Okay, He's a Nice Guy.

I received an e-mail from a friend asking me to support Barack Obama essentially because the Senator is a good guy and a consensus builder; it came in the form of a letter from a third party. Without naming that letter writer, this is my response.

I debated long and hard about replying to it. In the end, I decided that I had to. It's only fair that if people want me to consider their opinions that they should be expected to consider mine. Remember, views like mine are presumably part of any consensus which our country may need to build. That is, if the consensus builders are true to their creed.

I simply am not impressed that someone who knows Barack Obama thinks he's a good guy. I don't doubt that there are many people who know John McCain personally and think he's a good guy too. Having said that, I will skip over much of what my friend’s friend’s missive says in his defense of the Illinois Senator as superfluous. He likes the guy he intends to vote for. I would have expected nothing less. Even some of the other defenses he offers (Obama sees the big picture) I find unhelpful. The obvious response is that I think McCain sees the big picture more clearly. Consequently, we can go no further on that basis in determining for whom to cast a ballot.

My problem with Obama has little to do with consensus building. In the first place, to ask me to support someone merely because he is a consensus builder has scant value. It asks me to automatically accept as a moral good consensus building as consensus building; it begs the question of what type of consensus is being built, and in this case, what type of consensus Obama supported. Consensus is the sort of thing which must be taken on a case by case basis; further, there are times when I don't think any reasonable person should want to come to consensus with their opposition.

Yet it is more than that. It is that he and I have fundamental differences of opinion on issues where there can be little, if any, consensus. I am against abortion; he is for it (and before I am accused and summarily dismissed as being a single issue voter, how many folks out there will not ever vote for a candidate who is against abortion simply because that candidate is against it?). I support the war in Iraq; he does not. He supports the efforts of those who believe in global warming, which will only hurt job creation while increasing the cost of energy on the very same middle class he's supposedly so eager to help. They'll need his proposed tax cuts to heat their homes and get to work. That is, if their jobs aren't outsourced because the burden of doing business in the US is too high.

On broader issues, ones which go beyond him personally, I lean heavily towards the GOP. Democrats tend to support higher taxes; Republicans tend to favor lower. And I don't mean for the middle class; I mean lower taxes across the board. Say what you will, it's the people with money who create jobs, not the average Joe (by and large). I am for smaller government; the Democrats are for larger. Larger government hurts more than it helps, as the right hand will generally not know what the left is doing. It leads to inefficiency at best, and infringment of basic rights at worst.

That doesn't mean that I think Republicans always right. The No Child Left Behind Act is a bureaucratic nightmare which George W. Bush should have never pushed, and the Republicans have not been true enough to their creed in limiting government in recent years. But why, then, would I support a party which avowedly intends to increase it?

Barack Obama has a comprehensible public policy, the letter writer says. McCain doesn't? I'm sorry, but that's simply empty praise. No one running for President in this day and age, at least in the major parties, has not put together a 'comprehensive and comprehensible package' of public policies initiatives. It tells us nothing, not one iota, about Obama’s understanding of the issues or what value his ideas hold. It simply tells us he’s made policy statements. As with consensus, it begs the question of the value of the statements.

We’re told how difficult Illinois Republicans made it for Illinois Democrats to get things done when Barack was in Springfield. That’s an empty complaint. Do let’s not be naive; the party in power generally tries to blunt the will of the party out of power, and the Democrats are as guilty as anyone on that issue. The Democrats quickly made toast of Robert Bork way back when rather than allow a Republican President to get his way with a Supreme Court justice once they had the power to do it. No consensus building there. But that’s the name of the game, folks: we elect people to formulate and put in place public policy based upon what we, the majority of the voters, favor. It’s supposed to work that way, and I expect nothing less of my Democratic friends. They vote for Democrats because they want Democratic ideas put in force, and dare I say they expect Democrats to blunt Republican issues when in power. It is intellectual dishonesty to assert otherwise.

All that said, I think I’ve made my point. If you’ve read this far, thank you. Please comment if you are so moved. I assure you I want any and all debate here kept civil and respectful. Either way, vote for who you will in November. I certainly shall, and would be proud to have a beer with anybody of any party afterward.