Here's a guy who makes the ultimate case as succinctly as anyone (and gee he's a writer- what a shock!)
"The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.
Since I started talking and writing about Obama I have come to see that this ruling fear, and nothing else, lies at the back of every objection or reservation people raise or harbor regarding the man and his candidacy.
Fear whispers to us that white voters have a nasty tendency to tell pollsters, friends and neighbors that they support an African American candidate, then go into the voting booth and let the fear known as racism pull the lever.
Fear tells us that ugliness, rage and brutality are the central facts of human existence, that decency and tolerance are luxuries on whose altar our enemies will be only too happy to sacrifice us.
It is through our fear of falling prey to the calamity and misadventure from which the media promise faithlessly to protect us -- a fear manufactured and sold by the media themselves -- that we accept without question the media-borne canard (tainted, in my view, by a racism as insidious as any that hides behind the curtains of voting booths) that Barack Obama, a seasoned and successful 46-year-old husband and father of two, a man sweeping into the prime of his life with all his sails and flags unfurled, is too young and inexperienced for a job that demands vitality and flexibility and that, furthermore, has made nonsense of glittering resumes, laughingstocks of practiced old hands and, in a reverse of Popeye's old trick, ravenous alligators out of years of accumulated baggage.
Fear and those who fatten on it spread vile lies about Obama's religion, his past drug use, his views on Israel and the Jews. Fear makes us see the world purely in terms of enemies and perils, and leads us to seek out the promise of leadership, however spurious it proves to be, among those who speak the language of that doomed and demeaning, that inhuman view of the world.
But the most pitiable fear of all is the fear of disappointment, of having our hearts broken and our hopes dashed by this radiant, humane politician who seems not just with his words but with every step he takes, simply by the fact of his running at all, to promise so much for our country, for our future and for the eventual state of our national soul. I say "pitiable" because this fear of disappointment, which I hear underlying so many of the doubts that people express to me, is ultimately a fear of finding out the truth about ourselves and the extent of the mess that we have gotten ourselves into. If we do fight for Obama, work for him, believe in him, vote for him, and the man goes down to defeat by the big-money machines and the merchants of fear, then what hope will we have left to hold on to?
Thus in the name of preserving hope do we disdain it. That is how a phobocracy maintains its grip on power."
Hear hear, and without resorting to the old Ben Franklin quote
Looking at both Hillary and Obama policy wise, they some out about even. Sure, there are differences to quibble over, but on balance they come out the same. Therefore the real difference is that Obama is inspirational and Clinton is not.
It's strange to be in a position to be casting a vote based on such a gut-level feeling -being one who has always chastised those who do the same and having prided myself as one who votes based on substantive policy issues and not the sloganeering bullsh*t soundbytes that seem to capture so much of the electorate (purple band-aids? Flip-flop sandals? How do you feel now a**holes? ). But policy is determined at the party level and I think most people who vote based on substance have drawn their lines there, so when voting for candidates who are from the same party the "X-factor(s)" are what ultimately tip the scale in favor of one or the other.
Which is an extremely round-about way of saying something simple: he inspires me, she doesn't.
Speaking of inspirational:
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