Columbian Endorses Obama - Leadership

This is the third in a series of comments regarding The Columbian’s endorsement in the presidential campaign.

The Columbian claims that “any successful reformer must excel in leadership and judgment. In the past several months Obama has distanced himself as the superior candidate in those two areas.”

For leadership, they claim that Obama has united his own Democratic Party “even reaching beyond his party to speak to all Americans. McCain, in stark contrast, continues to slog through a fractious Republican Party that often is his worst enemy.”

Two problems exist with this assessment.

First, this is contradictory. A reformer often must fight their very own party. That’s the point. Reform comes from standing on principle against those who only care about their own self-interests. McCain has often gone against his own party standing upon the principles of what is good for the country. When you go against the powers to be, of course, there will be disunity.

Where has Obama ever gone against his party’s leadership? Where has he stood up and said “No!” to Pelosi and Reid? When you simply go along with others, of course, you are united with them. That’s what being united means! But it also means you are not necessarily a reformer.

Therefore, based on The Columbian’s own standard, that a “successful reformer must excel in leadership”, Obama fails the leadership criteria for being a successful reformer.

Second, if McCain is truly “slog[ging] through a fractious Republican Party” has is it that Obama continues to claim that McCain has sided with Bush over 90% of the time. In fact, the Democratic strategy has been to tie any Republican Congressional incumbent to Bush. In other words, the Republicans are united!

So if Obama’s claim is true about McCain then the Columbian’s claim that the Republican Party is rebellious, unruly, and irritable is false. If The Columbian’s claim is true then Obama and the Democratic Party are engaged in a lie. Either way, Obama fails to pass The Columbian’s own standard.

Previous posts:
The Columbian Endorses Obama
Columbian Endorses Obama – Pt. 2