Globally Rational

It’s common for a Presidential nominee to replace the chair of his party with one of his own people.  Although Barack Obama’s recent decision to keep Howard Dean as the DNC chair was minor news at best, I think it’s much more important than the media has made it seem.  I think the foreshadowing is undeniable; this will tell us a lot about what a potential Obama presidency would be like.  Here are some things that jump out at me:

• Obama did not install one of his cronies, which would be a huge change over past Presidencies.  In fact, some people at the University of Chicago (whose law and economics programs are among the best in the world) are worried that Obama will steal all of their best professors and put them into his cabinet.
• Howard Dean (a licensed physician) and Barack Obama (a Harvard-educated lawyer who was offered a tenure-track faculty position at one of America’s best law schools) are both highly intelligent and highly educated.  This gives me hope that we’re approaching an America where politicians work together and make intelligent decisions for the benefit of the country instead of trying to benefit their own respective political campaigns.
• A lesser-known fact: Obama and Dean have both strayed substantially from their parents’ life views, which suggests to me that they embrace change and positive development.  Howard Dean grew up in a conservative family and Obama has written (among other similar things) that “my mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess… In a land [Indonesia] where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship… she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.”

I’m hoping that this is a positive sign for Obama’s campaign and, eventually, his Presidency.  It’s no secret to my regular readers that I’m a bit biased (I’ve supported Obama ever since Ron Paul fell into oblivion and McCain started to turn into another Bush), but am I wrong?

Popularity: 28% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!