For some reason, I've become fascinated with the upcoming election this year. As Rachel said, this is the first time we've really been interested in politics, and I think this is a good thing. Last night as I was flipping between CNN's coverage of the Iowa Caucus (I'm still not sure what a caucus is by the way, or how to spell it for that matter) and the Orange Bowl, I was trying to analyze what was going through my own head in trying to choose a candidate I liked. I was a little annoyed by the CNN people repeatedly saying that it was the "evangelical" voters who won Huckabee Iowa, I guess because it seemed like they were always using a tone: "those pesky biased evangelicals who always unthoughtfully just vote for the 'christian' candidate." But I guess there are a lot of people who vote like this -- and I'm trying my best not to be "unthoughtful" in my voting this year. I've heard Martin Luther quoted several times as saying he'd "rather be ruled by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian", and though it seems like Martin Luther never actually said this (which leads me to another point -- look up your sources before you quote people!), I have to agree with whoever said this. You could be a great Christian, and be a horrible political leader, and we shouldn't vote for someone like that. On the other hand, I think it's obvious not only to Christians but to all Americans, that we all want to vote for somebody that we trust and that we think generally has good character. This is what goes through my mind, at least: which candidate seems like he or she is actually going to follow through on all the promises he/she is making? I don't think anyone wants someone who is just a sweet-talking politician, but rather a strong leader who leads firmly and thoughtfully: i.e., with integrity. Another thing that annoys me is the hard-lined partisan talk: "the other party is filled with complete idiots and everything they stand for will lead this nation to doom." It seems obvious to me that that we need both the Democrats and the Republicans: why else have they both survived virtually equally in our government throughout history? It seems like our country basically survives on them balancing each other out. I'll wrap up my long rant by saying that I think this is why Obama and Huckabee have emerged as the early leaders in this race: they seem to be appealing to the American people as the most honest candidates who are also striving to be less partisan and more understanding of opposing viewpoints. I think that's good.
Friday, January 4, 2008
More Politics
For some reason, I've become fascinated with the upcoming election this year. As Rachel said, this is the first time we've really been interested in politics, and I think this is a good thing. Last night as I was flipping between CNN's coverage of the Iowa Caucus (I'm still not sure what a caucus is by the way, or how to spell it for that matter) and the Orange Bowl, I was trying to analyze what was going through my own head in trying to choose a candidate I liked. I was a little annoyed by the CNN people repeatedly saying that it was the "evangelical" voters who won Huckabee Iowa, I guess because it seemed like they were always using a tone: "those pesky biased evangelicals who always unthoughtfully just vote for the 'christian' candidate." But I guess there are a lot of people who vote like this -- and I'm trying my best not to be "unthoughtful" in my voting this year. I've heard Martin Luther quoted several times as saying he'd "rather be ruled by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian", and though it seems like Martin Luther never actually said this (which leads me to another point -- look up your sources before you quote people!), I have to agree with whoever said this. You could be a great Christian, and be a horrible political leader, and we shouldn't vote for someone like that. On the other hand, I think it's obvious not only to Christians but to all Americans, that we all want to vote for somebody that we trust and that we think generally has good character. This is what goes through my mind, at least: which candidate seems like he or she is actually going to follow through on all the promises he/she is making? I don't think anyone wants someone who is just a sweet-talking politician, but rather a strong leader who leads firmly and thoughtfully: i.e., with integrity. Another thing that annoys me is the hard-lined partisan talk: "the other party is filled with complete idiots and everything they stand for will lead this nation to doom." It seems obvious to me that that we need both the Democrats and the Republicans: why else have they both survived virtually equally in our government throughout history? It seems like our country basically survives on them balancing each other out. I'll wrap up my long rant by saying that I think this is why Obama and Huckabee have emerged as the early leaders in this race: they seem to be appealing to the American people as the most honest candidates who are also striving to be less partisan and more understanding of opposing viewpoints. I think that's good.
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3 comments:
those are my 2 favorites right now as well...
i like huckabee a lot... and not because he's a follower of Jesus but because he's a real guy who is not just towing the party line and thinking critically through issues. i think his idea to re-org the irs is really interesting.
btw - bamboo ear wax pickers... total chinese thing. you get it in chinatown. they look like this:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/e/ef/300px-Mimikaki_take.jpg
I'm toying with the idea of voting purely on my perceptions of a candidate's character and completely ignore the "real issues". For instance, Huckabee has this oddball fascination with Chuck Norris- a definite plus. That's really all I know about him except he used to be fat but lost a lot of weight, which I'm kind of on the fence about.
Obama I've actually been following for a while, ever since I watched the news about Illinois' Senate race in 2004 when I was visiting Pamela in Chicago.
Aside: Jack Ryan's whole sex club thing with Seven-of-Nine is one of those few awesomely kinky political scandals of our time.
In my mind, Obama is the least funkiest black man ever, which actually has it own charm to it. On a more serious note, I read a news article a couple of years ago about a keynote speech he made about faith and politics. It earned him a lot of respect from me. Here's the link to the speech; the main part I'm talking about is the last ten paragraphs at the bottom: http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/
I'm toying with the idea of voting purely on my perceptions of a candidate's character and completely ignore the "real issues". For instance, Huckabee has this oddball fascination with Chuck Norris- a definite plus. That's really all I know about him except he used to be fat but lost a lot of weight, which I'm kind of on the fence about.
Obama I've actually been following for a while, ever since I watched the news about Illinois' Senate race in 2004 when I was visiting Pamela in Chicago.
Aside: Jack Ryan's whole sex club thing with Seven-of-Nine is one of those few awesomely kinky political scandals of our time.
In my mind, Obama is the least funkiest black man ever, which actually has it own charm to it. On a more serious note, I read a news article a couple of years ago about a keynote speech he made about faith and politics. It earned him a lot of respect from me. Here's the link to the speech; the main part I'm talking about is the last ten paragraphs at the bottom: http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/
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