How can you be a Republican? You love people.

Ah, the great college paradox I was. I was asked that question by a good friend my senior year in college. She had seen me care for kids in an after-school program in inner city L.A. She had been in my group of friends that took a homeless guy out for coffee and egg McMuffins. I had hopefully been seen as someone that was not judging/shunning and really wanted her to return to fellowship with Jesus and other believers.
But how could I still have a soul and be Republican?

It’s like the bumper sticker that I see at the public library every time I go:

Republicans for Voldemort for President

Although, to be honest, I think Palpatine shows promise as a guy who can organize people and get things done.

So I must admit that I might need to hide the fact that I’ve read Obama’s book from certain people (make that: “Discretion would suggest that…” but sometimes I’m not one for getting caught up in discretion).

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama is great (sorta). I think it’s wonderful that a senator and presidential hopeful wrote a book by himself (or at least no one wants to take credit for ghost writing). He has been a law professor, after all. I think of the president in The Simpsons movie:

Aide: We’ve broken it down into five options

President: You elected me to do, not to read.

I can get behind an author president.

But here’s my issue with the book. I checked it out to get some background information about the guy without any soundbites or video clips with the CNN Halo super-imposed on Obama’s head. I wanted to see what his ideas were (of course when you write letters to a girl you can present yourself as a lot better candidate than if you have to live in a dating relationship and work out everyday issues). He is up-front in the prologue:

I am a Democrat, after all; my views on most topics correspond more closely to the editorial pages of the New York Times than those of the Wall Street Journal.

Okay, so he’s up front with his biases. I’m cool with that. But here’s the issue:

And for eight years in the Illinois legislature, I had gotten some taste of how the game had come to be played. By the time I arrived in Springfield in 1997, the Illinois Senate’s Republican majority had adopted the same rules that Speaker Gingrich was then using to maintain absolute control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Without the capacity to get even the most moderate amendment debated, much less passed, Democrats would shout and holler and fulminate, and then stand by helplessly as Republicans passed large corporate tax breaks, stuck it to labor, or slashed social services.

He is writing as a defender of the “common American”. He talks about how politicians, as well as our whole system, now are counterproductive. He cites examples where all of the big senators have gone home to lobby for the day while a Mr.Smith-esque senator presents a bill or movement to an audience of the transcriptionist and the “unblinking eye of C-SPAN”.

The issue is that while he is trying to explain how both sides have been hurt by politics (he recalls when the Florida chad crisis happened that, when he voted to keep the results of the election and have George Bush stay president, he received angry letters and phone calls from Democrats) he leaves an inference that during the major problems that he describes, the Republicans have been at the heart of the breakdown.

Yes, he is a Democrat author. I understand that. But what would be even better author integrity would be that, since he cites Limbaugh and Hannity as heavily influencing politics, to also site some Democrats that have a voice. Do Stewart, Maher and Moore stir up some unnecessary trouble from time to time? He names Republicans but does not name from his own party. For someone who wants to break away from political games, he’s sure playing it pretty well.

All that said, I am enjoying the book. It reads very well. He doesn’t have footnotes citing his sources, like A History of the American People (GREAT book) does, but he does make it clear that Audacity of Hope is a collection of conversations that he had during his campaign life.

I haven’t found a copy of Ron Paul’s Challenge to Liberty yet. I’m trying to get to know candidates by their ideas and not by their marketing. It may be tough, but worth the effort. It makes it even tougher when books are out of print. Here’s the Ron Paul library and here are some articles.

And here is why I think this 2008 campaign is freaking hilarious:

Hello Booyor, Lord of Ghost Meadow

Elect Ron Paul has invited you to join Ultimate Ron Paul Fanatic Group on MySpace.
MySpace Groups allow users to communicate on message boards, share pictures, journals and network.
You may accept or deny this invitation below:

And we all have visited Fred Thompson’s library. “How to Keep Your Airport Safe on Christmas while a Dictator is being Transported” and “How to Intimidate a Witness in Court with your Eyebrows” are always checked out.

Oh, I guess the Internet is cool now for politicians. It dawned on me when I saw the “Transform your Ride” commercials from GM that I am now in the target demographic for middle class ads. I was watching the commercial thinking “Why would my dad want a robot car?” but then realized that I am supposed to have more buying power/desire for credit debt (even though I am a teacher).

Semi-related posts:

1. Turing Test – Part II
2. Operation: Achilles’ Heel – Part 1
3. Open Source: Part the First, Being Free and Things Concerning Free