As recently as a month ago, there was only one major presidential candidate who truly scared me: Mike Huckabee. Fortunately, at this point in time the only thing that can save him is a true act of God. While Huckabee might actually believe this to be plausible, I’m pretty comfortable with saying that he won’t win the Republican Party nomination. You would think I would be satisfied now, but no. That’s because in recent days and weeks, I’ve noticed an increasingly alarming trend regarding a different campaign.

It’s not so much that I’m upset with the fact that Barack Obama is exponentially gaining support; it’s how he’s doing it that bothers me.

But before I go any further, let me make it clear that I’m not trying to attack Obama or anyone who supports him. I just want to make sure that if the American people elect him to be our next president (which seems to be more and more likely every day), that they do so for the right reasons. That’s the closest thing to a disclaimer that I can offer. Read on at your own risk.

It’s time to get real: Barack Obama’s policies are virtually no different than those of Hillary Clinton or, for that matter, all of the Democratic candidates who dropped out of the race. They endorse most things that are considered liberal ideas. Yes, there are some differences between the two: for example, Obama supports meeting with heads of state like North Korea’s Kim Jong-il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while Clinton opposes such actions (at least in the first year of her presidency). Basically, though, if you support the Democratic Party, then your vote in the primaries should be (at least in my opinion) for who you think can enforce their policies best. Therein lies the rub.

My problem with Obama used to be that he hasn’t been entrenched in the Washington political scene long enough to become commander in chief. Now, however, recent developments have me convinced that he is in fact too experienced in the field of contemporary politics. He’s seen how the typical campaign works, the one filled with promises that can’t be kept, mudslinging and self-aggrandizement, and he realizes that there is another way: you simply hide it all.

You take the bad stuff, the boring stuff, the stuff which the average American doesn’t have time to follow (and even if they did have time wouldn’t care about) and you omit it from your speeches. You get rid of the tedious logic which defines your platform and you replace it with pure pathos. Tell the crowd that your campaign to get yourself elected isn’t actually about you, it’s about them. Instead of detailing your plan with complex rhetoric and big words that you got from that top-notch university, find a rudimentary expression and use it as a message of hope that people will chant every time you pause to catch your breath (or if you’re really good, at any arbitrary time in the middle of your sentences). You do these kinds of things, I’ve found, and John and Jane Q. Citizen will truly believe you’re serious. They really will see you as the “Candidate of Change”, the “Unifier of a Nation,” and (if the recent string of people fainting at campaign rallies is any indicator) a genuinely messianic figure.

Now, I realize that what I’m saying makes me look like a pretty big jerk (there’s actually a more appropriate word, but I don’t think I could put it in here), but I hope people will understand that it’s hard to express the way I feel in such a small space. I want to make it clear that I am not against all Obama supporters. On the contrary, there are plenty of people out there who do look at the issues and believe he has the best platform, or who really deep down inside think that Hillary Clinton’s past actions do not merit the honor of leading the free world. That’s perfectly alright. I don’t grade homework based on accuracy, only for completeness.

My quarrel, if you’d call it that, is with the zombies who chant “Yes We Can” without any understanding of what it really is “we” can do, and with the robots who wave their “Stand For Change” and “Change We Can Believe In” banners without knowing what “change” actually means. They’re out there, and they may very well give Obama the election, which to me is just as bad as (if not worse than) the superdelegates doing the same thing for Hillary.

I’m not saying everyone needs to know everything (because I certainly don’t), but I just want to make sure that we make the right choice for the next four or eight years. Maybe that choice is Barack Obama, and maybe he truly will eliminate factions and corruption and unite this country under peace and harmony, but right now I haven’t seen enough practical solutions to go with that idealism (not to mention that the kind of national cohesion he’s talking about has never truly existed in the United States, but that’s a story for another day).

Maybe you still say I’m wrong (and want to call me that word I said I couldn’t put in here) and that Obama really is going to bring about “change” and “unity” and that everyone who supports him is actually fully aware of just what it is for which he stands. If you do, then congratulations: you’ve just proved my point for me.

Brian is a freshman in Arts & Sciences and a staff columnist. He can be reached via e-mail at brprice@artsci.wustl.edu.

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