The Audacity of Living History

I'm a convert to liberal politics. I grew up in a Republican household, but as environmental and social issues grew more mainstream in the 1990s, I reevaluated my presumed political beliefs. I voted for Bill Clinton in 1996. In 2000, I voted for Bush out of pure laziness. I didn't want to vote for Gore because I didn't think he had the stones to lead the nation. I still don't. Little did I know that Bush would lead to swelling government, a war funded on credit from China, and a national debt approaching 10 trillion dollars.

In 2004 I voted Kerry, and when it became clear on election night 2004 that he had lost Ohio, I smoked the last cigarette of my life, trying to use the nicotine buzz to distract myself from what I new would be the heartache of the next four years.

Now in 2008, it's highly likely that either an African-American or a woman will be the next President, something I scarcely dared to dream of during my dark closeted days of youthful leftist idealism.

Because the battle for the nomination will almost surely be more harrowing than the general campaign, I decided that I would make a concerted effort to pick the best candidate.

For years, I have admired Hillary Rodham Clinton for her work as a child advocate and then as a humanitarian First Lady. I consider myself a male feminist, so I was thrilled when she announced her candidacy and couldn't wait to vote for her. But then the notion of her 'inevitability' started permeating the public consciousness. This disturbed me. It began to seem that the Democrats didn't care about who may be the best, just who was wasting their time running against the Great Hillary.

A dear Republican friend told me that he was leaning toward Obama. He relayed that there was a populist movement circulating that was proving to be effective in winning people over from all points of the political spectrum.

I started investigating my options a little more. The knee-jerk reaction of "just vote for the b*tch" was beginning to fade as I realized that Hillary may not be able to win over as many people as someone who was a relative newcomer.

I looked online at voting records, platform statements, policy views and determined that I should probably find a more in-depth way to choose my candidate.

I decided that my best option was to get inside the heads of Hillary and Barack. One way I thought of to do this was to read the books each senator had written. I reserved them at the library and Hillary's became available first. I had unwittingly reserved the monstrous large-print edition. The nearly 900 page behemoth of a tome felt much like a burden both mentally and physically.

So began my odyssey into the life and times of Hillary Rodham Clinton, a simple bookish girl from the midwest, not to different from myself, who converted her political persuasion when she came of age. She detailed (and I do mean detailed) every period in her life. Her times at Wellesley made her into an advocate for social justice and civil rights, and her time at Yale lent her to be a congressional staffer investigating the Nixon debacle.
Her marriage took her to Arkansas and gave her a great insight into how the political system works. Her time in the White House took her around the world and helped make her one of the most admired Americans of the past several decades, if not within her own country, then on the World Stage. I finished the book after many fits and starts and finally returned it to the library.

Then I picked up the Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. Interestingly enough, it was concise, better written, and more substantive than Hillary's saccharin glaze of her personal world view. For someone who is much younger than Hillary and has spent less time in national office, he is much more astute about people and politics. His dissertation on the myriad political problems facing the nation and the world were cogent and his proposed solutions were very much in step with my beliefs.

Obama's book is much more blatantly a campaign tool than Clinton's. Though neither openly asserts they will be running for president, Clinton's book seemed a lot more self-serving and apologetic of her past shortcomings. It seemed after reading both that Hillary was campaigning to win over tentative voters who may not like her but this is why thy should. Obama's book was much more open about his own political beliefs and proposed real solutions. His honest answers were unflinching, even though his stance would be open to refutation.

Overall, both books gave me a feeling that each candidate could be a great nominee, but only one was brave enough to put his positions out in front to be accepted or rejected by readers.

One drawback to Clinton's book is that it does not cover her future, but only her past. It also essentially stops after September 11 and doesn't even begin to touch the Iraq issue.

Obama has four to five years more challenges to answer, so he answers them. If Clinton were to have written her book at the same time, I think it's doubtful that she would have been brave enough to propose real change.

I think that with all things considered, my ballot will be checked for Obama come the May Indiana primary. As I write this, the entire primary process could give way in either direction, but after careful consideration, I would prefer the leader who is audacious enough to put his positions on the line in advance than one who apologizes for past mistakes.