Fair enough...so describe to me the Obama supporters, how they came to be the way they are and how best to appeal to them.
Obama supporters for the most part believe it's time to refocus our countries efforts away from careless nation building to more pressing concerns with far more long term consequences such as healthcare, education and infrastructure. We value not just equality, but equity with regards to healthcare and education, nevertheless we believe it's necessary for individuals to be accountable. It's a fine line between finding a balance between government handouts and individual responsibility. No, we are not all socialists. In fact, I consider many like myself are fiscally moderate to somewhat conservative individuals coming from higher income brackets. Social equality and fiscal conservatism do not have to be two mutually exclusive entities. Some us are "insane ultra lefty libs," but many of us are just average individuals with different concerns than McCain supporters.
A lot of us believe our funding should be shifted from defense to domestic concerns. What good is promoting big business if the middle class rarely reaps the benefits of corporate success? Some of the Obama indepedents like msyelf actually like John McCain when he was the bold innovative man that he came across to be, back before dubya. Our nation has been conditioned to accept that any form of government intervention is only a barrier to economic growth. The fact of the matter is, this cannot be farther from the truth. How do you think we got out of the great depression? We are in not only an economic recession, but a "brain" recession. Countries overseas are churning out highly educated individuals more quickly than we are. Our jobs are going overseas because corporations are not stupid and they realize that they can have highly educated workers doing the work for a fraction of the cost. What are we going to do about this? Are we going to treat our recession as purely economic by just lowering taxes to help spur growth? Or are we going to paddle up the river to get to the greater determinants of our collective social condition by fixing education and creating opportunities for all individuals to advance in society.
What about healthcare? Are we going to just sit on our thumbs and hide behind our mantras of how vastly privatized healthcare creates incentives and improves quality? Yes, there is some truth to this, but do you think it's right to keep bankrupting our country with defunct Medicare/Medicaid policies which still leave over 45 million people uninsured, and almost 90 million people underinsured? Why is it that our country spends 16% of our GDP, annually, on healthcare but when someone like me who is insured and coming from the top 1% of all income earners has to still spend over 1k out of pocket for being treated by an ER doc for an ankle sprain?
Many Obama supporters like myself are educated and are open to new ideas and innovation. We are the types to value youth and energy. We understand that we cannot keep living in the past. Many of us are socially liberal. We believe in pro-choice; we hate abstinence-only education, and we want religion to be separated from the government. Many of us are educated. A lot of us hold masters or doctorates. We are pumped to finally have a well-educated president.
How do you appeal to Obama voters? You tell us how Bush policies can lead to improved domestic opportunites and social justice and tell us what you are going to do different in office. Separate yourself from dubya and do it in a convincing manner, then I'll listen.
Right now, I'm going with my gut. My gut tells me we have a once-in-a-lifetime nominee with a great vision. I cannot vote for the "safe-choice."
