Although I long ago said I’d prefer Barack Obama to any of the other Republican candidates in the field after Ron Paul, Obama has gotten scarier and scarier since he started facing off against McCain rather than Hillary. Next to Hillary, he seemed like a beacon of calm, a supremely intelligent and elegant man who was bashed by the left for mentioning Ronald Reagan or Palestine.
Since Hillary gave up, Obama has lost his luster for me. He doesn’t bring any sort of change I or any self-respecting libertarian can really believe in. The Wall Street Journal lays out some of the reasons succinctly.
Now, of course we also come to the other side of the coin. History teaches us that George W. Bush talked a good game in 2000 (no nation-building, Americans aren’t the police officers of the world, smaller government is good, etc.) and if you went on substance rather than style and voted for the idiot, you were voting for someone who immediately jettisoned his campaign promises and increased the size of government more than any Democrat in at least 40 years. He doubled the size of some government agencies (including the Department of Education), introduced the largest entitlement program since the beginning of Medicare with the Medicare prescription drug “benefit,” and wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars using America to act as 911 for the world. Al Gore is a real small government guy compared to W.
So now, do we trust Obama- who seems like he can think through things and maybe listen to the other side, although he never actually votes that way– or McCain, whom some have called “the most reliable Democrat” in the Senate and someone who thinks we should spend 100 years in Iraq, someone who actually has reached out to the other side, even if a little bit too much.
McCain once said he didn’t know as much about economics as he should, something that is true about almost all Americans including myself; Obama doesn’t know that much about economics, either, but he doesn’t admit it, so on that respect I think McCain seems more forthright about his weaknesses and more willing to surround himself with advisers who do know what they’re talking about.
Is Obama going to “reach across the aisle” as he likes to say and give us libertarians anything to cheer about? Is McCain going to reach across the aisle too much and give us nothing?
This is why a libertarian– even in a swing state– might be better off keeping a clear conscience and voting for Bob Barr.
Libertarian Girl, you’re getting better and better each day. Congrats for finally seeing the light!
May I reprint this in its entirety at Libertarian Republican blog?
If so, please shoot me a quick email to let me know it’s okay.
Oh, and a jpg. of you would be helpful as well. Of course, I’ll give your blog a nice plug and link.
Eric Dondero
October 18th, 2008
The way I see it, if and when Obama wins the first two years of his presidency will be very scary for all libertarians/conservatives, because they will be able to get whatever they want and be able to stifle any opposition with their supermajority. They’ll be able to get through an obscene amount of leftist legislation. I think then the Republicans will be able to take back congress or at least break up the supermajority in 2010. At that point I think Obama will have to be more to the center because he will want to get re-elected so I think he will morph more so into a Clintonesque President for the rest of his term. Overall I would expect his presidency to be very much like Jimmy Carter or LBJ.
I actually think that McCain will be worse because he will be just as bad as Bush, accept that I am absolutely convinced that there is a closet leftest within McCain that will come out when he gets elected. McCain is for things like cap-and-trade, which is essentially 21st century communist central planning, and he’ll be able to get them with a Democrat run congress. And if there were to be a larger financial collapse, it will inevitably be blamed on capitalism again as it is now. But when the left wing Obama policies fail, as they inevitably will, the blame will go where it should: to the government.
So in the end I would be willing to go on record and say that with Obama as president, government spending will be LESS than it would be under McCain/Bush.
Joe the Bartender
October 19th, 2008