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Barack Or Hillary? Which One To Choose And Why
By starhelix (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: starhelix - Writer
Barack ("blessed" in Swahili) Hussein Obama, Jr., was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Shirley Ann Dunham, a Kansan of English ancestry, and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo Kenyan. Dunham was part Cherokee Indian and a distant descendant of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Obama's parents met and married in 1960 when they were students at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. They separated when he was two and later divorced. Barack's father moved to Connecticut to pursue his Ph.D. studies in economics at Harvard. His mother, an anthropologist, married another East-West Center student, Lolo Soetoro. In 1967, the family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia.
Barack (known as Barry in his childhood) lived in Jakarta with his mother and stepfather for four years (1967-1971). Obama first attended Catholic School Fransiskus Assisis, then transferred to State Elementary School (SDN) Besuki, now known as SDN Menteng 01, where classes were taught in Indonesian. In the third grade, he wrote an essay saying he wanted to become president. At the time, his teacher was unsure which country he wanted to be president of. Recently, controversy was stirred up about the Besuki school. Red-meat right-wingers at Insight magazine claimed the school was a madrassa. They tried to spread an ugly rumor Obama received a radical Islamic education in Indonesia which is a Muslim nation. Actually, Besuki is an elite secular public school. Founded in 1934, it was reserved for Dutch and Indonesian nobility, such as the grandchildren of former president Soeharto and veeps Hamzah Haz and Tri Soetrisno. Only the very best students are permitted to attend this school.
Barack's mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents when he was ten. He went to Punahou school from the fifth grade until he graduated in 1979. While growing up in Hawaii, Barack briefly met his father in 1971. For the first time, he realized his multi-ethnic heritage. Questions about who he was drove him to drink and drugs in his teenage years. He recalled he used these substances to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."
After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles and attended Occidental College for two years, then transferred to Columbia University. There he majored in political science and received a B.A. in International Relations. He worked for B.I.C. and NYPIRG in New York before taking a job in Chicago as a community organizer. Later, he entered Harvard Law School and received a J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991. Barack worked his way up the political chain in Chicago to become the junior senator from Illinois and a candidate for the US presidency.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was born in Chicago of English, Welsh and, perhaps, some Native American ancestry. As a child, she participated in many church, school and athletic activities. She was a member of the student council, debating team and the National Honor Society. She was also a National Merit Finalist. Instilled with conservative political values from her father and concern for social justice from her mother, Hillary became a Goldwater Girl in 1964 and a staunch admirer of Dr. Martin Luther King.
At Wellesley College, she joined the Young Republicans in her freshman year. She left that organization as her positions on civil rights and the Viet Nam war changed. She said she was "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."
Hillary preferred to work for change from within the system rather than foment radical actions from without. In 1968, she was elected president of Wellesley's student body. Even then, her classmates believed she had executive potential. After attending the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami, she decided to leave the Republican party for good, citing Nixon's negative campaign strategies and "veiled" racist messages.
Hillary wrote her senior thesis about the tactics of radical community organizer, Saul Alinsky, which was later suppressed by the Clinton White House. In 1969, she graduated with honors in political science. She was the first student in Wellesley history to deliver the commencement address, receiving a long standing ovation.
At Yale Law School, she served on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. During her Yale years, she mixed the writing of scholarly papers, summer law research, occasional campaign work and pro bono legal services with her undergraduate and post-graduate studies.
She served as a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund and the 1974 impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon.
After passing the Arkansas bar exam and failing the District of Columbia test, she decided to marry Bill Clinton and follow him to Arkansas. With this commitment, her fate was sealed. Later, she wrote, "I chose to follow my heart instead of my head." As we all know now, this explanation is only an excuse.
Hillary hit her stride as First Lady of Arkansas during the dozen years Bill was governor. She did important work improving child care, health care and poverty programs. As a partner at the prestigious Rose Law firm, Clinton had a higher income than her husband. After Bill won the 1992 presidential election, she became America's First Lady and the most influential woman on Earth. Despite several significant scandals, she employed her position and power to help others, especially children.
When judging the qualifications to be president of these two extraordinary people, it's nearly impossible to score an advantage for either lengthy resume. But, a striking difference does emerge when comparing their elected service records.
Hillary Clinton served one full term as the junior senator from New York. Most of the early months of her second term were spent campaigning for president. As senator, she authored and passed into law only 20 pieces of legislation (SEE: Amadeo Sogni's article A Light In The Darkness). None of these enactments is important or consequential.
Barack Obama, during his first eight years in elected office, sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced: 233 health care reform measures; 125 poverty and public assistance bills; 112 crime fighting bills; 97 economic bills; 60 human rights bills; 21 ethics reform bills; 15 gun control bills and many others. During his first year in the senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. In all, during his years in elected office, including the US senate, Barack Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1,096. When voters review each candidate's record from this perspective, it's very clear who's been doing the people's business. After personal sources of their ambition are compared, the voters will discover another distinct difference.
Obama's ambition is driven by his particular experience of injustice and his desire to right the wrongs in the world. He never knew his Kenyan father. He met him only briefly in Hawaii when he was ten years old. He lived with his stepfather only four years. Although he had many stepbrothers and stepsisters, they grew up in Indonesia and Africa while he grew up in Hawaii. For the most part, he lived the lonely life of an only child. He suffered crude, racist insults from his high school classmates. He felt shame and self-hatred due to his multi-ethnic parentage and broken home. (NOTE: The media compound the confusion by catagorizing multi-ethnic marriages as bi-racial. Since there is only one race, the human race, all marriages and relationships are naturally intra-racial or multi-ethnic. They can't be inter-racial or bi-racial because these words presuppose there is more than one race. Of course, there are many ethnic, cultural and tribal groups. But, there is only one human race).
Barack's intense ambition is driven by his need to become a shining example of what an ideal man, husband and father should be. Despite the absence of family role models in his youth, Obama found his way through the maturation process. Today, he fights hard to help others because he knows the pain of growing up lonely and loveless in a broken home.
Hillary's ambition is driven by a genuine desire to help others, sparked by her mother's influence. Unlike Barack, she had strong support from her family. The major mistake she made was following Bill Clinton to Arkansas. If she'd stayed in Washington, she may've forged a career which could've led to a presidential bid on her own terms.
Instead, she spent 20 years as a surrogate parent to Bill's petty peccadilloes and gross infidelities. While Hillary gets high marks for boundless patience, she doesn't come to the presidential campaign battle-hardened by self-defining struggles in the public arena. Since marrying Bill, every official position Hillary's had she's received by appointment. Clinton won her senate seat largely as a result of her strong name recognition as former First Lady. At this point in time, her senate record indicates she's no emerging Eleanor Roosevelt.
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