Editorial: Obama Shows Promise For Improving State Of America

This story was written by Editorial Board, Oklahoma Daily

We have grown up watching our country suffer the consequences of eight years of poor leadership, corruption and hatred-infused party politics all of which could have been avoided.

We worry about getting our first jobs in the midst of a faltering economy.

We desperately yearn for a country in which the peaceful diversity under which we have thrived during college can truly exist, from rural Oklahoma to the city lights of New York.

Do we wish things were different? Yes. But frightened we are not.

Despite the claims by Sen. John McCain and his campaign, we do not fear the future. Though times are hard, we have hope for the days ahead. And we picture those days in the next four years being led by Barack Obama as president.

Sen. Obama doesnt just talk about change. He embodies it. Unlike President George W. Bush and McCain, Obama is someone who is conciliatory. He does not see the world in terms of black and white, good and evil.

It will take a leader who does not split the world into friends and foes to change the world standing of the United States for the better.

McCain has proposed forming a League of Democracies to act where the UNfails to act. He has said the collaborators could work together to sanction Iran. But such a league is an elitist partitioning of a world that is already fractured.

We do not wish to see the United States make more world enemies by further separating itself from the UN and from countries that may not be democracies but do not pose any threat to America.

Obama advocates dealing with Iran diplomatically before resorting to threats or force. We prefer this method of leadership. The United States can be a moral leader again, and we can get things done by talking before we fight.

If the United States is to be a moral leader again, it must be able to accomplish its goals by talking rather than fighting. It is time the Bush Doctrine policies of pre-emption be forgotten.

We dont necessarily think a President Obama would make us feel safer but we also dont think we were particularly unsafe to begin with. We recognize that the wars we are involved with, our increasingly negative world image and hatred and division in our own country are more deadly than terrorist attacks. We think Obama is more likely than McCain to try something different.

We understand that, for some, change can be scary. McCain appears to be a safe choice, with 21 years of experience in the U.S. Senate, compared to Obamas three years. But being a senator for a longer time has not made McCain a better executive than Obama.

McCain was tied to the well-known Keating Five in 1989 for exercising poor judgement in what would become a corruption scandal during the savings and loan crisis.

Despite his claims to be a maverick, McCain is a politician. He has proved through the years that he is willing to make irresponsible moves to grab attention and votes. Does McCain really think Gov. Sarah Palin was the best pick to run for the second highest office in the nation? We think not. With that choice, McCain put the needs of his campaign ahead of the needs of his country.

We fail to see how maverick is a nickname to be proud of anyway. We want a president who will carefully consider each decision he makes and will seek qualified advice before making those decisions.

As an executive, Obama actually has outperformed McCain. Obama defeated the Clinton political machine and has run a successful, well-disciplined campaign in which he has proven he is ready to manage a massive bureaucracy. He has taken the high ground in a campaign in hich he has been called a terrorist and un-American, and in which he has been threatened by hate groups and even people at political rallies. Obama has shown grace under a fire of hate that should never have been ignited in the first place.

McCains campaign, on the other hand, has almost imploded several times. With his politics of fear and his gross misunderstanding of the economy and the world around him, McCain has shown that he could be a president who leads the country to the brink of destruction and then tries pull it back just like President Bush has done.

We want America to head in a new direction. The country is in the midst of an economic crisis, an indeterminable war started because of misinformation and a declining sense of world leadership.

But we have faith that America can once again be seen as the land of opportunity and possibility it deserves to be seen as. We have faith that it is a place where someone with dark skin named Barack Hussein Obama can be president after 219 years of having a white man as president.

We know our country will pull through, no matter who is elected next Tuesday. But we believe America needs a man like Barack Obama.