Election Day is tomorrow. Polls seem to indicate a comfortable victory for Barack Obama. I know this article will not prevent Tufts students from voting in droves for the Democratic candidate, but I would be remiss if I did not make one last appeal for you not to.
Experiencing the prevailing attitude here towards the Illinois senator, one might think him a near-mythic figure -- the person to bring change, healing and prosperity -- who is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I do not deny that I feel a visceral urge to throw up my hands and say, "Okay, let's see what happens when your hyper-partisan, super-liberal, completely inexperienced candidate actually becomes the most powerful man in the world." But, considering the catastrophic damage I believe will come from this scenario, such thoughts are petty and puerile. Like John McCain, "I choose to fight;" rather than petulantly whining about an election not yet decided, I put forth my final case against Barack Obama.
Sen. Obama has shown himself to be a brilliant speaker and gifted politician in this campaign. These qualities have successfully obscured his near total lack of substance. He has authored two autobiographies, yet has no significant legislation to his name. He has shirked his few opportunities for true leadership in his short term in the United States Senate. While John McCain risked his entire political career advocating the surge in Iraq, knowing from his experience that it was necessary for victory, Obama's keen insight led him to oppose it on the grounds it was not "going to solve the sectarian violence there; in fact, I think it'll do the reverse." When McCain reached across the aisle to the consternation of his own party to bring about immigration reform, Obama remained quietly in the background. When the economic crisis hit with full force this fall, McCain threw his own campaign into disarray as he tried to clean up a mess largely of the Democrats' making. Despite the fact that his fellow Democratic legislators had been responsible for blocking investigations into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Obama offered few specific solutions, but made sure to lay the blame for the meltdown on Sen. McCain and President Bush.
Perhaps this scanty record of leadership explains why Obama is often likened to a walking Rorschach test: People are able to see in him whatever they want, and thus expect different and often contradictory policies from his presidency. His thin record even extends to his days as a state legislator. Nearly 130 times, he voted "present" instead of a simple "yes" or "no." He didn't simply take a pass on unimportant or uncontroversial issues; he also refused to vote on concealed-carry laws, the privacy of sex abuse victims, born-alive infant protection and partial birth abortion. If Dante's warning is true that "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality," Barack Obama must be feeling the heat.
Conservatives should then breathe easier with the knowledge of Obama's long history of talk and short history of action. But we must all at least consider what he might do if elected.
In the realm of foreign policy, Obama points to his principled opposition to the Iraq war from the beginning. In as much as he was an Illinois state senator at the time, it seems likely that his position was based on ideology rather than a careful examination of classified intelligence. Since then, however, he has little to hang his hat on. He opposed the troop surge from the beginning and refused to acknowledge its success until it became politically necessary to do so. His plan would have had American troops out of Iraq more than a year ago, in the midst of chaos and defeat. Thanks in large part to John McCain, we stand upon the brink of a stable, lasting victory.
When Russia invaded Georgia, Obama's first instinct was to call for "restraint" on both sides. McCain immediately understood that when an aggressor launches an unprovoked attack on its smaller, democratic neighbor, the victim has the right to resist to the end, not show "restraint." Obama promises to negotiate "without preconditions" with the leaders of Iran and Venezuela, while he openly threatens to bomb our ally, Pakistan, and to kill a free trade agreement with another ally, Colombia.
On the domestic front, things don't look much better. Though he portrays himself as a pro-choice moderate, he supports taxpayer-funded abortions, and refused even to support the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. He also believes the tortured legal reasoning that spawned Roe v. Wade should remain in place, and would presumably select judicial nominees with that in mind.
Obama's health care plan promises greater bureaucracy and places an undue burden on businesses already facing hard economic times; they will now be fined if they fail to provide health insurance to their employees. McCain proposes no punitive action, and instead will offer families a tax credit with which they may buy whatever health insurance they want. He will also try to remove state and local barriers to coverage, thus allowing Americans to select the best plans for themselves, even if they are offered in another state.
On energy issues, Obama has failed to lead the way on increased domestic oil production, simultaneously denouncing the idea as taking too long and calling for "long-term" solutions. Meanwhile, he refuses to agree to nuclear power until it is proven "safe," despite the technological advancements that have allowed nations such as France to rely heavily on it for electric power. Even as oil prices are finally falling to tolerable levels, Obama demands a windfall profits tax, which will raise prices and hurt investors, doing serious damage to pension funds across the country, including to those of the teachers in his home town of Chicago.
Obama's economic plans promise to harm our economy far worse than anything Barney Frank has ever done. Cleverly dressing up a wealth redistribution program as a tax cut, Obama promises that 95 percent of American families will receive a reduction in taxes under his plan. But since the bottom 40 percent of income earners already pay no income taxes, Obama's plan will involve giving them yet more government handouts, paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy. Although Obama argues that the wealthy are in fact undertaxed, citing corporate loopholes, the top 10 percent of income earners actually pay 71 percent of the tax burden, despite holding only 48 percent of the wealth. With a troubled economy, the last thing one ought to do is raise taxes on the people and companies that create jobs and wealth.
A close examination of Barack Obama's record reveals that his tepid leadership falls short of his lofty rhetoric, while his capacity to equivocate rivals his tendency to obfuscate. His record is thin and his policies dangerous. America must not elect Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
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