Iowa Liberal

Sullivan’s reader’s are a class unto themselves:

Obama said at the outset that he wanted a civil campaign on the issues. He said he would avoid the politics of person destruction. He demanded a cool, no drama organization — much like himself.
He organized a strong team. Set clear goals. Adopted a sound plan and stuck to it. Reasoned, careful. Solid judgment. And in the intense glare of things like Wright and flags pins, he stuck to it all. Above all, Obama really has stayed true to who he is.
McCain on the other hand, despite his calls for a civil campaign, injected personal attacks. He cosied up to the same religious extremist he once decried. People like Hagee. And when that wasn’t enough, he brought onto the ticket a evangelical with extreme views on abortion, contraception and sex education — positions well to the right of most of the people in the Republican Party. And he hired the same polarizing, no-holds-barred political assassins that George Bush unleashed on America and McCain himself.
Senator McCain didn’t stay true to himself. He morphed into a right-wing, polarizing ideologue campaign. And why? On the one hand, he’s ambivalent about his ambitions, but often he’ll lose sight of his values and overreach for the sake of those ambitions. In other words, he falls victim to the allure of power and loses his good judgment. He doesn’t stay true to himself.
I dearly hope American’s will come to appreciate this about these two men. One has stayed true to the better angels of his nature. One succumbed to the darker angels of his. Which one would make a better president in these sad and trying times?

Now obviously we’ve had some heated discussions in here about some of Obama’s policy decisions, most notably the FISA “compromise.” The storm will weather everybody, but some will stand taller than others when it is over. Barack Obama has come through a gauntlet with some scratches, but McCain has endured little more than sagging poll numbers and he’s resorted to every sleazy trick in the book to try taking down Obama.

And for any winger out there who’s itching to scream “POW!” it doesn’t serve as a defense for caving in today.

-jb

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.