Why I Will Vote for Obama

My first choice for President was and remains Christopher Dodd. Although his bid was hopeless, I still intended to vote for him on Super Tuesday, hoping that he would garner enough votes to persuade our next President to appoint him as Attorney General. Even after he dropped out of the race after Iowa, I considered a write-in for him. Hillary seemed too compromised, and Obama more talk than action.

This post convinced me to vote for Obama. Finding the Democratic establishment already committed to Hillary, Obama and his followers set out to create their own new establishment, particularly in rural areas that were longstanding Republican strongholds. In parts rural Nevada, the Democratic Party is building an apparatus in areas so long ceded to the Republicans that no such apparatus existed. They are developing positive programs to address the problems of rural America.

This is good, and not only insofar as it is building and extending the Democratic Party. It is, after all, easier for Rush Limbaugh and talk radio to demonize liberals and Democrats to rural America when they are far away abstractions, not real neighbors. And the appeal of Rush Limbaugh, talk radio, posse commitatus, militias and the like to rural America is not, after all, pure perversity. It is honest anger at real grievances, which right-wingers have learned to channel to their own uses. If Obama's followers are able to offer something positive in areas where Democrats are traditionally excluded that will do more than anything to blunt the influence of talk radio and the Radical Right.