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Feb. 7th, 2008 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geekchick |
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What's Your Political Philosophy? created with QuizFarm.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as Old School Democrat Old school Democrats emphasize economic justice and opportunity. The Democratic ideal is best summarized by the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
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Date: 2008-02-08 01:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-08 02:23 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure I've never heard of Obama suggesting we amend the Constitution to reflect God's standards.
Okay, here's your big chance: explain to me why it is I should vote for Clinton, and where her theoretical policies differ substantially from Obama's.
OK, you asked for it... part 1
Date: 2008-02-08 11:16 am (UTC)Education
Clinton was a staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund before she met Bill; she spent years as a children’s advocate in both Arkansas and while Bill was president, and pushed for the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Early Head Start and afterschool programs. She voted for No Child Left Behind but subsequently has been critical of its implementation and unfunded mandates. Clinton would target at-risk kids and add to afterschool programs, and replace NCLB. She would make universal preschool available for 4-year-olds, expand Head Start and special-ed programs (dear to my heart, as they are woefully underfunded).
Obama helped increase college Pell Grants from the Senate. His educational program differs by reforming NCLB with full funding, and adding programs for preschoolers down to infancy. He would hire more teachers and expand Head Start and Early Head Start (ironically ;). He would also eliminate financial aid applications in favor of sending tax returns directly to colleges.
Both candidates would create a college tuition tax credit.
1 points to Clinton for her two decades working in the field, draw on NCLB and preschool programs, minus a half on Obama for what I think is a bad idea on college financial aid. Edge to Clinton.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/education/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/
Immigration: Little/no difference, both favor tougher enforcement along with earned legalization, standard Democratic stances. Driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants – proposal by Obama, has gotten mixed reviews. Obama argues that he understands the issue better as the son of an immigrant. Clinton argues that she understands health and immigrant family issues better from years of legislation and experience. Take your pick, I call it a draw overall.
Iraq/Iran
Both candidates have criticized the conduct of the Iraq war. Clinton voted for AUMF and subsequent funding bills; Obama was not in Congress in 2003, but was critical of AUMF at that time (but has also voted for subsequent funding bills). Both would start Iraq withdrawals within 30-60 days, attempt new regional diplomacy and work with the UN to help Iraqi refugees.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/iraq/
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/
Both candidates would close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban the use of torture, and restore habeas corpus. Unlike Clinton, however, Obama agrees with the current administration (http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060928-remarks_of_sena_9/index.php ) that military courts rather than federal judges should be charged with trying detainees.
I attribute AUMF to broad deception by the current administation, and Iraq is a terrible mess, but it’s a done deal. Both candidates have similar approaches to getting out and to the excesses of the Bush WoT. Point to Obama for getting Iraq right, subtract a half for military courts, slight edge to him overall.
Part 2...
Date: 2008-02-08 11:19 am (UTC)Obama wants to double federal spending on basic research and accelerate the use of IT in government. He favors postponing for 5 years (effectively eliminating) the human space exploration program and transferring the funds to his education programs. Obama would invest $15B/year in “clean energy” infrastructure. (I’m dubious of his motivations, given his close ties to a nuclear power company) Clinton would increase basic research and double the NIH budget. She proposes a $50 billion research fund for green energy, funded by federal taxes and royalties on oil companies. She would shift some human exploration budgets back and rebalance with space and earth science, but would not retreat to Earth orbit altogether. (More on space policy, with lots of links, in my LJ.) Clinton would require Federal research agencies to award external prizes for innovation goals.
Both favor market cap-and-trade approaches to reducing CO2 emissions. Both have plans to extend broadband access. Both have supported net-neutrality and oppose warrantless wiretaps. Both voted for Real ID in the Senate and have subsequently criticized it. Both support reviewing DMCA.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/innovation/
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6224039.html
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9864581-38.html
Obama talks the talk better, but their IT approaches are similar. Brownie point to Obama for a better website. Draw overall on global warming and energy issues, but Obama loses the brownie point because of close ties to (nuclear) energy companies. Half-point to Clinton for specifying how she’d pay for renewables program. Point to Clinton (more, in my own weighting) for having a space policy that still looks outward and inspires kids as well as teaching them. Clinton edge.
Healthcare
Clinton's plan would require that every American have some kind of health insurance, whereas Obama's plan only mandates that children have a health insurance plan. The bit about wage garnishing… is spun, of course, but mandatory deductions are in effect similar to a payroll tax in a single-payer system, as in most other first-world countries. Employees who currently have healthcare payroll deductions are now “garnished” similarly. Americans would be given the choice to keep their current plan, enroll in a plan similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (which has a choice of private providers, per state) or choose a public plan similar to Medicaid. The insurance industry would be regulated to prevent discrimination against elderly people or people with previous health conditions. It would be paid by letting Bush’s tax cuts lapse for incomes >$250K and various smaller tweaks.
Under the Obama plan, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance, but then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. And insurance companies couldn’t turn them away… so those higher costs would be borne by those choosing insurance, which creates a further disincentive to buy coverage. It ironically takes the current healthcare system and less ambitiously patches it, rather than the broader changes that Edwards (originally) and Clinton propose. Obama’s plan financing would be likewise from letting Bush tax cuts expire, plus efficiency tweaks.
Either plan would IMO be an improvement. But Clinton’s goes further and is a bigger step towards a single-payer system. Edge to her.
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/healthcareplan/americanhealthchoicesplan.pdf
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/HealthPlanFull.pdf
Part 3 and wrap-up
Date: 2008-02-08 11:20 am (UTC)Economic policies
Subprime/foreclosures: Clinton proposes a voluntary moratorium on foreclosures, a freeze on rising interest rates, and she has promised $30 billion in federal aid. Obama has not called for a freeze or moratorium, only a fairly minimal tax credit for homeowners. He is also supported heavily by financial institutions… see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/fraser .
Clinton was the first to pledge to end tax breaks for outsourcing, although Obama has followed suit.
Arguing that borrowers, instead of predatory unregulated lenders, are responsible for the subprime crisis… I can’t agree with that Obama stance at all. Big edge to Clinton, unless you’re a bank.
LGBT
Clinton supports civil unions, same-sex adoption, expanded hate crime legislation and ending Bill’s DADT military policy. She says she voted for DOMA in order to derail FMA, and would support gay marriages if enacted. Point for gay marriages, minus a half for DOMA tactics.
Obama supports civil unions but opposes gay marriages. Minus a half-point. And then there was Donnie McClurkin… Overall, slight edge for Clinton.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071030/NEWS09/710300384/-1/caucus
For amusement, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19682#continueA
http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/hillary-on-gay-marriage-2/
Electability
Obama has more unknowns and more potential for uncovered skeletons in a general election, and has not fought close elections in his Illinois experience. But he is unquestionably an excellent speaker. Clinton is an average speaker, but any new scandals or mud are unlikely after 16 years of attacks and scrutiny. Both have now demonstrated an ability to raise funds online from small donors, even if Obama has an edge. If Clinton gets the nod, youth may stay home and the rabid right-wing could be energized. If Obama gets the nod, some moderate women and Latinos may drift to McCain, as well as blue-collar men. Point to Obama on presentation and general charisma, minus a half-point for unknowns. Half point to Clinton for durability and toughness. Draw overall on which constituencies would drift. Half point to Obama for better netroots support and outreach. Slight edge to Obama.
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Everyone weighs issues differently, granted. But it seems to me that Obama has an slight edge in two areas vs. five areas for Clinton, and she tends to be stronger in the issues where she leads….
Re: Part 3 and wrap-up
Date: 2008-02-08 03:07 pm (UTC)In the end, I think they're not really all that far apart from each other policy-wise (and c'mon, you know as well as I do that these campaign promises are little more than hot air and pandering to get votes) and both are by far better options than McCain. I think either of them would do an okay job as president, even though I don't like Clinton on several levels. This Newsweek article hits on something that I think definitely plays into decision-making; we've had too many years, in my opinion, of politicians playing to fears and anxiety, and I personally find myself responding much better to appeals to hope and inspiration.
Re: Part 3 and wrap-up
Date: 2008-02-08 06:41 pm (UTC)I don't trust emotional appeals, myself, and look for candidates whose positions I most agree with. In that context, checklists and weighting makes sense, even recognizing that no candidate once elected ever manages to enact more than a fraction of their policy goals.
It appears to me that you've actually validated my original comment, and you've helped show how our motivations for supporting candidates are in fact worlds apart, despite being fairly close on the political spectrum otherwise. Rational vs. emotional...
Just remember how well faith/hope-based politics interacted with the cold, real world over the past few years, on the right.
rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 08:34 pm (UTC)i look closely at position statements and voting behaviour of candidates, and overall those are what determines who i vote for.
but how i feel about the person on a gut level does enter the equation. it doesn't drive the decision, but it affects it. and the gut level isn't even all emotional; what i call "intuition" seems more of an aggregate feeling about small incident data collection; hard to enumerate and explain, but not grabbed from thin air either.
when bill clinton got elected, there was something about him that felt shifty to me, lawyer-speaky, as if he talked out of one side of his mouth. i would have voted for him had i been eligible, but i didn't think he had as much integrity as i want in a country's leader. i thought he would probably be a good president, but i didn't trust him to keep all his promises, rather i expected him to weasel when pushed to the wall. i formed those impressions from watching him closely during the campaign and reading a lot about his prior actions.
and what happened seems to support that gut reaction. he was a good president, but he weaseled like there was no tomorrow, and he broke promises when it was inconvenient to keep them. i don't think he had the courage of his convictions; he was a weak man in many ways.
i think HRC is stronger than he, but she's got the weaseling down pat as well, and the manipulative tactics. consequently her campaign promises count a little less for me.
i weigh their positions slightly differently from you, except for the third and last one. i am unforgiving about the iraq war, i think the truth was available at the time to anyone who wanted it. but even more importantly i am 99% convinced clinton is unelectable in today's US of A. obama is black, yes, but he's not a scary black to white america, he's black like colin powell is black. he is electable (while somebody like jesse jackson isn't), though he'll have it harder than a white man in his position. i don't know that any woman could make it, except a quite conservative one maybe. but not HRC. we won't need new scandals about her; she carries so much baggage that it'll suffice, considering her opponent will be mccain (who has a better image than he deserves). she's hated by too many people. if even your own party can't get whole-heartedly behind you, you have no chance in a country in which the population is close to 50/50 split before taking their own gut level into account.
Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:16 pm (UTC)Hope/faith-based politics got us into Iraq in the first place... as well as Katrina... simply hoping or asserting that the natives will welcome you as liberators, or that the levees won't break, didn't work out for Bush. I doubt it would work any differently for Obama. Politics will be the same... just with another round of inevitable disillusionment, this time on the left.
I see both candidates as equally weaselly... if anything, Obama does better with false-fronts and forced smiles, he's a talented politician.
And, well, likewise Obama's disliked by lots of people within his own party, and the party isn't whole-heartedly behind him either. And his negatives will only increase over time, once the honeymoon wears off, while HRC's baggage is well-worn and a known quantity.
Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:32 pm (UTC)And here's where the emotional element/gut feeling thing comes into play for you. ;)
Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:38 pm (UTC)Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:17 pm (UTC)Yes, that.
Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: rational vs emotional?
Date: 2008-02-09 03:41 am (UTC)Obama does better with false-fronts and forced smiles
what's this then, other than your own gut talking?
how do any of us know when somebody's front is false, when zir smiles are forced? (i presume obama didn't personally tell you.) and even if we're quite certain they must be because we think that politicians all lie, few of them always lie -- and do we know why any particular smile is forced? is it because the person is lying about the issue, because zie's thinking about skirting some other more iffy issue, because zie's eager to get outta there cause the kid is sick at home, or maybe because zie's got gas at this very moment?
Re: Part 3 and wrap-up
Date: 2008-02-08 09:00 pm (UTC)While I don't think I did. Your phrase was "Even if otherwise we're worlds apart, politically"; politically, there really isn't that big a difference between the two candidates.
Just remember how well faith/hope-based politics interacted with the cold, real world over the past few years, on the right.
I don't actually see much "hope-based politics" coming out of the right (or anywhere else, frankly). What I see is "ZOMG, the terrorists are gonna get us!" and "ZOMG, the gays are gonna destroy your marriage!" I see a whole honkin' lot more appeals to fear and confusion than I do to hope. I have yet to hear anything that sounds even remotely sincerely like "We can work together to make things better."
Remember "we create our own reality"?
Date: 2008-02-08 09:34 pm (UTC)I see Bush and his followers as being motivated by their faith and hope that things will somehow turn out the way they envision. With good intentions, that has been repeatedly a disaster.
All of this -- the ''gut'' and ''instincts,'' the certainty and religiosity -connects to a single word, ''faith,'' and faith asserts its hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its rightness.
IMO, Obama's hope-based politics has enough similarities, from a distance, that it can be unsettling to watch. Remember "we create our own reality"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html