Reply #159: Edwards said similar things questioning Obama on corporate ties, ...

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Early on, Edwards certainly made somewhat more attacks against the front-runner, Clinton, than against Obama or anyone else. In the early debates, it was only Edwards who had the ability to land any blows against her and start the decline in her poll numbers. Obama lacks the verbal agility and conciseness to be effective in debates.

But Edwards did not spare Obama, particularly on health care and energy/environment. Edwards also pointed out Obama receiving the most contributions from the health care and pharma industries (I think those were the two).

I supported Edwards from the beginning for a lot of reasons and a year ago rated Obama and Clinton among my least-favorite of our candidates when the debates began. I could find many positives with each one of our candidates, but also negatives with each. Coming from the populist wing of the party in NC, I found both Obama and Clinton too far in the corporate/business direction.

Following Iowa, I started looking more closely at Obama since I already knew a lot about Clinton. Maybe because I am old, cynical, and results oriented, I never was impressed by Obama, not even his speeches; they were performed reasonably well except for the tele-prompters and never facing the camera, but seemed relatively ordinary in content.

Since then, as I have read more about him, his family, his associates, his statements, his experience, I have become increasingly uneasy about him, the facts versus the legend. His life story, mostly presented in his books, reminds me of resumes that are slightly "off" with inconsistencies in timeline, education, employment, skills. So I began reading various MSM articles about him and his complex family. Almost no aspect of his life quite matches the version from his books and on his web site.

Because of all the problems I found and the risks they pose, this week I have decided that I will vote for Clinton next week. I am not a Clinton supporter, just an Edwards supporter faced with an unpleasant choice. I have no illusions about Clinton, and I would vote for Obama in November against McCain.

While Edwards was still running, I posted a few times against Obama, mostly wrt to how he and Clinton misrepresented their respective positions wrt Iraq. I have avoided posting publicly any of my specific concerns about Obama until I have seen that concern widely discussed elsewhere. (I have PM with several of you here at DU.)

Here are some the issues that influenced my decision:

1. I much prefer Clinton's positions on major domestic issues like health care to Obama's. Have some foreign policy issues with each. Don't like the pandering by either.

2. Almost nothing in Obama's "born in a log cabin"-like autobiography seems to hold up to close scrutiny. Even little things that shouldn't matter to anyone. Was his "Christian mother born and raised in Kansas" also a "very liberal UUA/atheist from Mercer Island, Washington"? Which of his parents earned a PhD? Almost never mentioned is that his mother earned a PhD in Anthropology, while his father only received a Masters from Harvard. (Why all the focus on his missing-from-birth father to the exclusion of his mother?)

While Obama's family was not rich and he did attend school in Hawaii with the help of a scholarship (AFAIK), they were solidly middle glass professionals. His grandmother was the senior VP of a major bank and head of the Escrow Department; while banks were not known for high pay, she was much more successful than implied. In Indonesia, after first living in a modest neighborhood for two years, his stepfather moved the family into one of the best neighborhoods and there are references to being around the pool at his step-father's club. That looks like maybe even upper-level professional to me.

3. All the too-clever-by-half posturing on religion is really resonating among voters. "No way he could sit in church for 20 years and not hear any of this." This is the kind of issue that people can understand. The Muslim issue is much the same type problem. The initial denials of any connections to Islam except through his now-agnostic and absent father following the madrassa emails have now eroded to "never a practicing Muslim". From what I can tell, he probably had two hours a week of Islamic religious instruction at the public school in Indonesia (and Christian instruction the previous two years) and attended a few Islamic celebrations and some Christian services. Rather than describe this as similar to the many mixed-faith, mostly-secular families we all know who respect each others traditions, he completely denies any connection and leaves himself open to questions about what he might be trying to hide. I suspect he really does not want the see the phrase "black Muslim" to describe him.

4. Rezko could still explode on the scene. The trial is grinding along and who knows. The Obama/Rezko house deal looks really bad to me and I know quite a bit about real estate, sham transactions, etc. It does not pass the smell test. In spite of claims that there is nothing to any of this and that it has been debunked, it has not been debunked.

5. Allison Davis, the senior partner at Obama's law firm who became Rezko's partner, is now turning up in trial testimony.

6. Obama's mentor in Hawaii whom he referred to only as Frank is now reported as being Frank Marshall Davis. If true, it adds a really interesting aspect to Obama's story, but will mostly be used against him because of his Communist Park membership. It has already begun.

7. I hated his attacking Boomers by using the Helms/Reagan talking points about the excesses and fighting etc.

8. I have not found any independent proof that Obama actually gave "that speech" on October 2, 2008. He did speak, but there is only a few seconds of video of him that day; everything else is a recreation based upon a press release he sent out three weeks later, after the benefit of the debate, the votes, and all the resulting uproar. I have a lot more hard evidence that Clinton's mother could have seen articles on Edmund Hillary while pregnant than I do that Obama gave that speech! (BTW a Google search is not good enough)


I really miss John Edwards.