oh Politics...
Yesterday was Michigan's Primary...sort of. With no Democratic delegates and only 4 candidates on the ballot, Michigan's role for the Democratic side was simply to get some results in the media. This made me slightly hopeful. One of the candidates left on the ballot was Dennis Kucinich. He's also the only Democratic candidate that campaigned in Michigan, and I went to see him twice. I like him a lot, and think him quite capable. He's educated, but not uppity, and has good ideas and plans for pretty much everything. Really, it's almost like taking the best bits from each of the 3 leading candidates (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) and leaving all the crud behind. That crud happens to include money though, and so Kucinich is not able to campaign as much. He's also not exactly a media favorite, being anti-big corporation and all.
The end result of this is me talking to friends about politics and getting a blank stare when I mention Dennis Kucinich. "Who?" they ask. "Never heard of him." But people who know of him generally like him. I had the hope that people would use their vote to pick Kucinich since the vote is essentially wasted anyhow, there's no fear of causing a split. I tried my best to spread the word, and voted for him along with about 20k other people in this state.
Since the results make it pretty clear that I'm probably going to have to choose someone else to like, I went over to a friend's to watch the debates in Nevada (where Kucinich was invited, then un-invited, then court-ordered to be allowed, then not there anyway). I had been moderately excited about each of the major 3 at different points, but now it's all just kinda blah. I still don't trust Clinton, I'm off and on with Obama, and Edwards is quickly becoming a parody of himself with the whole "son of a mill worker" line among other tired phrases. In all though, it just blows me away to look at how much money they've raised and spent. I can think of a lot of ways to spend 100 million dollars that would be far more productive than this stupid game. Unfortunately, Kucinich's only fighting chance was to do the same.
The end result of this is me talking to friends about politics and getting a blank stare when I mention Dennis Kucinich. "Who?" they ask. "Never heard of him." But people who know of him generally like him. I had the hope that people would use their vote to pick Kucinich since the vote is essentially wasted anyhow, there's no fear of causing a split. I tried my best to spread the word, and voted for him along with about 20k other people in this state.
Since the results make it pretty clear that I'm probably going to have to choose someone else to like, I went over to a friend's to watch the debates in Nevada (where Kucinich was invited, then un-invited, then court-ordered to be allowed, then not there anyway). I had been moderately excited about each of the major 3 at different points, but now it's all just kinda blah. I still don't trust Clinton, I'm off and on with Obama, and Edwards is quickly becoming a parody of himself with the whole "son of a mill worker" line among other tired phrases. In all though, it just blows me away to look at how much money they've raised and spent. I can think of a lot of ways to spend 100 million dollars that would be far more productive than this stupid game. Unfortunately, Kucinich's only fighting chance was to do the same.