pygalgia: Analyzing the First Inning
Pyalgia has a good analysis of the Iowa results (maybe he should be a pundit or something - oh wait, he is, thank god for the blog-o-sphere).
I am impressed and also somewhat excited about Obama's victory, even as I personally identify as small government conservative. Why? Well, the Republican party isn't offering fiscal restraint or personal liberty anymore - its just about religion and war. Sorry, I'm not very interested in that.
The demographic breakdowns that Pygalgia explains are very telling to the sources of Obama's support. Many candidates get noticed because of their appeal to the youth vote (Dean, Ron Paul, Kucinich & others come to mind), but Obama has actually managed to get the younger voters to show up.
Does Obama really represent change? Maybe not in a substantive policy sense. His advisors and campaign staff are mostly comprised of ex-Clinton era establishment Democrats, and he shares a lot of corporate sponsorship with Hillary. But, at the very least, he's willing to put his proposals up for scrutiny and admit that his first plan may not be the best one. He's not running on a platform of regulating personal behavior (cough, Huckabee, cough), and he is one of the only candidates to admit the fact that the first thing any medical reform in this country needs to focus on is reducing costs
Working to cut costs in healthcare is more "conservative" than Bush's $100 billion / year pharmaceutical subsidy. But I remain skeptical, will he really stand up to the lawyers, insurers, and FDA?
1 comment:
Hey, thanks for the kind words. Hadn't seen your blog before-looks pretty new, and good. My analysis was more about how the game is going, rather than who I'm rooting for. I've been a political junkie for a long time, and I know that my ideal candidate wont win. It's a sad truth that the best we can realistically hope for is the "least bad" candidate.
I'll be back.
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