Super Tuesday Endorsement

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By Rodel Rodis
INQUIRER.net

Posted date: January 30, 2008


After a year and a half of non-stop campaigning by Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, the rubber finally meets the road on the Super Duper Tuesday of February 5, when the following 22 states hold their primaries: Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Montana, Minnesota, Oklahoma,
Delaware, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah, Georgia, Kansas and West Virginia.
For the Democrats, these 22 states will award a total of 1,681 pledged
delegates, 51% of all those awarded nationally. For the Republicans (the ‘Grand Old Party’ or GOP), these 22 states will award 975 delegates, 41% of their total number. The Democrats will award their delegates proportionately, according to the percentage of votes received above the threshold 15% minimum; the GOP will have the winner take all delegates in many states.

New York senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois senator Barack Obama are the two major Democrat candidates remaining, with former South Carolina senator John Edwards back of the pack. Edwards’s hopes are slim but he remains a candidate of hope – hope that Hillary and Barack will be deadlocked at the convention and delegates at the Democratic National Convention meeting in Denver in August will choose him as alternative.

For the Republicans, the race has narrowed down to Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee barely hanging on. Giuliani went from a lead of 32% in the national polls to a current low of 12%, a precipitous drop brought about by his decision to skip all the presidential primaries until Florida, which he now has slim hopes of winning. Huckabee’s prayer is to land a vice-presidential slot.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will make history. Hillary hopes to be the first female presidential candidate of a major party; Barack seeks to be the first non-white to win that honor. Romney hopes to be the first Mormon to win; McCain, at 72, will be the oldest candidate. Giuliani will be the baldest (and first Italian-American); Huckabee, the first evangelical minister.

But the choice of either Barack or Hillary is not just about being a major “first,” but about changing America’s global image, its role in the world and its national priorities. It has not been an easy choice for me as my college-age sons have urged me to endorse Barack Obama whose “Audacity of Hope” is not just the title of his book but also the challenge of his campaign. Barack is this generation’s John F. Kennedy, the candidate whose fiery eloquence has moved the youth to
look into the promise of the future as no candidate has been able to do since JFK. As the New York Times wrote, “he shows voters that he understands how much they hunger for a break with the Bush years, for leadership and vision and true bipartisanship.”

But I believe Hillary is more prepared to lead the country now because of her experience. When she was First Lady in 1993, she understood how critical it was for the US to have a universal health care system and sought to create a health care system that would benefit everyone. Unfortunately, she was crushed by the powerful pharmaceutical interests and the American Medical Association. But now 47 million Americans are without health care and the more than
100 million with health care do not have enough to cover them through catastrophic illnesses.

The European countries with universal health care, Canada, China, Japan and other industrialized countries are moving forward while the US economy is bogged down by an inadequate health care system serving only the rich and those with adequate health care coverage.
But now that the huge costs of health care is killing American industries and bankrupting states spending more to care for those seriously ill than they would otherwise have spent to keep them healthy, health care is now viewed as a universal right, not just of a privileged few.

As the Times noted, Hillary’s health care proposals “reflect a clear shift from her first, famously disastrous foray into the issue. She has learned that powerful interests cannot simply be left out of the meetings. She understands that all Americans must be covered — but must be allowed to choose their coverage, including keeping their current plans.”

Both Hillary and Barack will work to shift government resources from the Bush emphasis on helping the wealthy with tax cuts to helping the poor and middle income Americans to have health coverage. Hillary will know how to do it, from experience.

She’s also closer to the Filipino American community than any other presidential candidate from either party. She became only one who has addressed a major Filipino community gathering when she spoke at the national conference of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations in New York in 1999. Among her closest advisers are Filipino Americans like Loida Nicolas-Lewis, Irene Bueno, Irene Natividad, and Mona Pasquil. She also supports the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill and comprehensive immigration reform.

Vote Hillary.

Please send comments to Rodel50@aol.com, log on to rodel50.blogspot.com, write to Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call (415) 334-7800.