Obama-mania

Many Americans seem to have a star-struck attitude concerning the Democratic Party’s golden boy, Barak Obama. I’ve seen video of emotional crowds, whipped into a frenzy and acting generally like 13 year old girls at an American Idle set.

Obama has never impressed me, however. First and foremost, is his voting record. Secondly, he just seems smarmy to me - a far too well oiled political machine to trust. Last, but not least, I can’t support the Democratic Party’s ideals of socialism, hidden under the “democracy” label and therefor can’t trust anyone in the party in general.

Along these lines it was interesting to find this commentary. Matt Gonzalez does a beautiful job of summing up Obama’s positions using his voting record as a standard. That Gonzalez is a self admitted “progressive”, makes it more interesting.

His conclusion says it all:

Once I started looking at the votes Obama actually cast, I began to hear his rhetoric differently. The principal conclusion I draw about “change” and Barack Obama is that Obama needs to change his voting habits and stop pandering to win votes. If he does this he might someday make a decent candidate who could earn my support. For now Obama has fallen into a dangerous pattern of capitulation that he cannot reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change.