West Hollywood, California (January 31, 2008) - My friends, this truly is the most important election in our history. With so many things that are broken in Washington right now, this is one of those elections where the entire paradigm must shift to protect our great nation. 
Neal Zaslavsky is a West Hollywood-based management and political consultant, and a frequent contributor to WeHoNews. |
Our economy continues to suffer, with jobs being outsourced overseas and the dollar in freefall. The Euro was at parity just a few years ago, but currently hovers at $1.48. It takes about $2.00 to buy a British pound and the Canadian dollar is stronger than ours for the first time since 1976.
We have seen gasoline double to more than $3.00 per gallon and are headed into the worst recession in a generation. With lax federal oversight of predatory lending practices, many Americans are losing their homes.
And with the omnipresent threat of global warming and rising ocean levels, it’s time to start looking for beachfront property in San Bernardino.
We all know that Bush’s foreign policy has damaged American credibility on the global stage like no other time in history.
My friends, this is the most important election in our history.
For the first time in a generation, Californians will have a real voice in the Presidential Primary when we join with 23 other states holding “Super Tuesday” contests on February 5th. Instead of simply being the ATM machine for most of the candidates, our votes will actually mean something beyond the symbolic.
Hillary Clinto and Barack Obama. |
We now have a two person race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with John Edwards siphoning off some of the anti-Hillary vote. Hillary’s once solid lead has dwindled.
Mrs. Clinton pompously claims to be the candidate of experience and change, but is neither. She has only 7 years in elected office, and during her tenure as First Lady, she never had a security clearance nor had access to any classified briefings. She wasn’t part of the Cabinet and failed at the only major policy issue she tackled.
And how anyone can expect her to reform our broken health care system and bring us the Universal Healthcare coverage we deserve when her fundraising coffers are filled with checks from the very pharmaceutical and insurance companies that oppose any change to the current system is simply farcical.
Any Democrat would change the philosophical and ideological bent in Washington, but Senator Clinton would not change the negative tone in Washington. She would certainly be as divisive as Mr. Bush, and would bring back the hackneyed faces of past generations.
Senator Hillary Clinton. |
This election is not a referendum on whether we liked Bill Clinton. We did. While he was a better president than Mr. Bush, this election cannot re-elect him under any circumstance. But given his stature, he will certainly be a close advisor and confidant to any President, even if they don’t share a marital bedroom.
Hillary Clinton has a relatively large base of LGBT support, notwithstanding her consistent failure to support the community on many issues. When her husband proposed the highly discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” military policy, she was silent. She did not advise him to take Harry Truman’s 1948 path whereby he simply issued an executive order desegregating the military, daring Congressional bigots to overturn his rightful order.
Mrs. Clinton opposes gay marriage, and when President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), she was again silent. When the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Peter Pace, called homosexuality immoral last year, it took Mrs. Clinton three days, and a lot of prodding, before she reluctantly condemned his ugly comments.
And on the most important vote of her career, the war in Iraq, she got it wrong. She never read the fifteen page intelligence report, and irresponsibly voted for something which has cost almost 4,000 American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. |
In so many of her Senate votes, Mrs. Clinton has sided with President Bush, and has rubber-stamped the failed policies of his right-wing administration.
This is the most important election in our history, and we cannot afford the divisiveness and disingenuousness of Mrs. Clinton.
I am proud to endorse and support Barack Obama. Senator Obama represents all that is good in America: hope, optimism and opportunity. He represents true change in Washington. And at age 46, Senator Obama also brings a youthful vitality to the campaign that we saw with JFK in 1960 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968.
As president, Barack Obama will bring forth an economic agenda to once again allow America to compete globally and ensure the middle class is not cast aside to benefit the wealthy. By investing in our infrastructure, energy independence, education, and research and development, modernizing and simplifying our broken tax code, and implementing trade policies that benefit American workers, an Obama administration would provide the greatest opportunity to more Americans.
Obama will appoint qualified people to the Supreme Court who share our vision for strong civil liberties. Obama-appointed justices will work to overturn discriminatory policies of Bush proxies, will protect a woman’s right to choose, and will strengthen hate crimes legislation.
Senator Barack Obama. |
And unlike his leading opponent, Barack Obama voted against the war in Iraq from the beginning. He has long advocated bringing our brave troops home as soon as possible. He knows that if we don’t bring them home on ships and airplanes, they’ll eventually come home in body bags. Diplomacy will be the centerpiece of an Obama foreign policy. With threats from North Korea, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and an Iranian anti-Semite denying the Holocaust and threatening to destroy Israel, we must talk to everyone—even the folks that we don’t like—to avoid the bloody conflicts of war. Obama represents this fresh approach to global diplomacy.
Barack Obama is the candidate of unity.
My friends, this is the most important election in our history, and our choice is clear.
Biographical note about the author: Neal Zaslavsky is a West Hollywood-based management and political consultant, and a frequent contributor to WeHoNews. He has managed and consulted on more than two dozen political campaigns at the national, state and local levels, including several in West Hollywood. In 2000, he served as Los Angeles County chair for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. As a graduate fellow at a major university, Mr. Zaslavsky taught courses in American Government, voting behavior, and politics, money and media. Editor's note: This article is being re-published because of editorial cuts made in last week’s article without Mr. Zaslavsky’s knowledge. This version better characterizes his views.
Printer-friendly
E-mail to friend
