Anyone feel like discussing platforms this evening?

I heard someone make a great crack about education today. She said the Democrats are promising to get rid of NCLB but keep funding it, while the Republicans are promising to keep NCLB going but stop funding it.

Seriously, can anybody give me a sense of what an ESEA reauthorization will look like under Clinton vs. Obama?

People keep saying the policies are nearly identical. But I don't like Clinton's healthcare mandates, because I feel like they are doomed to shafting the poor and eating up some of their desperately needed income for low-quality services. I may not be a healthcare expert, but I do know the track record on post-Reagan era government programs for the poor, and corporate-government partnerships in general. The poor lose; and the only difference between Democrat and Republican is a win for the middle class versus the ultra-rich. Of course I prefer the Democratic way of helping the middle class, but I also think the economy is in a disastrous state and that poverty issues will come to the fore on their own in the next four years.

I am something of an expert on poverty and poverty policies, and I have to say that Obama's are far superior to Clinton's. Clinton's platform does not include any form of affordable housing, programs for the country's millions of ex-prisoners, or neighborhood empowerment initiatives. Obama's does, and what I've read of his poverty program seems to be grounded in the best and most up-to-date research on successful antipoverty policy.

Clinton promises to bring more people into the middle class, and strengthen their position. I have fundamental philosophical disagreements with this. I believe in policies that help everyone, not a statistical bulge in the middle, or a specially concocted eligibility class designed to look good and get votes. I strongly believe in trickle-up economics: the better off our disabled, our homeless, and our inmates are, the better off the rest of us will be. Right now the world of extreme poverty in America is too close to a Hobbesian nightmare after policies pursued by Reagan, both Bushes, and, I'm sorry to say, Bill Clinton.

I don't claim complete knowledge of every aspect of each candidate's platform--DU is my main source of information, and platforms are seldom discussed here. I do find the two candidates quite different and I'm surprised that "their policies are the same" has become accepted wisdom.

Anyhow, this thread will probably sink like a stone. But I hope someone wants to talk about this side of the unfolding drama.

edit for typo

I thought one or two people might bite.

for the next time someone accuses Obama supporters of not wanting to talk policy.