Change

All of the Democratic candidates and some of the Republican candidates like to talk about change (at least post-Iowa). One quote from Lawrence Lessig that struck me:

If the only “change” at stake here is a change in the party in control, then there’s no much to get excited about.

Very true.

More importantly:
Lessig also pointed out the Clinton campaign’s Rove-style swift-boating of Obama (this post). In short, swift-boating means to take your opponent’s strength and bring it into question in order to distract the voters from how much weaker you are in that regard (which GWB did to John Kerry in 2004 to make people not notice that Bush avoided military service). Obama opposed the war from the start, including speaking at an anti-war rally. Once in the senate, he did authorize funding of the war, but this isn’t the same thing as supporting a war that you’re not in. Meanwhile, Clinton voted for the war at the very outset, and has been voting to fund it ever since.

Anyway, I voted for Obama, so we’ll see what happens of Feb 5.