Newsflash: I voted for Barack Obama.
I know it must be startling to you regular reader(s?) to hear that, but it is true. Although, I think that isn't really the proper way to put it. I didn't vote for Barack Obama because I think he is a transformational figure who will change the way Washington does things and usher in a new era of enlightenment and understanding and end racism and defeat the Nazis and yadda yadda yadda. I didn't really vote for Barack Obama so much as I voted against the Republican Party.
The Democrats could have run a ticket of Teri Schiavo and Beaker from the Muppets and I would have voted Schiavo/Beaker '08. It doesn't matter to me if Obama's pastor hates America, or if he and domestic terrorist William Ayers are BFFs, or if he's a secret Muslim or a socialist. The Republican Party needs to be removed from power. The actions (inactions?) and incompetence of the last eight years needs to be repudiated.
And the saddest figure in all of this is John McCain. If there was one
Republican figure that I thought might have been capable of pushing
back against the last eight years it was him.
There are
conservative Republican values that appeal to me. I like the idea of a
smaller, more fiscally conservative government that keeps taxes and
spending low. But the Republican party has been hijacked by Christian ideologues who make abortion and abstinence and creationism and prayer
in school their number one concerns, and fight wars in the name of God
and declare anyone who stands opposed to these ideas as
un-American.
They use the politics of division:
you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists. You are with us, or you are an
atheist. There is no room
for thoughtfulness, no room for intelligence or progress. You are a
real American, or you are a Democrat.
I think John Stewart had the best response to this.
And
John McCain, he ran against these people in 2000. And he could have
run against them in 2008. But instead he bowed to these people, and
picked one of them to be his vice-presidential candidate. He has
joined them; so he, too, must now be defeated with the rest of them.
In 1994, the Democrats were shown the door from Congress, and perhaps rightfully so. We are now at a similar crossroads. The
Republican government of the last eight years has failed, and failed
spectacularly, in so many ways. They need to be shown the door.
Schiavo/Beaker '08!
