Posted by permission from one of my Yahoo! groups:

Last night I went to a rally with Senator Clinton.
Today I went to an event with Senator Obama. I tried
to keep an open mind and listened to him speak. His
speech actually cemented my first impression of him as
someone who is rather short on specifics and I will be
caucusing for Clinton tomorrow.

His speech was 52 minutes long, half of it was
repetitive and generalizing about change and hope for
a better future. If I hear the words change and hope
again I'm going to throw up! He talked a lot about not
wanting to tear town but wanting to lift up. It was
very similar to the speech he gave a year and a half
ago in Bellevue, WA.

By comparison, Clinton's 45 minute speech last night
elaborated much more on policy and specifics.

When they spoke on specific policies they sounded very
similar. There was the same talk about health care,
capping green house gasses, investing in bio-diesel,
raising automobile fuel efficiency,  ending tax breaks
for companies that ship jobs overseas, the need for a
national service program, schools crumbling, etc etc.

While he mentioned mounting college debt as something
that needs fixing, unlike Clinton he offered no
specific proposals.

On Iraq he said that he would end the war in 2009.
Clinton said that she would begin an assessment on
inauguration day and would start bringing troops home
within 60 days of becoming president.

Clinton also spoke of the need to protect those Iraqis
who have helped our country. This is very important to
me.  There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of
thousands, of Iraqis who have helped our country over
there, as translators, drivers, cooks, construction
workers, civil servants, etc etc. If we get leave Iraq
in a cluster-fuck manner, then these people are going
to die. We have an obligation to ensure their safety,
including, if the time comes, to getting them out of
there. After the Vietnam War we allowed more than a
hundred thousand South Vietnam refugees to resettle in
the US; so far we have let in only a few thousand
Iraqis.

Obama's position on Iraq seems to be unrealistic
whereas Clinton's is more honest. I doubt that the US
will have all of our troops out of Iraq on January
1st, 2010, regardless of who the president is. It will
take awhile for a draw down; there is also a lot of
supplies that need to be brought home as well.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
Wes Clark -- Make America All It Can Be!