OBAMA!!!!

Obama is the choice

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The 44th president of the United States will take office in an uncertain and dangerous time for this country. The challenges we face both overseas and here at home are complex and unfamiliar, and the road ahead is likely to be very different from the road we have traveled to get here.

Leading the country in such a time will require someone of intellect, creativity, honesty and passion for those traits that have made America great. That person is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

In the past eight years, the policies and ideologies that have animated the Bush administration have proved disastrous in almost every field of endeavor, from foreign policy to economics to relatively straightforward tasks such as responding to natural disasters. As a consequence, President Bush�s approval rating is as low as or lower than that of any other president in the history of polling.

Naturally, both Obama and his opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain, have promised to take the country in a new direction. Both are honorable men fully qualified and competent to be president.

McCain, however, faces a hurdle in his claim to be an agent of change because he shares a political party with Bush. To offset that fact, McCain has wisely chosen to campaign on his reputation as a maverick, a reputation that he once fully deserved.

However, in his current role as Republican nominee, McCain has yet to explain how most of his proposed policies and approaches differ from those of the current president. From deregulation of Wall Street and tax cuts that favor the richest 5 percent of Americans to a more aggressive foreign policy, McCain�s approach now reflects the same Republican orthodoxy that has governed this country since 2000. Time and again, he has been offered chances to explain how his philosophy differs from that of the current president, and he has not been able to do so.

And it�s not just a matter of policies. A third term under another Republican president would inevitably be populated by much the same cast of GOP staffers, executives and bureaucrats that has run Washington for so long and with such disastrous results. McCain�s campaign staff illustrates that problem perfectly because it is populated by many of the same people who ran previous Bush campaigns. They are also still trying to run the same basic Republican playbook that the party has used since 1980.

In fact, the competence of McCain�s campaign staff is itself cause to question the candidate�s executive abilities. To some degree, the rigors of creating and running a campaign organization can be a test of the skills needed to create and run an administration. And even many Republicans acknowledge that the McCain campaign has been poorly organized and erratic, lurching from one crisis to another without the sense of a strong hand at the tiller.

Columnist William Kristol, a longtime McCain backer, calls the McCain campaign �close to being out�and�out dysfunctional,� concluding that �its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic.�

And of course, the most unfortunate evidence of that �strategic incoherence and operational incompetence� was McCain�s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a person utterly unprepared for the high post in question.

The contrast with the campaign run by Barack Obama could not be more stark. More than a year ago, when he was still a long shot without much money, Obama somehow managed to attract a staff talented and disciplined enough to defeat Hillary Clinton and the Clinton machine in the Democratic primaries. It has since gone on to demonstrate a great deal of political discipline, skill and innovation, running a 21st century campaign that appeals to 21st century America.

Different challenges require different strengths. Obama has demonstrated a calm, thoughtful leadership style that fits this time and this challenge well. He has laid out a wiser, more measured approach toward foreign policy that elevates diplomacy and negotiation while reserving the use of force if necessary to protect this country and its allies in a dangerous world. He understands that international respect and admiration can�t be forced at gunpoint.

Economically, Obama is better equipped to deal with a rapidly changing global situation, and his policies focus directly on the problems confronting the American working and middle classes. His tax plan, for example, proposes to cut taxes on 95 percent of American households while raising taxes only on households with an income of more than $250,000. That plan may have to be adjusted in light of a harsh new fiscal reality, but it demonstrates where Obama�s instincts and values lead him.

The same is true of his health-care proposal. It requires a comprehensive approach, including financial assistance to help small businesses buy insurance for their employees. It would also require large employers that do not offer health insurance to help their workers with the cost of buying insurance on their own.

Those are new approaches, crafted by a new generation of leaders drawn to Obama by the chance to write their own chapter in the American story. Their time has come. His time has come. Obama is a leader of rare potential, and that�s precisely what the job of our 44th president demands.

� Jay Bookman (jbookman@ajc .com) and Cynthia Tucker(cynthia@ ajc.com), for the editorial board.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/10/19/prezed_1019.html