What could Obama do that would make you not vote for him? [View All]

[Onlooker]

I am upset by Obama's stand on FISA and abortion, his militaristic talk against Iran, his support for funding faith-based programs, his weakened commitment to leaving Iraq in 16 months, his new-found support for the death penalty, and so on. If he had shared these views in the primary, I doubt he would have won. He lied or distorted his views to win the primaries, and he is most certainly doing the same thing now. He's a great orator, but he's a typical politician. He has had a superb marketing campaign that some fell for, but others saw through all along. But, whether we saw through him or not, what we continue to see is the consummate politician who is willing to do whatever it takes to win the election. That is what we want, isn't it?

At the very least, Obama will appoint good bureaucrats, Supreme Court Justices, support some form of national health care, and embrace other traditionally Democratic positions. The Obama people seem to know how to run a campaign, and they know they can ignore people like me because I will vote for Obama as long as he remains to the left of McCain, which is easy to do. Those who are angry at Obama now fell for the hype, got caught up in politically empty phrases about hope and change, or never liked him in the first place. I'm not surprised at what Obama is doing, but I am concerned that as he reaches to the center, it's as if he's reaching for 50.1% of the electorate rather than being a leader and trying for a much larger margin.

But, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since he came from nowhere to win a very formidable Democratic primary and elections are more than anything else about winning. I may not like a lot of his stands, but it's hard to imagine what he could do that would stop me from voting for him. And I think the vast majority of us, having seen the cruelty of the Republican Party, will stand by him no matter what.