As president, What Would Obama Do?

Most voters distrust political advertising and avoid official campaign web sites. Most news reports describe controversies, poll results, and fund raising – they’re more interested in ratings and advertising revenues than in what they “report” on. Many of the most popular programs and sources display an obvious bias, including this one (no offense, Zennie, I think they know we're early voters for Obama.) Where is the information?

Most voters distrust political advertising and avoid official campaign web sites. Worse, most news reports describe controversies, poll results, and fund raising – they're more interested in ratings and advertising revenues than in what they "report" on. Many of the most popular programs and sources display an obvious bias (as does this site.)

In these difficult times any new president requires the support and trust of the electorate, including particularly those who voted for the other party. The changes we need on everything from the burden of taxes to education of health care reform will require making many people more aware of what he would do if and when elected.

I often point you to information on the candidate's web sites if what you find here isn't answering your questions, though obviously the level of detail and transparency is different comparing Obama and McCain's officially published information (presumably because that's controlled by their campaign advisors who are fanatical about persuasion.) Searches will turn up some of the less-official answers to questions about deregulation, etc., inspiring anecdotes of personal dedication, and it's fairly easy to find actual voting information online, but AskObamaNow.com has lots of the answers collected in one place about the most likely man to be our next President.

AskObamaNow.com answers the question, "What would Obama do if elected?" It’s a voter-friendly web site featuring short videos of Barack Obama simply giving direct answers to common questions. I'm still looking for an AskMcCainNow site to appear. Thus far I can only find his record; no luck on what he'd do.

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Do the causes of Global warming matter?

Let's try a little hypothetical situation:

You're standing on a riverbank and you see more and more people who appear to be trying to get out of the river, but they're tired and can't swim to shore so they're being swept on out to sea. Do you

1. go upstream and figure out why they're all in the river, or
   
2. blame the policies of the Bush~Cheney Administration, or
   
3. ignore the cause and hope sound-bites on the 6:00 news will make it clear that you're not pointing fingers but definitely in favor of keeping people from drowning?

While you're thinking which of those three you'd suggest, watch this excerpt from a recent interview:

Is that your final answer?

While forming a sub-cabinet to study the issue isn't exactly the epitome of small-government solutions, it is creative. It wasn't, however, one of the choices you were offered.

If you picked "3" you were likely impressed by Governor Sarah Palin's amazing winking soundbite show in what was supposed to be a debate Thursday night. I suggest you move to Alaska where you can rest assured you'll be hearing a lot more sound bites from her in the coming months and years.

If you picked "2" I sympathize, but you'd better be out working to get Obama elected, and working to add forward-thinking progressives who think about energy and the environment in terms of the future to both the U.S. House and Senate or you'll be whining on November 5th.

If you picked "1" feel free to add me to your friends list, we just might have something in common.

We urgently need a comprehensive energy policy for the United State that will, at a minimum:

• Incorporate energy into an overall national security policy.
• Unify energy and environmental policy, recognizing our obligation to act as planet-stewards on behalf of future generations.
• Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
• Help create new jobs by strategically investing to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
  
• Provide incentives to save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
  
• Put hundreds of thousands of Plug-In Hybrid cars on the road sooner rather than later. Our government must work to encourage those vehicles are being built here in America.
  
• Ensure 10% or more of our electricity comes from renewable sources within 5 years, and aim for 25% within 15 years.
  
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to substantively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Let's talk about the real world

The causes of global warming do matter. And while there is more than one reason people may fall in the river, making sure other people aren't pushing them in and figuring out what the main causes are -- and preventing those -- will save us a lot of time and risk we'll otherwise invest in hauling drowning people to shore. Governor Palin's flippant, sound-bite-ready reaction shows a naive, dangerous lack of understanding.

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