The Morning After
it’s wednesday. the election is over. america has chosen their new president.
it’s time to start praying for president-elect obama. he just got hired for the toughest job in the world.
this post is not to denigrate him, but instead to get an answer from any Christian that voted for him who might stumble across this blog.
lots of other folks have talked about this issue, but i have yet to get an answer that makes sense to me…
my question is this: what exactly appealed to you about barack obama?
i ask that, because as i thought about it last night i realized that i couldn’t answer that question.
below are just a handful of issues that divide Christians. i don’t want to argue about the issues themselves, i just was thinking about this list and was really wondering why left-of-center Christians got so behind their candidate.
abortion
john mccain – opposes
barack obama – supports expansion of abortion rights, including infanticide
war
john mccain – supports ongoing war on terror including iraq
barack obama – supports ongoing war on terror, including afganistan, and everywhere but iraq
death penalty
john mccain – supports
barack obama – supports
health care
john mccain – supports the expansion of health care to 11 million uninsured children, supports higher taxes on cigarettes, expand community health care nationwide, tax cuts for self-employed people seeking health care, supports medical savings accounts
barack obama – guarantees health care for ‘anyone who needs it,’ opposes health care tax credit, supports socialized health care
gun control
john mccain – supports gun rights
barack obama - supports gun rights
scandals
john mccain - divorce and allegation of innapropriate lobby activity, which he was exonerated from, accused of being one of the keating 5, which he was exonerated from, accused of having an affair, later exonerated from
barack obama – changed his mind about what campaign funds he would receive, changed his mind about debates with mccain, has yet to be exonerated from taking illegal campaign contributions, is being investigated under the RICO act for voter fraud and campaign practices, admits to past cocaine use, has close ties to people who bombed buildings, implicated in and admitted to an unethical real estate deal with one of his campaign supporters
service
john mccain – served our nation full-time since the age of 17, including a multi-year stay in a prisoner of war camp
barack obama – a first-term senator with a background in community organizing and law
giving
john mccain – in 2007 he gave 26% of his income to charity. he and wife cindy currently raise their children, including a daughter adopted out of the 3rd world, since 1991 has given his senate salary raises to charity because he opposed the increases, gives the royalties from his books to charities
barack obama – in 2006 gave 6% of his income to charity. between 2000 and 2004 he gave a combined total of less than 5% of his total income
(for any of this information, just consult your friendly neighborhood google)
there’s a lot more to line up, but there’s not much point.
honestly, this isn’t to defame obama. it isn’t.
i really just want to hear from any pro-obama christian why they find him so hopeful?
i’m waiting for an answer that isn’t ‘he’s genuine and authentic,’ because that doesn’t really mean anything to me. there’s no way to quantify or evaluate that statement. and, more importantly, john mccain is also genuine and authentic. that’s the point. they are both genuinely living their values.
so…is there anyone who can answer me on this?
this post isn’t meant to offend. i’m not going to have an anti-obama website. that isn’t helpful. i just really want to know what the other position is and why.
for my part, this will be the end of my complaining and the beginning of my praying for president-elect obama. God loves him. he has been chosen by our nation as our executive.
we live in the greatest country in the world.
God be with america.
blessings and maranatha
know what you believe, politique | November 5th, 2008
one of my friends is a supporter of Obama because she believes that it is a benefit to the government if it insures that every person gets good preventative healthcare…so that they don’t become a burden on the system when their teeth are rotting out and they have diabetes.
my experience…working at a surgical office…is that medi-cal patients are the worst patients. on average they miss way more of their appointments and they don’t comply with the doctor’s instructions as much as somebody who is paying for and/or working for their insurance.
plus…Obama isn’t even a natural-born citizen!!! haha…had to throw that in
Personally, I was a McCain supporter because I believe that my values are more closely aligned with his and because I believe very strongly that he was/is much more prepared and experienced to be President.
So I can only speculate as to why many professing Christians supported Obama. (especially young ones)
Here are my three guesses:
1) They are not politically informed or care to be. They simply thought that Obama represented “change” because that became the public perception and so they voted along with many other Americans who get their political news from MTV. (yes, i realize that is a very cynical view….but i suspect that it is true in many cases)
2) They are not “values voters”. They don’t care about whether our President supports abortion or not. Their belief is that government should “stay out of people’s business”. So after you throw out the “social/morality issues”…it’s just a matter of who you line up with politically/economically/etc.
3) They believe that Jesus could not possibly agree with capitalism. That a modern day Jesus would have been a liberal who supports a socialized health care system. That peace and non-violence are the only option.
I’m not saying that these are the only reasons…and they definitely aren’t mutually exclusive. The last two probably apply to a number of people. But I would love to hear from somebody else on this…
I have little to no faith in politics, but this is why I think he was worth thinking about…
Unification of the country.
Despise of the United States across almost the entire world.
Republicans are as far from conservative as can be. The pendulum needs to swing back to where they have to fight for the vote.
He has been thru the entire process very intentional and strategic to court the religious community (probably had to). McCain could care less. Palin is was the answer.
Government will spend, but lets not spend it in Iraq.
McCain’s health policy was pretty poor.
Those are just some thoughts real quick… as to why people did vote.
I do think that people voted him for the ‘HOPE/CHANGE’ factor. It was a very well run campaign by a very very good speaker.
@Andrew – thanks for those points. definitely some to think about.
ironically, to me, mccain was the only candidate who was willing to (and has a history of) reach across the aisle (unify) to get things done.
obama has never done that…and makes no promises to.
Okay, I’ll bite. First, as a point of etiquette, you might have more luck starting a conversation with an Obama supporter meeker than myself by not posing the question as : “So why are you all excited about electing a corrupt, baby-killing, terrorist-loving, election stealer, anyway?” :)
The main reason I supported Obama is because the Republican party sucks right now. This is partly because of a lack of the modesty and aversion to abstraction that has historically defined conservative politics.
In foreign policy, the party led the country to a war in Iraq with an idea of planting a democracy, a thin rationale, and supreme naivete about what would happen after Hussein’s regime fell. As a result, we have been trapped finishing this ambitious state-building project in Iraq, while also trying to combat a diffuse network of nationless terrorists around the world. In the middle east, the Iraq war is perceived as an attack on Islam ( a view seemingly shared by some conservative Christians in this country) or as an oil grab. These perceptions have deprived us of allies, set back democracy and moderate Islam, and fueled radicalism. Adding to the debacle has been the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of torture, which is not only morally reprehensible, but has proven ineffective in gathering reliable information and harmed our standing in the world. This is not simply an accident. It is the result of faulty theories about the world. It seems to me that McCain, in disposition and philosophy, would continue these misguided adventures. He views the war on terror, as the Bush admin. has, in terms of nation-states and he tends to moralize conflict. The Georgia incident was a case in point. He did heroically dissent from his party on torture in the primaries (as he did on immigration) but then said that the restoration of habeas corpus was one of the worst sc decisions. Seeing him move toward the party line on other things, I was not confident that he was reliable on this issue.
Obama, by contrast, seems to understand how the world has changed to make nation states less important threats. He is also dispositionally calmer, less moralistic, and more pragmatic, (Again, see Georgia conflict, also financial crisis). I am also more confident in his commitment to end our use of torture, if for no other reason than that there is no support for it in his party and his supporters will be pissed if he doesn’t end it. Moreover, and this is no knock against us white guys, but he is much less easy to demonize in the arab world.
Similar points (abstract theories vs. pragmatism) could be made on the economy, but I won’t go through them, because this is getting long.
McCain is better than his party on energy and the environment, but seriously, the “drill, baby, drill thing” was an insult to our intelligence. He seemed to totally cave to the stupid elements of the party here.
Which brings me to the campaigns. The McCain Palin campaign seemed less and less about arguments and ideas as it went on and more and more about a narrow nationalism and a stream of insinuation and fear mongering about Obama. The last weeks of the campaign were entirely about identity politics and “American-ness” from the GOP. The only thing worse than the identity politics (“Hey I’m one of you guys and not one of them.”) of minority groups is identity politics of a majority group. I live in the south now, and this conflation of America, rural authenticity, and anti-intellectualism has special and disturbing resonance here. Republicans have been doing this since the 1960s. Before that, the Democrats were the party of white resentment and they did the same thing. When Obama talks about overcoming divisions, that’s what I think of. There is more positive to say about Obama by contrast, though I suppose if you don’t find him persuasive, you won’t appreciate my comments about them.
I am a Christian. I am pro-life and pro-capitalism. I voted for George W. Bush. I also voted, donated to, and canvassed for Obama. I am glad Obama won and I hope he does well. However, I especially hope the Republican party will soon discontinue its attack on thoughtfulness and good sense.
@David – really appreciated your comment. that was the first reasonable response to this question that i’ve seen from a self-identified obama supporter.
as for the point of etiquette, i can not overlook some of the glaring problems i see in obama’s policies and do not feel the need to give him or his supporters a free pass until he has been exonerated from his chicago litigation, or until his infanticidist views change.
i see your point of view. however, i think that obama’s supporters wildly overstate his anti-war attitude. he most recently spoke of going into pakistan unilaterally and dealing with the terrorist regime there.
sounds familiar…
he also speaks highly of continuing the war in afganistan.
so, to me, once again his words and actions don’t meet up with his supporters’ belief in him…
the thoughts on the GOP are spot on. amazingly, the GOP lost this election for themselves…an election that 2 years ago was a total lost cause. unfortunately, the GOP is having a huge identity crisis, as your comments noted, and the country has swung back to left-of-center for a while.
i guess i just don’t see how so many people can say to me ‘i’m a christian, i’m pro-life, i’m against the war and i support barack obama.’ i say that not because i disagree with obama’s policies, which i do, but because so many of the reasons i hear from his supporters ALSO disagree with his policies…whether it be war (on terror, not iraq), his stance on abortion (he is the most liberally minded candidate on abortion in 30 years) or his record of integrity.
i simply don’t see what you see in him. i hope that makes sense.
again, thank you greatly for your comment.
blessings and maranatha!
Gene, well said. I agree 100%. This election wasn’t about issues, it was about George W Bush’s presidency and Obama’s speeches. If Mccain had focused more on issues and records rather than pitching the “guilty by association” fallacy he would have had more of a shot. Also I think the republicans chose the wrong candidate…but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Americans elected the most radical liberal candidate in recent memory without knowing anything about him. God help us.
ps…i got some comfort from your “choosing not to fear” post, though I’m still stocking up on gold n guns in preparation for the amero…
Gene- On the etiquette question, surely there is some middle ground between “free pass” and assuming the worst imaginable. Don’t you find it hard to believe that any elected official in the country is pro-infanticide, actually in favor of killing babies born and living? Even if such people existed, would they have the guts to come out for infanticide publicly? Suppose they did. Would such “people” occupy a majority of seats in the Illinois state senate? It is hard to take seriously your avowed interest in understanding the appeal of Obama when you seem willing to believe such transparent falsehoods.
In any case, on abortion the truth is bad enough. Factcheck.org has a nice rundown on “infanticide” issue and Obama does not come off well, though perhaps not as badly as some would like. I haven’t read it in a while, but the gist is that Obama was unwilling to risk eroding the legality of abortion by voting for a law that provided special protections for survivors of abortions. He claimed that these babies already enjoyed the protection of the law and that the true purpose of the bill was to redefine the legal meaning of the unborn and undermine Roe v. Wade. Obama has since said that that Illinois bill lacked language that said it would not conflict with Rv.W, language that was included in a similar bill that he voted for as a U.S. Senator. Factcheck.org said that the Illinois bill included such language too, however. So either something else was different about the US senate bill or his interpretation changed or his political calculation changed. I don’t know why he changed his mind, but if his earlier vote was what you meant by infanticidal, then he has already changed his views. My own view is that he thinks abortion should be legal, but not infanticide.
As to how I could support him and be in favor of outlawing abortion, there are several considerations.
1) The president’s ability to make abortion illegal is very limited and indirect. The views of judges on this issue have proven difficult to predict.
2) The strategy of packing the court around abortion undermines the rule of law and leads to unqualified nominees. A constitutional amendment would be a much better path.
3) If Roe were overturned it would hand the matter to the states, an outcome that would likely reduce abortions, especially in the middle of the country, but is not the prize that most pro-lifers imagine overturning Roe to be.
4) This is complicated, but, poverty and economic vulnerability are factors contributing to the more abortions. Republican administrations have not been good to the poor.
5) There are other issues that are also important and that Presidents have more direct control over.
You say, “i think that obama’s supporters wildly overstate his anti-war attitude.” I’m not sure if you are responding to me here, but I am not confused about this. Obama is not a pacifist. He had the good sense to be opposed to the Iraq war, but he is stuck with it now. He simply represents a return to what used to be considered conservative foreign policy, that is, a modest and pragmatic approach to American engagement with the world, much like foreign policy under George H. W. Bush. McCain, for better or worse has a more heroic inclination. For McCain, as for Bush, foreign engagements are a test of will and honor. As I said, the differences are primarily in disposition and reasoning.
You said, “he most recently spoke of going into pakistan unilaterally and dealing with the terrorist regime there.” Not really. Pakistan has an elected government, but is really dominated by the military, which receives lots of funds from the United States in exchange for their help in hunting down Al Qaeda. Our support of military rule in Pakistan is not particularly helpful for our credibility when we say that we are promoting democracy in Iraq. I know some Palestinians who get very worked up on this point and saw the US support of Musharraf as the height of US hypocrisy. What many Pakistanis and others in the Arab world believe is that the US wants docile regimes that it can use for its purposes. Needless to say this has not helped to win their trust and support in fighting terrorism. What Obama said, and he has said this for at least a year, is that we should not be so deferential to Pakistan. We are asking them to help us eliminate Al Qaeda, if they won’t, we will. This is a very different situation from Iraq, where the goal was always regime change. Obama is suggesting putting pressure on a regime that we don’t want to be so closely associated with anyway. In the last few months, this has essentially become the Bush administration position as well and they have made attacks on Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.
You say, “i simply don’t see what you see in him.”
Well, I tried.
Hi Gene,
Was wondering if I can use your blog entry and site your writing? I’m still wondering the same things you’re asking yourself and would like to get feedback from other Christians. Just wanting to ask. Thanks.
@Soc – no problem. have at it.