Reply #19: A big turn from my perspective was Obama's NAFTA speech in Wisconsin...

[cascadiance]

Up to that point, I'd still been dismissive of both Hillary and Obama as candidates worthy of progressive support, and bemoaning that Edwards had left the fray.

When I heard him turning up the heat and actually substantively going after what was done with NAFTA and Hillary's position on it, it started to get me interested in him more and I've liked more since then when he's made similar dents in other issues (not as strong as Edwards would have and as I would like, but giving me stronger hints that he's the right person from the choices we have).

The corporatists watching this same speech probably got the same clues that I did that he WASN"T their man and decided to go after him then more. And with the attack dogs going after him more and more, that reinforces my feelings that he's the one that will hopefully make at least a dent in the corporatocracy later.

Before I was saying that he really needed to come out and be more substantive with his "change" mantra that he was campaigning on successfully, but that I couldn't just join that cheerleading until I understood what it meant. I still feel frustrated that I'm not hearing that message, but knowing the avalanche of crap thrown at him recently, and perhaps some huge crap that was shoved Edwards way before he pulled out, I'm beginning to think that for this election, perhaps his very "measured" dosage of grass roots stances, instead of heavy campaigning on them, will be what's necessary for him to get elected, and hopefully later once he's president, he can lead us for changes in things like public campaign financing, instant runoff voting, less corporate supreme court justices, breaking up the corporate media companies, etc. that can start tearing down the K Street lobbying mechanisms that have enabled such a constriction of our choices in elections at this point. With more mainstream financing of his campaign instead of corporate lobbyist financing, he's strongly able to do this now moreso than previous candidates.

In the future, I'd like to think that candidates like him can be more open about their plans, with less threat from corporate media and other elements in Washington to do a similar candidate in, and America can have some REAL choices in who runs in campaign. Then Obama will really be looked back on as a "liberator" if he can go down this path. I'm still however, prepared to be disappointed, and that his less dogmatic commitment to what I perceive as people's agenda might in fact reflect that he's not going to do a lot because the forces of corruption still even affect how he does business when he takes office too. But I have to go on "hope" that won't happen, and perhaps that's what his campaign of "hope" is subtly trying to tell us this one time around, so that we won't have to just "hope" a candidate will do the right thing for us in the future when the system has been fixed.