Another Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Columnist Endorsement

Looking toward the future

There are plenty of reasons to vote for Barack Obama -- and against Hillary Clinton

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com).)

Six days from today, Pennsylvanians will take up their unexpectedly important obligation to express their opinions on the relative merits of the two Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. I will be voting for Mr. Obama, for the following reasons:

• He represents the future of America; Mrs. Clinton, the past. Even though some might view the Clintons' previous occupancy of the White House with misty eyes, savoring the absence of the Iraq war and recalling an economy that wasn't tilted toward the oil industry, financial nongeniuses with enormous incomes and the rich in general, that was the 1990s and now is now, eight years later.

• It may seem stuffy to talk about the dignity of the White House, but it is hard to imagine that Americans really would like to see the Clintons' personal lives once again on national display. Whatever reservations one might have about the Bushes, they set a high standard of personal behavior. Michelle and Barack Obama look fine in this area, although they might want to choose their Washington church with care.

• It is fair to look at a candidate's supporters and opponents as a measure of likely behavior in office. In Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton has been endorsed by some of the state's harder-core professional politicians.



These include Gov. Ed Rendell, Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and former Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff. Each of these political figures may have hopes to win some spoils in another Clinton presidency, or debts to pay from a previous one. Mr. Rendell hopes for high national office; Mr. Onorato will want support for his candidacy for governor, and so forth. But they may have made a mistake in jumping so early for Mrs. Clinton, or, driven by ambition, jumping for Mrs. Clinton at all. Instead of betting on the past, they might have thought of staying neutral in the primary, letting the people vote without their advice.


• It is unfortunate, but joining some of Pennsylvania's career politicians in opposing Mr. Obama are those who simply cannot abide the idea of an African American as president of the United States. That is not to say that to support Mrs. Clinton is to be racist. But, for me, if the racists line up on one side of the line, as a matter of principle I will almost certainly find myself on the other side of it. (I did not vote for Lynn Swann for governor, however.) It is Mr. Obama's ability as a leader, not his race, that is the bottom line for me.


• Another reason to vote for Mr. Obama and against Mrs. Clinton is her sometimes shaky relationship with the truth. Maybe I am exceptionally sensitive to that quality after having been lied to systematically by the Bush administration about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and fictional links to al-Qaida, but it seems to me that Mrs. Clinton sometimes does have a problem in this area. I go way back to watching her on television in 1994 dishing up half-truths and untruths about how she had miraculously made $100,000 in profits on commodity transactions in Arkansas.


The latest round was her mis-recalled account of landing in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, under sniper fire, well after the war there had ended. That perhaps unintended whopper stung me particularly because I lived in Tuzla in 2001 and knew some of the people involved there.


• I also want the American people to know who donated and how much to Mr. Clinton's presidential library before the Pennsylvania vote. The Clintons released their tax returns, but not the information about the library. Of course the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, has still not released even his tax returns.



What delightful shock still awaits us?


• An especially murky area that has prompted me to side with Mr. Obama against Mrs. Clinton is the relationship between her husband's financial arrangements and her candidacy. Labor unions, whose support Mrs. Clinton needs badly, must look closely at how she explains her husband's advocacy on behalf of Colombia as it lobbied for a free-trade agreement with the United States. She has opposed the accord as a senator and as a candidate, based on Colombia's weak record of respect for unionized workers and the risk of losing American jobs. She can't say she didn't know. Mr. Clinton was paid $800,000 for his support of the agreement and the two file a joint tax return. The other obvious question would be how such disagreements between them would be resolved if they were back in the White House together? I don't like to picture it.


The Obamas in the White House would not be troubled by these sorts of money-laden conflicts of interest.

• Finally, there is the intra-Democratic argument about which candidate would run stronger against Mr. McCain in November. There is the reported non-secret, secret strategy attributed to some Republicans of an intention to support Mrs. Clinton as the Democratic candidate because she would be easier for the senior-moment-plagued Mr. McCain to defeat in November than Mr. Obama. Even if I thought it likely that I would support Mr. McCain in November, I would find it difficult to persuade myself that it was a good idea to try to put the lesser of the two Democratic candidates on the ballot against him. Even the most partisan Republicans should favor putting the better of the two Democratic candidates into the general election.

Most important on Tuesday will be to vote. To think it through. To think of America's best interests.

Looking to the future, not betting on the past, I believe, is a course that takes one to the choice of Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton.

First published on April 16, 2008 at 12:00 am