Politics. Obama winning? Really?
Well, it certainly is heating up now. I am so beyond shocked that the candidate I like the best is actually winning. That has never happened before. I have been a huge fan of Obama since I heard him speak at the democratic convention during Kerry’s campaign. I wished he was running instead of Kerry. In the intervening years, I have only grown to like him more. He inspires me and makes me feel like maybe we can finally move forward as a country again. I doubt all the damage of the Bush administration can be undone in one administration, but he would at least take us the right direction.
It probably makes me a bad Democrat and feminist, but I am SO glad he is beating Hilary. I really liked Bill for the most part, but Hilary has always bugged me. I would love to see a woman as president, and I am glad to see one get powerful enough to run, but I don’t like her personally. I would have a really, really hard time voting for her if it came down to it. If she was against Huckabee (who is pure evil and has changed his image to trick Christians into voting for him since it worked so well for Bush) I would have to vote for her, and some of the other candidates would make me look twice. If it were her and Ron Paul, I would be crossing party lines.
The thing that surprises me the most is that there is a a Republican candidate I actually don’t hate. Ron Paul. He is, without a doubt, the best candidate for Homeschooling. Unlike the Huckabee, who is probably the worst candidate and has ruled against homeschooling in his administrations. (isn’t he the one who made it illegal to homeschool special needs kids in his state? I could be wrong on that, but it fits with some of the other things I have read about him) I like his polices on the war (which are “get the heck out of there”) and he seems to want to go back to a gold/silver economic standard instead of just printing money when we need it. He wants to get the foundation back and is very much a constitutionalist. (something current Republicans have strayed very far from) He seems very libertarian to me. He seems to have something to tick everybody off, but it all is moving towards the original plan of how to run a democracy. The thing that might stop me from voting for him is his desire to get rid of all subsidies, including farm subsidies. From what I can tell, it would kill the family farm and not really put a dent in corporate farms. It would be a sad day in this country if all the farms were corporate farms.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
eta: after seeing some of the comments, I went to read some more about Ron Paul. I had somehow missed the fact he is an extreme racist. Yikes. (I guess homeschool boards where I heard about him are very wacked) I already knew there were some serious issues that I disagreed with him on, but I was appreciating his anti-war stance and that he doesn’t seem phony, like the rest of the pack. I know I am voting for Obama, and would consider doing it on a write in if he isn’t the party’s candidate, but I wanted to at least see what the Republican field was and was so relieved to see somebody that wasn’t a neo-con. Although I do still like his stance on some things, the racist stance is really disturbing. It was one of the reasons I find Huckabee so terrible, so I guess I can just add this guy to that list.
Just when I thought I could find a Republican that didn’t bother me too much. lol.
I honestly believe Hilary is not electable. She is too divisive and we’d lose a lot of the moderate Republicans and independents – who seem to be at least interested in Obama.
Ron Paul is very divisive for me as well. For every issue I like him on, there’s another that scares the crap out of me. He’s non-interventionist to an extreme. Nice for Iraq, not so nice for Darfur. He believes that sexual harassment should be solved by women quitting their jobs, he doesn’t accept evolution which scares me from a scientific standpoint, he doesn’t believe corporations should have any part at all in their employees private lives – so no maternity/family leave. He wants to leave a lot up to the individual states, which in a country as large as ours seems to be to be courting divisiveness and trouble. He’s just very extreme.
I think the problem for Hillary is that this election, so far, is about change. People (hopefully more than 50% of them this time) want a change and someone who is so linked to a prior administration may not sufficiently represent change to the electorate.
Daily Kos had an interesting 4 part series about Ron Paul, I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I think it bears checking out.
From what i understand about Huckabee is that some of his biggest supporters are homeschooling families and they do lots of footwork for him which helps him keep his campigns in the black but thats what my husband was saying i need to do more research myself about that issue. Ron Paul wants to go back to the constition thats why he wants the states to deal with stuff on their own Ron Paul is also probally really a Libeterian and not a Republican.