Obama

I have sort of liked Obama from the beginning. I still remember sitting in a hotel room in Rockaway, NJ trying to get some work done when I heard his breakout speech at the DNC in 2004. That was the same trip in which we got bad news about the work we needed to do on our house if it was to sell, and in which I almost saw the Yankees get no-hit from the nosebleed section. Definitely one of the best-pitched games I ever saw. Nothing like a Red Sox fan leaving Yankee Stadium to the sounds of "New York, New York" NOT sung by old Blue Eyes (back then, at least, they played the Sinatra version after a win and the Liza Minelli version after a loss).

I think he offers a vision, and a moderating voice for me, a disenfranchised conservative. After Bush II, I am very worried about investing too much hope in a good outcome when the candidate appears to be faith-driven at some level. And of course, the Wall Street Journal is giving him a daily skewering for his vacuous rhetoric.

Obama's rhetoric may be vacuous, but every time I see McCain speak, his head seems vacuous. I know McCain is a genuine American hero, but that itself doesn't make him qualified to be president. And he has a record of working with both sides to achieve common goals. But whenever I hear him speak, it's obvious those aren't his own words. Even Ronald Reagan had a gifted speech-writer, but what made him the Great Communicator was that his speech-writer had a way of getting his words on the page, and he was then able to deliver them passionately and convincingly. I don't get that sense with McCain -- it seems like he's touting someone else's ideas and is not completely convinced himself. Hasn't 8 years of a puppet presidency been enough for one generation?

Count me as firmly undecided. At least until I figure out what Obama actually believes.