Paul Krugman articulates clearly that which I've mangled in my own conversations:

Clinton, Obama, Healthcare

Specifically, new estimates say that a plan resembling Mrs. Clinton’s would cover almost twice as many of those now uninsured as a plan resembling Mr. Obama’s — at only slightly higher cost.

With it being understood that I don't actually dislike Obama, and will campaign for him if he wins the nomination . . .

There are a few major reasons I cast my vote for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. The first is that I think her healthcare proposal is a lot better--that Obama starts at the compromise position and thus will get creamed on the issue if elected. Following from that is the fact that whenever I hear the candidates speak, Hillary Clinton is so much better able to discuss policy in depth, to drill down and explain her position with a clear understanding of how different agencies, economic forces, and people interact.

So my support is much more about what's right with Clinton than what's wrong with Obama.

But.

There are two reservations I have, one more to do with some of his supporters, one to do with his own choice.

To illustrate the first: Near my school's subway on Tuesday, there were Clinton and Obama supporters passing out flyers and urging people to support their candidate. I was trying to make a call and watched for a few minutes. Both supporters had mostly the same tack: yelling "Support ____!" But when the Clinton supporter was questioned about education policy, she actually answered the question. When the Obama supporter was questioned, she referred the person to Obama's website and then kept yelling, "The audacity of hope! The audacity of hope!" as the potential voter went down the subway stairs.

To that I have to say: what the fuck?

This was one incident, but it illustrated the weird cult of personality surrounding Obama that I flat-out don't get. There are a lot--a lot--of very intelligent reasons to support Barack Obama for president. This wishy-washy ideology of hope crap isn't one of them; it's a way for people to believe that if only we elect this one man, a new era will begin, America will be AMERICA! again--and they won't have to think about politics anymore.

Well, it isn't going to be that way. If he's elected, he'll do his best, and that will mean a much better job than the shmuck in office now. But politics is messy, and ugly, and he's going to have to compromise, make decisions people hate, and problems are not going to disappear magically.

A recession is kicking in and he is going to inherit it. The war in Afghanistan is falling apart and he's going to have to fix it. The war in Iraq--whether or not he would have voted for it, which we don't truly know (it's a lot easier to say outside of the Senate what you'd do if in it)--can't be miracled away; withdrawal is going to be difficult, dangerous, and costly. And every step toward progress on these fronts will be opposed by a movement for which George W. Bush was a figurehead, but by no means the only source of power. This is the American reality, this is the price we pay for having allowed these interests to ascend, and nothing but continued and active engagement by people who actually care can possibly change it.

So this new era, shiny hope bullcrap gives me pause. Not exactly about him--he's a politician, and "We May Be Fucked" is not a good campaign slogan. But about how much of his support comes from people who believe he is a leader who can join us in solving our problems, versus how much comes from people who think he can make them just disappear.

The second issue can be summed up in one word (and then discussed in many more!): McClurkin.

I'm singularly unimpressed by his embrace of McClurkin and subsequent framing of that embrace as a free speech issue. It isn't, really. I think McClurkin can be as homophobic as he likes, can shout it from rooftops, print banners, whatever. Go enjoy your free speech, asshole! I just expect any candidate--any person!--claiming to be in any way ethical/moral/intelligent not to have any part of it. It's really not a lot to ask. It seems to me that Obama made a calculation that McClurkin could get him more evangelical votes than he would lose by offending people who actually give a crap about the way LGBT people and interests are treated in discourse (not just in votes). That's the deal he made. He deserves to pay the cost of his bargain. Since I actually DO care when candidates give tacit approval to homophobia, part of the cost he pays is my vote.

Is it the worst bargain a candidate has ever made at the expense of the LGBT community? Nah. This is what they always do, though it's usually in general elections when they know there's nowhere else to go--what are LGBT voters going to do, support Huckabee? But it's a tired, cynical, calculating political move all the same. It's what almost all politicians do at one point or another. It's why I don't expect anything new from Barack Obama.

Shiny tagged me to do this. I usually greet chain letters/emails/recipes with a wrathful binning, but since this one carries no threat and is instead a mere interesting exercise, I'm going along with it.

So:

Ten Weird Things about Adair

1. Capitalized prepositions hurt me. (That's why "about" is lowercase in the title; when not the first or last word of a title, a preposition of any length should be lowercase.) There's part of me that will never understand why people didn't absorb this rule in English class or don't care about getting it right.

2. I count words and have a weird system for doing so. This is going to make me sound absolutely batshit, I know, but here's how it all works:

When people speak, I count their words off on my fingers. Not always, but often. (When I was little and developed this habit, it was all the time.) I don't move my hands at all while doing this, just mentally assign the words to a digit and carry on conversation as though nothing else were happening. I don't just count off, though. It goes like this:

Counting the ten fingers:
Left pinkie, right pinkie; left thumb, right thumb; left ring, right ring, left pointer, right pointer, left middle, right middle -- from the outside in with the left going first.

Counting the spaces between:
Left between pinkie and ring, right between pinkie and ring; left between thumb and pointer, right between thumb and pointer. And so on, again working outside-in, left to right.

Unifying the hands:
Each hand gets a word of unification (left then right), and one word to unify them both. If this third, unifying word does not end a sentence, the unification does not happen at all. Instead, a cycle of 10 (and, if needed, 8) begins again. Unification can happen after any 10 or 8, but not any other time. When unification happens, I can start over or set it all aside.

And so, I love sentences of 13 and 21 words a lot.

3. When I was little, I had weird shoelace issues. I hated -- still kinda do -- the way the end of a lace will flap against your shoe after a bow is tied. So I would pull it in right against the knot. Since I also hated my shoes being loose, this meant that there would then be a hell of a lot of string in the bows -- bringing the annoying flop issue back into play. And so I would not just double-knot my laces, but stack knots on top of knots, all of them so tight as to render the knot superstructure immobile. When I went over my friend Christina Leonard's house to play and had to take my shoes off, it took forever.

4. Despite the crazy-train obsessiveness one would think is associated with habits like those detailed in #2 and #3, I am incredibly messy.

5. I hate Paul McCartney. It's atavistic and almost violent. Every time I hear his voice, all I can think is "BULLSHIT!" There is no life story associated with this, nothing about his personal history or any event in my life that makes this so. I've tried to like his work because everyone assumes that everyone else likes the Beatles and Paul, and it would make my life easier if I did. But whenever I hear his work, I am possessed with a certainty that he is where authenticity goes to die. And so I have no use for the Beatles' records, but get along famously with the Lennon solo albums and am friendly enough with George Harrison's solo work. Hell, even Ringo's put out a fun song or two. But Paul McCartney? HATE. HATE. HATE.

6. My left thumb is shorter than my right thumb. Dunno why. It looks like it didn't cook long enough or something -- the top phalange just stops short, nail bed included.

7. I remember lyrics to songs really well. This is an asset come karaoke time.

8. I hate coffee.

9. I love Mother Goose liverwurst. No substitutes. All other kinds -- peh. Good luck finding the good stuff, though.

10. I am very streaky. I'll want the same food for a long time, paint in the same color/style for a long time, listen to the same few songs for a long time. And then my fixation will wear down to a gentle affection.

The people I tag will be tagged in private, as I am fairly sure none of them will go for this. I don't need my pull dismissed publicly.