Waning Obamania

Two stories in the news today have me regretting all of the positive things I've been saying about Obama and doubting the likelihood that I'll actually end up voting for the guy.

First, he's out pimping his Christian bona fides. Eight years of religious fervor in the White House has been enough. We don't need another believer trying to guide the world toward the end days as described by their favorite prophecy. "But let’s remember one thing: Obama has a story to tell about how Jesus came into his life. You can bet we will be hearing more details about it on the stump in the fall." Great. If he wants to continue to dissuade white voters, he'll make great strides by going all black preacher on the trail. At least so far he's sticking with the title Senator over Reverend.

Next comes the speculation that John Edwards could be his VP running mate. I think it's unlikely that he'd actually choose that douche bag as I conspiratorially suspect that there's more dirt out there regarding his alleged affair. But it's impossible for me to not think of the guy as a douche bag, and despite the soaring qualifications that gives him as a national politician, I'd rather not see him representing the country doing anything.

What I would really, really like to see Obama do is to pick Al Gore as his VP. It's not without precedent for a VP to serve under multiple presidents. George Clinton served under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. You may recall that one of Mr. Gore's great successes during the Clinton years was reinventing government - a broad (and highly successful) effort to streamline and reduce the size of the federal government. By 1999: "the Reinventing Government initiative headed by Al Gore has saved $137 billion, eliminated 16,000 pages of regulations, eliminated 640,000 pages of needless internal rules, and reduced the federal workforce by more than 350,000, to its smallest size since John Kennedy was President." The past 8 years have decimated Mr. Gore's previous work. He was good at it once, and he'd be good at it again.

Jonathan 5/14/2008 05:17:00 PM