A Promise of Hope and Change
David Brooks of the
New York Times wrote an article questioning the ‘New Politics’ of Senator Obama.
…the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.
He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.
This draws into question not only the question of whether Senator Obama is walking the walk of a new more civil and honest campaign style, but it begs the question what candidate is most capable of bringing change. Senator McCain has walked the walk. He has worked with Democrats to achieve legislative goals, he has run an honest and decent campaign. He has a record saying what he means and meaning what he says. Consider the difficulty of a Senator with 20 plus years experience earning the reputation as a strait shooter. One reason it has been so difficult for Senators to run for president is because their job requires compromise, and taking stands on a wide range of issues that Governors can often bypass. The Democrat candidates have the luxury of having a very short record with little to examine. Senator McCain has shown that political stress won’t make him compromise his principals. It is a person of that character and experience that has the best chance of bringing change to Washington style politics.
1 comment April 18th, 2008
