’s the text of his speech (The War We Need to Win) on US foreign policy as it relates to our “war on terror.”
This sort of clear, lucid, out-in-front thinking is why I’m endorsing him for the Democratic nomination for president. Of course nothing sounds so sweet as a political candidate telling you what you already believe, and I’ve been saying a lot of this stuff–as has he–for several years now.
We don’t agree on everything, obviously. I’m much closer to Ron Paul’s libertarian view on the federal government’s role (and intrusiveness into the lives of private citizens) than I am to Obama’s leanings.
But in Obama I find a smart mind at work for the good of the people. I see someone who is unafraid to speak truth to power. I find him a person who doesn’t need to consult the latest polling to know what he thinks. His experience (though limited) is one of achievement not failure. In these essentials, he is the opposite of Hillary Clinton, and the main reason I think that a Clinton nomination is not the slam-dunk of a general election that her supporters hope. Although I despise the Republican candidates except for Ron Paul, I would need to seriously revisit them should the Democrats nominate Clinton. Given her sky-high negatives, I’m guessing I’m not alone in this.
Indeed, I would argue that an Obama presidency has the possibility of being transformational—-in a good way–for the nation. His book is titled “The Audacity of Hope,” and even in this I think him correct. Having been burned badly by the Howard Dean flame-out of 2004, I’ve found it difficult to jump another political bandwagon but jump now I shall.
I think Barak Obama is the real deal, but even if I’m wrong about that, he’s still right on the issues of the day, a claim that Hillary Clinton with her pro-Iraq war vote can’t make. For her, it’s just too bad that the polling numbers of 2002 aren’t the polling numbers of 2007. It’s a problem I don’t think Barak Obama will ever have.