(Sponsor's Name Here)

Change what, exactly?

Posted by Michael James on Feb. 18, 2008

2008 Presidential Race, Barack Obama

I was playing poker with the guys on Saturday night, and of the seven other guys, most of the table was lamenting the lack of a real conservative still in the hunt.  Two of the players are early-20ish guys, and one said that he really likes Barack Obama because "He stands for change".  The other guy chimed in with comments about young people getting turned away from his rallies and appearances.  I didn't ask (because it was the wrong place) but I've now been wondering for three days...

What change?  And why - just because young adults like the guy - does that make him a good president? 

I mean, any new president will be a change.  Like him or lump him, Mike Huckabee is a change from George Bush.  That doesn't qualify either of them.  And in this MTV-style, short attention span, E!-tainment, sound bite culture we live in, I can't imagine all of these young adults that like this good-looking, relatively young politician actually know (or care) what he stands for.  But the sound bite says "Change", and the banner behind Obama always says "Change", so dammit, he must be the guy.  I don't get it.  Change what?

So I "Googled" Obama.  (Side note - vote for who you want to.  I don't like any of these four morons, so I am the last person to tell you who to vote for.  But I understand the candidate's positions, and Obama couldn't be further away from my opinions).  There is no chance that I will vote for him, but I am intrigued in this "change".  If you disregard Obama's website (and his Senate page) and the Wikipedia articles that aren't always based in fact, you will see a whole lot of non-substance.  There are two music videos, a MySpace page, and links to news articles.

In other words, there isn't anything out there that doesn't take a lot of digging to get to.  So I chose one that looked good called On the Issues, and here is a summary of what I found...

• He is OK with abortion, partial-birth abortion and with stem-cell testing (all is now legal, no change there)
• Wanted seniors and unemployed to get part of recent sutimulous package (which happened under Dub-ya)
• OK with affirmative action for women and minorities (status quo)
• Decisions about gay marraiges to be left to each state (just like now)
• Do not lower drinking age from 21 to 18 (current law is 21)

Read the article for yourself, but there isn't a lot of change that Obama supports.  What we appear to be left with is a person who is not George Bush that is good-looking and well-spoken.  But not a person qualified to run the last super power in the world.  And certainly the fact that he has a disconcerting number of groupies that may push him into office scares the hell out of me.