Shadowfax: Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I was in 6th grade when Jimmy Carter took office, and both of my parents were good Midwestern Democrats (my dad was from Chicago and my mom was from Detroit) who were thrilled to have a Dem in the White House.
Reagan was elected my sophmore year of high school and, by then, even my folks (who were pretty staunch) were ready for a change.
I think most of this country is pretty much ready for a change. My concern with Obama is that he is being imbued with nearly messianic powers. People are so desperate for something new that they’ve latched on to him and his message in the fervent hope that we’ll get some sort of respite from the last eight years. His world tour shows that as well.
The problem I have is that he remains something of a mystery to me. The Zakaria article attempted to offer a view of his foreign policy, but was wholly unsupported by any sort of foreign policy experience or writings. Granted, this is not Obama’s fault, per se, in that he is too new to the scene to have either.
His speeches are tremendous and he is one of the most gifted orators I have seen (without humor or malice, he reminds me of Reagan), but what is he really saying? Peggy Noonan, one of Reagan’s speechwriters, wrote a piece in the WSJ saying essentially the same thing.
I respect McCain as a person (due to his experiences during Vietnam), but won’t vote for him, in large part due to his flip-flopping and pandering to the Far Right constituency.
Yeah, I know that a vote cast for the Independents or Libertarians is one cast for McCain, but I am too tired from these last 16 years to vote either D or R.
