Yes We Can?

I'm an Obama supporter, but I don't really know why. I mean, I know why I like him. He's got the same barrier-bending charisma that made young people fall in love with John Kennedy in the 1960s. He's black, and I think the ridiculously narrow-minded majority of this country needs something like a black president to jar them and coax them out of their little supremist cloisters. He's young, and like being black, that could bring about some fundamentally radical legislation in terms of marriage, war, and money. And Barack Obama not only is smart, but he sounds smart; and given the fact that the importance of our current president's actual intelligence pales in comparison to the image of his free-range Texan dialect and sudden impulses to spout made-up words in the middle of speeches, I'd say a well-spoken president will have a tremendous impact on foreign policy.

Sorry, that last sentence was really confusing, even to me. That was George Bush confusing, man. But you're smart so we'll move on.

While I think of all these qualities as a new set of prerequisites for any American president, I think his are so amiable that they shroud a little of what Obama actually stands for. I understand that he is morally liberal when compared to John McCain and even Hillary Clinton. He has a plan for removing troops from Iraq. He is sympathetic to the prospect of the federal government controlling the legality of same-sex civil unions. He supports the Roe v. Wade decision and doesn't want to change the rules on abortion. He also has every intention to coordinate global warming prevention efforts in accordance with a reduction of greenhouse gases and carbon emissions.

All those things are well and good, but they’re also the biggest issues facing candidates in this election. There are hundreds of others like Darfur, corporate lobbying, and the decriminalization of marijuana, on which I have no clue where he stands.

Without rambling on about his political positioning, I want to make note of the fact that most young people aren't as well-read as they want credit for. I'm not. I love reading but I do very little of it. And I really like Barack Obama, but not because I agree with each and every one of his proposed policies, or even know what they are.

In fact, I choose to support Barack Obama not primarily because of his plans, but because he is the closest thing I have to a political peer. He's not young compared to me and my actual peers, but he possesses that Springsteen-esque rock star reciprocity that makes him unbelievably approachable (Hillary may have the blue-collar vote, but she’s no blue collar worker and that campaign is all about numbers). The positioning I referenced only encompasses what I have been told about Obama’s stances, not his encompassing views on the political landscape or the future of American life. He could, for all I know, be ready to enact tax hikes for the rich and reopen the borders and lift the Cuban embargo and make slavery conversely legal and send me to the cotton fields. That last one may be a little outrageous, fine. But I don't know it's not true, and I don't know that everything Obama claims to support is in my favor.

What it boils down to is this: Barack Obama has placed himself at the mercy of older voters by giving himself almost completely to generations after his own. He's created an incredible army of young people based solely on his charisma and this all-important "call for change" that nobody really understands. He's capitalized on young America's disdain for President Bush and the traditionalist, God-fearing bureaucracy of the last two terms (and probably the eight before that) to make a fuzzy point about radical change seem sharp.

I just don't think I can support anyone else knowing that Obama is looking at me and my generational peers as the most important group of Americans because, well, I think that too. That being said, I now only have questions as to the integrity of his political positioning and whether all this charisma and likability is going to translate into something palpable.

Yes, we can.

That's all well and good when it comes to a rallying cry. All I want to know is, what the hell can we? And when you do get elected in November, what the hell can you?

To understand my inspiration for writing this blog, please follow the link here.

UPDATE: Apparently Kim Kardashian has endorsed Barack Obama. I don't know what to think anymore.