Our Broken Decisionmaking Process

To the Editor:

I urge Democrats to vote for Senator Barack Obama for President in the February 5 primary election.

Many Democrats remain unsure of their choice, and I would proffer some thoughts that lead me to my decision.

The greatest problem facing America today is not health care, looming recession, terrorism, budget and trade deficits, educational underachievement, or the war in Iraq. Our biggest problem is our broken decisionmaking processes. It is fashionable to deplore Washington’s partisan stalemate, but the problem is real and pervasive. In my own experience in communities across the country and at work in various sectors, I have seen decisions of every kind routinely turn into polarized power struggles.

It actually speaks well of our society that so many feel empowered to refuse to surrender their issues for someone’s purported “greater good.” But ours is also a complex society, with many overlapping needs and wants. We need to shape a public space in which we as empowered individuals can deliberate, and collectively carry out the best actions for, the greater good. To do so we need, each of us, to commit to this comity.

Usually candidates on the national stage deploy promises to mine votes just as marketers tempt consumer tastes to mine sales. Barack Obama, in his books, his campaign, his speeches, and his history, has focused on building comity, rather than on calculating a winning formula of issues. His positions on many issues are not uncontroversial; I disagree with a number of them myself. However, issues become impossible to resolve in any direction if politics continues in a vicious cycle of polarization. Sen Obama addresses process, and calls on Americans for support, rather than promising to solve our problems for us.

Sen Obama has staked his candidacy on this message, that our process has to improve, and that individuals can come together to do it. It is a message that deserves electoral endorsement. I urge anyone concerned at our political process to vote for Sen Obama.

George F. Paik

15 Overlook Drive, Newtown                                     January 30, 2008