Over the past few months I have been trying to write/compile some sort of article or document that can explain why I think an Obama administration could be a great thing for, well, all of us of course, but for conservatives specifically.
Anytime that I actually get a chance to have a rational conversation with a conservative I walk away thinking, 'Hey, I agree with a lot of what he/she just had to say, why can't we vote for the same candidate with different views and motives'.
'Why Conservatives should vote for Obama'
1. TAXES.
As a member of the Illinois State Senate, Sen. Obama was cosponsor of a bill, which ultimately passed, creating the largest tax cut in state history. Since the start of his presidential campaign, he has consistently favored a broad-based middle class tax cut. By contrast, Sen. McCain "voted against tax cuts before he voted for them", and has no real credibility on this issue. McCain was very critical of the Bush tax cuts, which gave us years of prosperity - until very recently.
2. SPENDING.
Most Republicans' biggest gripe with their own party - by far - is its failure to control the bureaucracy and reign in runaway federal spending and deficits. While the last five (5) Republican Presidents promised fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, all of them grew discretionary civilian spending by tremendous amounts, and ran up ever larger deficits. Meanwhile, only Pres. Bill Clinton balanced the federal budget, and produced four years of surpluses, with the same forecast long into the indefinite future.
A big problem with the federal budget is that almost nobody knows where all the money is going; it's easy to add earmarks and pork barrel spending and special interest giveaways when the people back home can't tell the difference. Sen. Barack Obama's major legislative accomplishment in the Senate, "The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006" has brought transparency to federal spending. http://www.federalspending.gov is the website Obama's legislation created, which he has touted as being a "Google of the Federal Budget", where anyone can research every dollar to see where their tax money is actually going.
The whole Federal Rat Hole is now online, for the first time ever, inviting scrutiny from whoever has the patience to slog through it all. You don't have to be a CPA to realize that this does more in the long run to control wasteful federal spending than all the speeches Bush I, Bush II, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon ever gave on the subject, put together. One or two crack investigative reporters turned loose on the site and bang, it's the 'Breaking News' On MSNBC and CNN and maybe even FOX!
3. BIG GOVERNMENT
In his North Carolina victory speech, among other things, Sen. Obama uttered the words "We don't need Big Government". Pres. Bill Clinton's 'National Performance Review' reduced the federal civilian workforce by 250,000 positions (ones they will consider, rightly or wrongly, to be useless tax-sucking bureaucrats). This makes the last Democratic administration the only presidency since Eisenhower's to leave office with a smaller federal workforce that he started with - again, Bush I, Bush II, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon notwithstanding.
Despite what all the rhetoric we heard at the Republican National Convention this year, the real stones Obama brings to the table on this issue are his formative years on the south side of Chicago, doing meaningful community social work through voluntary, faith-based (yes, faith based), non-governmental community organizations, rather than government bureaucracies.
Earlier this year, at the Saddleback Presidential Forum, John McCain was talking about 'service' and first responders to natural disasters. He stressed as many times as he could, as did George W. Bush when had had the opportunity that 'Faith Based' organizations should be doing this job, NOT government.
WITHOUT BUREAUCRACIES - we can rehabilitate the homeless, educate the illiterate, provide day care for single moms, dry out alcoholics, and clean junkies off the dope. Obama himself has proven that, through social entrepreneurship. By contrast, John McCain has never drawn a day's pay that didn't come from the public trough, courtesy of your tax dollars.
4. PERSONAL LIBERTY
Barry Goldwater must be rolling over in his grave over what debasements of the U.S. Constitution the Bush Administration has gotten itself into, and which the man who took his seat in the U.S. Senate, John McCain now ardently defends. (Warrantless domestic wiretapping, Warrantless searches and seizures, Arresting U.S. citizens without probable cause, Holding them without trial..Etc...etc)
No REAL conservative believes these things are legitimate prerogatives of the federal government. There are innumerable horror stories you can research and recount of how the 'Grand Old Party' has sat idly by while our Constitutional protections have been ignored, and turned into a joke.
5. NATIONAL SECURITY
To the rejoinder, "yes, but it's worked, we haven't been attacked since 9/11", you must add: "BUT, we haven't foreclosed the threat by taking out al Qaeda, either". The National Security argument is like the Tax-and-Spend one, it doesn't matter where you stand on "bombing al Qaeda back to the Stone Age" - the fact remains that your Republican friends will vote for the candidate they perceive to be most in tune with that idea, period.
McCain vocally disagrees with the successful CIA program to take out al Qaeda leadership when located in northwest Pakistan, without alerting the local tribal authorities and Pakistani Intelligence, who have always warned off our targets in the past. Sen. Obama, by contrast, opposes giving al Qaeda sanctuary in Pakistan, and ardently supports this initiative. When McCain attacked Obama as naive for "wanting to bomb an ally", the very next day the CIA took out the #3 leader in al Qaeda with just such a raid, with a missile fired from a Predator drone.
6. OPPORTUNITY
While John McCain's four-star Admiral father ensured him a prized appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, his performance - 894th out of 899 cadets in his class - does not attest to diligent effort, whereas Barack Obama (from a broken home, on food stamps) won competitive academic scholarships to Harvard, which he proved himself worthy of by graduating Magna Cum Laude ("With Highest Honors").
It's been a long time since any politicians of either party could talk convincingly about "The American Dream", but Barack Obama can, because he lived it. Without handouts, family patronage, or inheritance, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps from the depths of poverty and in-opportunity through his own hard work, enterprise, and initiative to become President of the Harvard Law Review, one of the most prestigious scholarly legal journals in the country. Which President is more likely to make a difference in the lives of people, and motivate them with initiative to best achieve their individual God-given potential?
7. SMALL BUSINESS, ECONOMIC GROWTH, INNOVATION
Obama will make the R & D tax credit permanent, and, while he will be increasing the capital gains tax, he will have exceptions for small business owners. Obama would raise most rates on dividends and capital gains from their current top of 15 percent to between 24 percent and 25 percent with the goal of generating new revenue and paying for middle-class tax simplification. But to insure against a negative impact on innovation and new business formation, Obama would have a zero rate on capital gains for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and small-business owners forming new enterprises. "He is being careful not to disturb innovation," said Goolsbee. Most of the highest taxes, he says, would fall on "gains from the past." In a small business, where your income can fluctuate wildly, and where revenue recognition can happen 2-3 years after your expenses, taxing growth is a very bitter pill to swallow.
