Nerve Endings Firing Away

Even if you have been casually channel surfing over the past few months, I’m sure you have heard these slogans over and over again – “I’ll be ready on day one; experience matters” or the more catchy – “Change you can believe in; yes we can”. Clinton and Obama have been at loggerheads for over an year now vying for the Democratic nomination and even after their 20th debate last night, we still aren’t sure who is the nominee. Hopefully Texas & Ohio (and oh yeah, Vermont & Rhode Island too) should put us over the hill on the slope toward the Presidential contest in November. It doesn’t help that the Republicans have their nominee already picked out notwithstanding the attention-seeking antics of Huckabee.

But is Clinton really getting the nomination now? We have seen her national ratings slip from a lead of more than 30 points to a deficit of over 15 points. Does she really count on the support of the Super Delegates who are only too aware of the backlash from the grassroots if they go against the popular vote? And finally, aren’t her talking points in recent times falling woefully short of substance. For a candidate who derides her opponent for emphasizing rhetoic over substance, she has precious little to offer. Political pundits agree that Clinton and Obama aren’t much different in their policy positions so it all comes down to how they are perceived by the people on basis of their personality, charisma, and tone of the message. Here Obama beats her hands down and even if as some people claim there is lot of hot air, Obama has done his share of public service to merit consideration for the highest office of this land. Of course, you can’t blame him for being born several years after his opponents (in case of McCain, a different era).

His achievements or the lack thereof have been mocked by his opponents especially when one of his supporters, a state Senator choked on national TV but does that mess up mean he has no achievements at all? On the contrary, according to this exhaustive research done by a Daily Kos diarist who started out by not wanting to believe in the Obama hype, shows his U.S. Senate record to be far superior than Clinton. Of course, McCain’s legislative record is in a different league and as I mentioned before, you cannot blame Obama for being in his diapers when McCain was languishing in a Viet Cong prison. Longevity in Washington, as he often likes to point out, doesn’t always mean better experience unless it is backed up with good judgment which he has shown to possess. Of course, I prefer McCain position on NAFTA over either Obama or Clinton who would rather adopt protectionist policies than expand free trade but then it is beyond any President’s prerogative to back pedal on those agreements now even if they profess to do so.

I definitely favor Obama over Clinton and of course, also in the general election because frankly in my opinion, one of the primary problems of the United States has been its loss of public image in the rest of the world. Obama is bang on target, no pun intended, when he mentions a change in not only the foreign policy strategy but also in the mindset that landed the county there in the first place. I often hear animated discussions at my workplace which is a mix of liberals and conservatives (unfortunately the extreme kinds) and cannot help but envy the extent of political dialogue they get to indulge in. I’m sure I would like to hear those conversations again after Texas vote on March 4th which hopefully should give us our Democratic nominee.