I got a chance to see senator Obama first hand today when he visited Google to give a speech and take questions from Eric Schmidt and other Googlers. My current approach to politics is anybody but a Republican. Both the Republican front-runners are extremely distasteful to me --- both seem to promise more tax cuts for the already wealthy, are in denial about global warming, and have no concern for budget deficits or getting out of the morass that is Iraq.
My concern with Obama was borne from reading Paul Krugman's blog entry. The concern there was that Obama had bought into the right-wing attacks on social security as the biggest fiscal problem facing the country. The truth is that it is not. Medicare/Medicaid is. My concern was alleviated slightly today, when asked about the deficit, Obama said that he would first get out of Iraq (saving $192 billion), and then try to attack the next biggest deficit problem, which was Medicare/Medicaid. Social Security was not mentioned.
Compared with the other big candidate I saw in person, Hilary Clinton, Obama seemed a lot less like a politician, lot more earnest. I liked it that he said that what he learned from watching prior Democratic candidates lose was that if you don't stand for something people won't vote for you. Listening to Clinton talk, one just got the impression that she had spent too much time as a politician --- she refused to promise anything, and refused to make a stand on policies.
All in all, I could definitely see this man as the next President.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
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1 comment:
The politics inspires not less emotions than in United States :). In Poland we have 2 big parties as well but the division between them has different dimension then between American parties. In Poland our common employer does not give any credit to any party.
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