Centerfield

My problem with Obama is that when he is in a debate or interview he can't really go into detail like Hillary the uber wonkette.
I like her for her depth of understanding and attention to details and the fact that she's walked the talk while Obama was in diapers. After all, she went from Ivy league law degree to the Children's Defense Fund, not to corporate America like most of her classmates.

Then again though, pretty much the rest of the GOP field, Romney, 9/11, Huckabee and McCain, aren't exactly all there either. Pin them to detail and they seem to weasel around. When some of them get into detail like Huckabee and his claim of divine intervention at the polls...maybe that's TOO much information. (That Chuck Norris thing is creepy too) Plus you have to feel sorry for these guys, they supported the unenviable GOP record of the past 7 years that they have to run on,like doubling the national debt, government agencies that can't tie their shoelaces, an intrusive government that does not seem to feel that it should limit itself but spy whenever they want on the American people, incarcerate whomever they want, use the Justice Dept for political purposes, an economy that fails the middle class, triple pump prices, double the health insurance costs, no real wage gains while our jobs are outsourced in trade deals that seem to help the corporations and screw the rest of us (yes I blame Bill for NAFTA too) and so on and so on, the list is an overly long and depressing maelstrom of malfeasance, corruption and incompetence.
So yes, Obama's statement might be disturbing to some of you but when you look at the decades-long mantra like rhetoric of the GOP, smaller more efficint less intrusive government, and you look at the last 7 years of unremitting reality, you gotta go, "He's right."
And that's what's really sad. When Bush first came into office I really believed that the GOP would do what they said they would do.

Stoopid me to belive that. Stoopid Republicans for abandoning their principles. 9 Trillion dollars in debt. Who would of thought. Goldwater's spinning like a neutron star in his grave.

The dead rising from their graves. Cats and dogs, living together....

I'd rather have somebody who seems to be a decent guy even if I disagree with most of his policy positions than somebody who is closer to my preferred policy positions who I think is a moral monster; in that respect, I'm a "character" voter. So in that respect, yeah, I'd prefer Obama to Clinton or Romney.

Most liberals believe liberalism is based in reason because they think conservativism is based on religious fervor -- and since they are the opposite, they must be fact-based. What they miss is that any belief system (even if it began with reason) can quickly become faith-based if enough adherrents blindly believe in it. I often question if either modern liberalism or modern conservativism are based in reason.

All that aside, I don't see where Obama is any more or less liberal than Clinton on 95% of the issues. And just because she's wonky doesn't mean she'll be a better president. A firm grasp of the details has never proven to be an indicator of success in the oval office. To me, it's a character thing and Obama is seemingly better in that regard.

Of course, I'll most likely be voting in the Republican primary, so my thoughts and endorsements are just more noise.

To clarify, it's a character thing because I think there's too little difference in Obama's and Clinton's positions and because I think their respective negatives on substantive matters cancel each other out. I don't generally place character above ability.

"...she's walked the talk while Obama was in diapers." - Marcus

That would be when she was being a corporate lawyer in Arkansas, right? The time ("Obama was in daipers") seems about right....

I have no problem for giving Clinton credit for in-depth knowledge of issues. But to imply that she deserves credit for self-sacrificing devotion of her career to helping others is to ignore her actual track record.

Sorry Marcus, not me, no sale. Those democrats who think their views are more founded in fact and reason are the ones who really believe in the worst and most ugly stereotypical caricatures of republicans.

IOW, they're part of the problem, not part of the solution. In the past 4 or 5 years of blogging, I have had somewhat more in-depth and reasonable discussion with Republicans than Democrats. What does that mean? Well I'm not stupid enough to think that it means that Republicans are more reasonable. It probably means that I have not been getting a perfectly balanced sampling.

Here's the thing. There was a time not so, so long ago that I tended to agree with Obama's sentiment. But my sampling THEN really sucked. My current samplings may be imperfect, but they are far better than they were, and sufficient to let me know that the sentiment that liberals are more reasonable is not just ludicrous crap, but is growing ever more ludicrous, as liberals get weighed down by their own growing faction of true believers whose views don't even match the foundational ideals of liberalism.

Liberals have a fringe core of true believers that is every bit as embarassing to the concept of fact-based reasoning as conservatives.

My impression of Republicans comes mainly from my father who in the 80's felt that Reagan betrayed conservative ideals by tripling the national debt.
He also didn't like the two recessions which wrecked his business.
He hasn't voted Republican since.

I personally don't give ugly caricatures to most Republicans. But I also don't find credence in the claims that gay marriage will destroy the institution of marriage, after all if you want less gay sex then what's better than marriage?, - that cutting taxes for multimillionaires will increase investment in manufacturing and then spur the economy when in fact, as the last recession illustrated, GDP went up and THEN investment in manufacturing increased about a year or two later.
-that the GOP calls itself the champion of small government and smaller budgets when we know for a fact that government got smaller under Clinton and larger under Bush and don't talk to me about the national debt because my head will explode. We know basically that having a GOP majority and a GOP president is a mistake when it coms to the budget. -we know that the claim of being the better party for national defense is false because, guess what, we have no longer have a national defense capable of dealing with major emergencies.(today's WONDERFUL news) And we know that the GOP is rather cowardly politically because they've been willing to sacrifice the mental health and well being of our soldiers and families rather than have a military draft, and would rather spend billions on contractors than billions on our soldiers.

And that's my short list.