I Hate Pissing Up Ropes
I've been reading through the blogs and honestly people, it's getting beyond shrill and I'm really not in the frame of mind to go there.
Look, my first choice was Bill Richardson but when it became obvious that he was not going to get enough support to become viable, I, living in realityville as I tend to do, looked to the rest of the field for a new choice. Does not mean I don't still like Richardson, it means I accept the reality that I cannot have it all my way, at least not all of the time. I have 299,999,999 other people I have to make nice with whether I like it or not. Happily Gov. Richardson is a grown up too and gracefully exited with dignity intact before becoming a spoiler.
That said, for a multitude of reasons I chose to support Barack Obama, not least of which being I firmly believe he is the only candidate remaining who can win the general election and that my friends is of dire importance to me. I have no intention of going on either a Clinton or Edwards bashing campaign because, doh, here I go inserting reality again, Edwards is not going to win the nomination, not going to happen and Clinton, well, she might win the nomination but looking at the extremely overheated division over her within our own party, on both sides, does anyone truly believe this would not be a major problem in the general election?
Does not make a damn what *I* think or do not think about them, what will matter is what that other 299,999,999 people think and it ain't looking so good out there for either of them. Consider the remote possibility that I just might be less out of touch with *mainstream america* than our hopelessly befuddled media. Just maybe.
Or, ignore the bottom line, insist this is Burger King, and say hello to President McCain. Your call.
9 comments:
I've been watching the race with some amusement, and not a little confusion.
The US election process has a lot of coverage here in the UK. I suspect that the average UK citizen can name a lot more US politicians than the other way round.
The process seems to be long, unwieldy and expensive (at least compared to ours).
Having said that, I'm pleased to report that on this side of the pond most of the pundits seem to be favouring the Democrats. :)
The average citizen in the rest of the world can name a lot more US politicians than the other way round. The rest of the world are all stakeholders in U.S. elections. After eight of the most motherfuckingest years in American history, the American electorate is beginning to realize that they, too, are stakeholders, that elections have consequences.
They are beginning to realize that.
By all rights it should be a Democratic win. But, there's always a but...we can still manage to screw this up if we put up a nominee that even many democrats will not vote for. Don't even get me started on independant voters.
If we do that then we deserve to lose and may as well give up any further thought of being a viable party.
So, Mama, it seems to come down to this:
Who would you rather run against Grandpa McCain?
Barack Obama or Grandma?
2004 "should" have been a Democratic win, too...
Vigilante: easy there, I'm a grandmother ;). IF I were a single issue voter I could see voting for Clinton to make a statement on gender issues but I'm not. There's far too much at stake here for a "statement" vote. Give me the right grandmother for the job and I'd vote for her.
Woozie: aye, it should have been. We chose the wrong dog for that fight.
Mama, I could only be saying what I said if I were a grandpa, which I am, several times over...
I'll stick with Edwards while he's in in the hope that he can get enough delegates to influence the convention. Obama was a solid second for me, but as I examined his positions I found them the least progressive among the three. On the other hand, I prefer him to Clinton where ethics are concerned, so I'm still up in the air.
Well, Edwards is out now, leaving the choice to Obama or Clinton. I'm going with Clinton for two reasons:
1) She has a real health care plan. It isn't a *great* one, in that it is way too expensive for what it does, but it actually has a chance of passing, unlike Medicare for All, because it greases the palms of all possible opponents. Yeah, it's corrupt. But it's the government we have, for the moment.
2) By the time the Right Wing Noise Machine finishes with Obama, they'll have 51% of the population believing that Obama is a closet Islamafascist who is going to kill them all once he becomes President. They'll try that on Hillary Clinton too, of course -- but they already shot their wad there. I mean, they've already accused Hillary of *killing* someone (remember Vince Foster?). How lower can they get than that?
That said, I'm voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination. They ain't great, but at least they ain't batshit crazy like all the Republican candidates (McCain who wants us to be in Iraq for 100 years and sings "Bomb Iran", Multiple Choice Mitt who tortures dogs?). Sometimes we vote for the candidate we get, not the one we would want in an ideal world :-(.
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