Obama at UNH

Last night my wife and I were fortunate enough to attend a “town hall meeting” type event with presidential candidate Barack Obama at the UNH Fieldhouse. The crowd was large and energetic and certainly seemed impressed with what Mr. Obama had to say. He began by outlining some of the problems we face going forward from climate change to energy security to healthcare to the war in Iraq. He then invited questions from the audience for the rest of the event and fielded them extremely well. I think it would be particularly unusual for any candidate to say exactly what you want to hear for every issue, but something about his responses for each question resounded with me. Mr. Obama may be a bit wordy for some people’s taste but I think he’s just getting into the groove and is going to gain polish over time. His responses were genuine and it was clear he had put thought into the issues that were on people’s minds.

There were only a handful of questions asked and none of those were anything specifically about climate change which was disappointing to me. But, Mr. Obama has recently signed onto the McCain-Lieberman bill to address greenhouse-gas emissions and he was able to highlight that at one point last night. He mentioned E85 and other biofuels, though personally I see these as little more than a stop gap. He also mentioned raising CAFE standards by 4% per year, which would be great, but even better if they were already at realistic numbers. There was only one question I felt he avoided and that was with regard to his lack of experience with foreign policy. His response was to outline the experience he does have and how it would be relevant to the presidency and that was probably more politically wise than simply conceding that he lacks experience with international affairs.

One person raised the question of gay marriage (I think the audience would have been better served with a question on climate change) and Mr. Obama’s response was sensible even if not what some wanted to hear. The short version is that he is in favor of civil unions with full legal benefit instead of gay marriage. Personally I’m all for gay marriage. Regardless of what many people may believe marriage is nothing but a legal agreement between you and the state you live in. You can have a religious ceremony, but it isn’t a requirement. A marriage certificate is. If two people love each other and want to be married it should be legal. But I really don’t see gay marriage as a presidential issue. Many states have already passed laws against it and so in order for there to be gay marriages that are accepted throughout the country the supreme court would have to declare those laws unconstitutional. I’m not sure why anyone would expect anything more than Mr. Obama’s response out of a serious presidential candidate. Saying you were in favor of gay marriage would instantly lose you some percentage (and probably a fairly large one) of your supporters or potential supporters.

I look forward to seeing some of the other candidates speak at UNH later in the year. I’m not ready to sign up for any campaign at the moment but I’m sure I will before the primary rolls around.