Once Burned, Twice Shy

It has taken me a long look at the policies, promises, and personal characteristics of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates to finally decide whom I will support this election. To no one's surprise in my family, I will vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. And I am at the same time very proud of those in my family who strenuously support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Voting is a personal right, privelege, and patriotic duty of every qualified citizen, and each should vote for whom he or she believes will be the best President, regardless of other pressures.

That decision, however, has not been easy for me. Obama is clearly the more reasonable, relaxed and skilled organizer and facilitator. I expect him to be very adept at building support in Congress for his agenda and effecting major changes in the political landscape, and to administer with grace and alacrity. And I expect him to win, and win big. The reality of the financial crisis of October has handed Barack Obama the American Presidency on a silver platter, and there is nothing McCain or anyone else can do to assuage the angry wave of voters eager to punish the Republicans for it, though the blame goes back a lot farther than the Bush tenure. When the economic recovery comes, Obama will take the credit, though he will have done little, I fear, to bring it about.

The biggest problem I have with an Obama presidency is that I have too vivid memories of another recent silver-tongued orator who could, like Obama, charm the leaves off the trees with his reasonable tone and sincerity, whom several of my loved ones enthusiastically supported for his two terms, and whom I came to view as an out-and-out scallawag, liar, and man of shallow convictions, changing his positions with the polls of public opinion for political expediency instead of acting out of principle.

I readily admit President Clinton was a likable, warm fellow and a gifted politician. But his vaunted economic surplus after eight years came at the cost to me of most of my money. As a teacher of modest income struggling to raise three children, I saw what had been a slight tax rebate each year before Clinton change to a tax bill of several thousand dollars each year of his tenure in the White House. Bill Clinton, I found out to my chagrin, had his hand in my meagre wallet from day one, and I didn't appreciate it one bit, nor his claim to "feel my pain."

Obama, like Clinton earlier, has promised me the moon this campaign, and McCain has not. Barack says he will give me a tax rebate, affordable health care and much more. McCain tells me straight up he will try to keep the war going, lower entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, and tax my health benefits if I have any. But I believe McCain and I don't believe Obama. I'm not buying Obama's rhetoric as I once did Clinton's. Once burned, twice shy.

Oh, I wish so much we could find a moderate, sensible person to lead the nation instead of pitting flamboyant personalities against vacuuous demagogues. I don't care about color or gender, or even that much about ideology. I just want a decent, honest, fair-minded person with a little humility who's not out to redistribute the wealth or present an unyielding hardheadedness to the world. Maybe it's asking for incompatible qualities in the same person.

But lacking that person, I will vote for John McCain and hope like the dickens that if by some fluke he is elected that he stays healthy for his first term. I'd hate to entrust the Presidency to Sarah Palin, who seems so gosh darn something to the right that she can't learn to be politically adept in Washington--or at least it would take a while. Biden, on the contrary, would be great, but I'd hate the tragedy it would take to have him step in. Of the four figures involved, I probably admire Joe Biden the most. Had he been the Democratic candidate instead of Obama, I think I would have voted Democratic this time, because despite my ideological disagreements with him, I trust and believe him and have respect for his ability and experience. Why must we always seem to elevate the wrong candidate to the top of the tickets? Is it possible we vote for the best campaigner or the best speaker or the best entertainer instead of the best President? I wonder.