Historically, this nation has had a handful of critically important elections: The election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800 ensured that we would remain on the path of democracy. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 marked the end of slavery. The election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 enabled us to survive the Great Depression and left the indelible legacy of the New Deal.

While the historical verdict must wait, the election of 2000, in which the losing candidate was allowed to take office, may some day rise to that level of importance. No one can doubt that the world would look different under the leadership of Albert Gore.

The election of 2008 holds the same promise. After a campaign that has consumed the better part of two years, everything of substance that can be said has been. To use a legal analogy, all that remains is the summation.

With one week remaining before Election Day, here are nine compelling reasons to elect Barack Obama President of the United States:

1. John McCain is more of the same on economic policy.

He can cry all he wants. He can scream it from the mountaintop. He can file a protest with the League of Nations. He can glare into the eyes of the camera and proclaim: I am not George W. Bush. The fact remains that his economic policy is fundamentally indistinguishable from that of the current president. As all long-term residents of Washington must learn, the Senator cannot run away from his record. McCain is a free market fundamentalist. He is anti-labor and he does not believe in government regulation. His singular issue of dissent, his opposition to the Bush tax cuts during a time of war and mounting deficits (2001-2005), was sacrificed when he adopted those same tax cuts as the foundation of his economic platform.

If McCain was still the straight talker he is supposed to have been, he would have no choice but to admit that the Republican economic philosophy has led us to the crisis we now face. He could still blame Democrats for adopting Republican policies but with Senator Phil Gramm as his economic mentor, he cannot escape blame.

It is far too late to wake up now with the discovery that the world is in fact round and everything you have ever believed is wrong. Alan Greenspan was wrong, Phil Gramm was wrong, Thomas Friedman was wrong, Adam Smith was wrong and John McCain is the wrong man to break the mold.

2. John McCain is more of the same on foreign policy.

Lame Duck President George W. Bush has been forced to accept the hard cold realities of his failed policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. From the global economic crisis to the Russian incursion into neighboring Georgia, we are no longer regarded as a dominant power. The government of Iraq, the same government we implanted in power, has resisted signing a status of forces agreement that would extend the legal grounds for a foreign occupation beyond the end of the year. Iraqi leaders have publicly stated they favor a withdrawal timetable corresponding to the exit strategy of Barack Obama. In Afghanistan military and governmental leaders alike have been pushing for a negotiated settlement.

While Obama has taken a hard line in Afghanistan, he has also embraced the policy of diplomacy. McCain has demonstrated nothing short of intransigence – the same sort of stubbornness that the Bush team has employed in achieving an unprecedented decline in America’s standing in the world.

As with the free market fundamentalists, John McCain signed up with the neoconservative brain trust on day one and he has never wavered. The same warmongering brain trust that was considered too extreme for Ronald Reagan was allowed free reign during the second coming of Bush. As with free market fundamentalism, the result is catastrophic: America is overextended, buried in debt and unable to sustain its legitimate interests.

McCain was for the war in Iraq before the Bush administration proposed it. McCain was for the Bush Doctrine of aggressive war and military dominance before it carried that name. That he would carry on those same policies cannot be doubted.

While Obama’s response to the situation in Georgia was measured and steady, McCain’s was bellicose and rash. To McCain, the lesson of Vietnam was not that we should not inherit imperialist wars from fallen empires. It was rather that we should fight on to “victory” at any cost. He feels the same about Iraq and Afghanistan. No matter what the cost, he will double down and double down again. He is as predictable as sunrise.

As a nation we can no longer afford an intransigent leader determined to bend the world to his knees. We cannot afford four more years of the Bush Doctrine under a new name.

3. America needs a New Deal.

Take it to heart: After eight years of unfettered corporate rule, we are on the precipice of economic collapse. The nature of the current crisis goes well beyond the housing bubble and the answers go well beyond rebuilding government regulatory authority. We are in debt because we could not sustain our standard of living on diminished wages. We are in trouble because we can no longer afford basic health care. We have witnessed a decline of organized labor and the decimation of American industry as our jobs have been transferred to cheap labor overseas.

Corporate America has killed the golden goose. In their thirst for immediate profits, they have destroyed the foundation of a consumer economy: the middle class.

Joe the Plumber is living in a world of delusion. In the age of the corporate elite, the dream of upward mobility is dead. When consumers can no longer support basic needs, small businesses are the first to fail. Capital is consolidated in fewer hands. International corporations grow larger. Labor exploitation is institutionalized. Government becomes an agent of the wealthy.

America needs a New Deal in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt. We need a government that can no longer be bought, that answers to the needs of the people, that provides jobs, that secures the rights of workers, that ends job exportation, that rebuilds roads, bridges and mass transit, that creates new job opportunities and funds education. We need universal health care, not some harebrained privatization scheme. We need to strengthen social security, not to dismantle it one brick at a time.

The New Deal was only possible because Roosevelt had the support of both houses of congress. We are beyond the minor fixes that can be accomplished through bipartisan compromise. The Republican way, the way of the elite international corporation, has failed. It is time for systemic change.

4. The politics of fear and smear should be answered in kind.

For seven years we have been led down the path of our own demise by the politics of fear and smear. The Republican Party has long exploited the religious right’s fear of moral decay – abortion rights and gay marriage. After September 11, 2001, they expanded the politics of fear to terrorism and enemies of the American way of life. As they attacked the Bill of Rights, they accused anyone who stood in the way of terrorist sympathies. As they waged war on innocent nations, nations that were not responsible for the attack on our soil, they accused those who opposed them of appeasing the enemy and betraying our troops.

Now, in the waning days of a desperate campaign, they have attacked Barack Obama with patently false and scurrilous rumors of anti-American sentiments: Obama is a closet Muslim, a secret foreign agent, an associate of terrorists, on and on.

There is no denying that Obama is black and we wonder how much of the attack strategy is founded on that solemn fact.

We will never be able to rub out the politics of fear and smear but we may be able to land a decisive and crushing blow. In this sense, the margin of victory is important. Let Karl Rove be remembered for something beside the theft of two elections.

5. Restore balance on the Supreme Court.

Even before the appointments of Samuel Alito and John Roberts, the Supreme Court that overruled democracy in the 2000 election was tilted dangerously to the right. Much has been said about the danger of a new court overruling a woman’s right to choose abortion but little has been said about the Court’s corporate bias, a bias that undermines both individual rights and the public good.

The Court’s finding that corporate contributions are protected free speech means that no meaningful campaign finance reform will be allowed as long as this court remains intact. The Court’s ruling on public domain sacrificed individual property rights in favor of corporate development. The Court’s ruling on equal pay for equal work in the Lilly Ledbetter case effectively removed enforcement from the law.

While there have been some surprising rulings opposing the president’s egregious violations of due process, the one consistent strand has been a corporate bias.

It is no secret that the next president is likely to appoint at least two new justices to the Supreme Court. An Obama presidency would restore some sense of balance.

6. Restoration of Civil Liberties.

In two hundred and thirty two years of history, perhaps no president has done more harm to the Bill of Rights than George W. Bush. He has used the War Powers Act and the USA Patriot Act to spy on American citizens without warrant or legal recourse. He has claimed the right to detain citizens and non-citizens indefinitely. He has institutionalized torture.

Under his leadership, the fourth estate was used as a fence for false and deceptive government propaganda. Under the guidance of his political mentor, Karl Rove, he is responsible for the disenfranchisement of more minority citizens than at any time since the days of Jim Crow. He has all but accused those who stood in opposition of treason – in polite society, appeasing the enemy.

Under his reign, the Department of Justice became a political agent, choosing to prosecute cases on the basis of partisan advantage rather than the rule of law and firing those who refused to cooperate.

It is too late to impeach George W. Bush but history will record that grounds for impeachment were strong on the basis of civil liberties alone. Fortunately, it is not too late to undo much of the harm.

7. Restoration of Democracy: Payback.

If you still believe that George W. Bush legitimately won the White House in 2000 and 2004 you have not done your homework. Bush won in 2000 through a massive disenfranchisement campaign, a campaign that targeted black voters in critical battleground states – most notably in Florida. Bush won in 2004 through a combination of disenfranchisement and electronic vote flipping – most notably in Ohio. Had the corporate media done its job, those betrayals of the fundamental rights of democracy would have been reversed. Instead, the media chose to turn the page. As a consequence, those betrayals have continued and intensified with the advance of technology.

In the aftermath of Florida 2000, we should have been shocked to learn by the decision of the Supreme Court (Bush v. Gore) that voting is not considered a right. According to the law of the land as interpreted by the highest source of justice, the most basic right of citizenship is a privilege – and one that can be stripped away by political operatives.

That needs to be rectified. The right to vote is sacred and must be protected by our elected officials. It cannot happen under Republican leadership. It can only happen with new leadership in the White House.

8. Freedom from Ideological Intransigence.

Barack Obama has spoken at length about the politics of pragmatism. To the Senator from Illinois, it is the key to unity and working across the partisan divide. To many on the left (myself included) his refusal to identify more forcefully with a progressive ideology has been a source of frustration and opposition. However, after eight years of leadership governed by the tenets of an outdated, out of touch ideology, the politics of pragmatism begin to look appealing.

During his tenure in office, George W. Bush never thought twice, never looked back, never adjusted his thinking and never changed course. On the domestic front, his thinking was guided by a free market fundamentalism that disallowed the role of government. When warnings were sounded, he had only one answer: tax cuts and more tax cuts.

In foreign policy, his thinking stopped with the announcement of the Bush Doctrine, in which America would use military force to secure dominance in perpetuity. When Iraq imploded, he had no plan. When the debt mounted and the military was overextended, he was incapable of making an adjustment. When Afghanistan began to unravel, there was no contingency plan.

Ideology is important. It gives a leader a solid foundation. But in the real world, where the dynamics change and new realities emerge, a true leader must be able to adjust.

In the current, John McCain has demonstrated the same sort of ideological intransigence that haunted George W. Bush. He is out of touch and out of time. Obama’s time has come.

9. It is time to elect an African-American president.

It cannot be ignored and its importance cannot be understated: Barack Obama would become the first individual of African descent to lead any nation whose population is not predominantly black (the nations of Africa, Haiti, the Dominican Republic).

It is no secret that the world supports Obama. People around the globe are yearning for a real change in Washington. They are tired of the America that George W. Bush has created. They are tired of his go-it-alone arrogance. They are tired of a nation that defies the rule of law, that disgraces the name of democracy, and that violates with impunity the universal rights of human kind.

The road is paved and the time will come when this nation elects a woman president. It is inevitable and it will happen. On this scale, America is behind the curve. Numerous women have been chosen to lead democratic nations: Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, Indira Gandhi of India, Golda Meir of Israel, Angela Merkel of Germany. In this nation, there are many women on both sides of the political divide that are both qualified and prepared to become president. Sarah Palin is not one of them.

The election of Barack Obama would serve clear notice to the world: A change has come and the dream of freedom, justice and prosperity for all is still alive.

Image Courtesy of Barack Obama's Official Website

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