or: why i want to vote for kucinich, will probably vote for hillary and would happily vote for obama
nine things i think i think about the presidential primaries:
(disclaimer: i'm a democrat, and that ain't changing, if only because of self-interest. i've drawn a salary that was paid by the federal government every year for the last seven years, and a democrat in the white house makes it more likely that the job that i have now and other jobs i might someday have in the future will keep existing. and i think my job is important. and i like being able to pay my rent. so with that in mind, your mileage may vary, etcetera.)
1. of the three front-running candidates, i have absolutely zero interest in voting for john edwards for two reasons. first, although i agree with him on more things quantitatively (particularly the inherent moral wrongness of poverty), the qualitative importance that i place on the one big thing we disagree about (same-sex marriage) cancels the other stuff out. i know that edwards, clinton and obama are all on the record opposing same-sex marriage, but john edwards strikes me as the candidate most likely to be saying what he says because he really believes it, not just because he thinks he needs to say it to get elected. second, voting for either edwards, clinton or obama is going to require some huge political compromises on my part, none of them are even 75% the candidates i wish they were. if i'm going to vote for one of them, i feel like i should get to have the feel-good vibes of voting for a woman or a person of color. when i look at john edwards, all i can think is, "sit down, whitey." if i was going to vote for a middle-aged straight white dude, i would just vote for dennis kucinich.
2. (which is why i almost want to vote for kucinich in the primary, although i would never vote for him in the general. i hate it when people say that they voted for ralph nader/third party candidate of their choice because they lived in a state that was overwhelmingly in favor or either the democratic or republican candidate. i voted in massachusetts in 2004, and i fucking loathed john kerry, so i could have voted for theo epstein and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. but if i was going to expect like-minded progressives in florida and michigan and ohio to suck it up and vote for john kerry, i felt like i owed it to them to do the same.)
3. and so, yeah, as much as i am almost ashamed to admit it, a lot of my discontent with the democratic slate of candidates is rooted in same-sex marriage. which sucks, because i fully understand and appreciate that same-sex marriage is a political football that republicans like to throw around to rally their evangelical base, and that the government-sanctioned marital unions are fundamentally problematic. but the cat is out the bag, and i can't un-know what kind of retarded wishy-washy bullshit democratic candidates say and have said when they are trying to talk around the issue of same-sex marriage. and i'm smart, and i'm a dedicated voter, and i get it, but it hurts my feelings, you know? when barack obama, who is happy to allow himself to be painted as crown prince unity of the happy land of breach-healing, railroad conductor of the big purple equality train, when he says that he can't embrace gay marriage because it intrudes on the traditional religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, it makes me really SAD, you know? (and when he hangs out with ex-gays, that makes me feel ... something else.)
4. and i used to be mostly okay with that, you know? but then in november of 2006, i got to vote a massachusetts gubernatorial election where, among the democratic candidates, same-sex marriage was a non-issue. i got to vote for deval patrick (a historic candidate in his own right, when he was elected, he became the second african american governor ever in the united states), whose position on same-sex marriage was, basically, "yeah, it's civil rights issue. period." and i know that's why i live in massachusetts, and why i can't really imagine living anywhere else. but somehow that experience raised the emotional stakes for me in a way that has soured me on what should be an awesome, invigorating and empowering primary season.
5. but, so, between obama and clinton, i don't know, it's a toss-up. i don't care that obama is allegedly inexperienced, because what's he gonna do, put "other countries i have ran" on his resume? give me a presidential candidate with a sound set of political principles, and i'll trust that s/he will be surrounded by staff who makes sure that the trains run on time and the nuclear warheads don't go missing. i equally don't care that hillary clinton is only viable because of bill clinton, because there's precedent for women achieving political firsts through their husbands (the first female senator was elected to fill her dead husband's seat). i think i prefer hillary because of the emphasis she puts on health care. i even don't care that she can't yet articulate a national health plan that'll actually work, i mostly like that she seems to get that healthcare is really at the root of a lot of different kinds of problems, similar the the way that john edwards centerpieces poverty. on the other hand, as someone who has a "housing is healthcare" bumper sticker hanging up in her cube, i'm pretty sure neither of them have it 100% right, but that's another can of worms.
6. (brief detour to talk about something i feel no confusion about: i fucking hate mitt romney so fucking much i could fucking skull fuck him. i actually hate mitt romney more than i hate george w. bush, because i do believe that bush, in his own warped, cokeheaded way, loves america, where mitt romney hated massachusetts. fuck him.)
7. but then sometimes i realize that i'm splitting hairs, bitching about the relative social liberalism of a woman and a person of color, and when they finish duking it out, one of them is going to be the nominee of my political party of choice, i just want to fucking cry, you know?
8. and, anyway, here is a really smart article about barack obama by andrew sullivan, which presents the most compelling argument for electing obama that i've heard anywhere: basically, andrew sullivan believes that the vietnam war is at the root of all current political divisiveness in america, and that the only way to move past it is to elect a candidate who politically came of age post-vietnam.
9. no matter what else, the huge turnout in iowa and now new hampshire is really amazing, especially among young people. i saw somewhere that 20% of voters in the iowa caucus were under the age of 21!
(disclaimer: i'm a democrat, and that ain't changing, if only because of self-interest. i've drawn a salary that was paid by the federal government every year for the last seven years, and a democrat in the white house makes it more likely that the job that i have now and other jobs i might someday have in the future will keep existing. and i think my job is important. and i like being able to pay my rent. so with that in mind, your mileage may vary, etcetera.)
1. of the three front-running candidates, i have absolutely zero interest in voting for john edwards for two reasons. first, although i agree with him on more things quantitatively (particularly the inherent moral wrongness of poverty), the qualitative importance that i place on the one big thing we disagree about (same-sex marriage) cancels the other stuff out. i know that edwards, clinton and obama are all on the record opposing same-sex marriage, but john edwards strikes me as the candidate most likely to be saying what he says because he really believes it, not just because he thinks he needs to say it to get elected. second, voting for either edwards, clinton or obama is going to require some huge political compromises on my part, none of them are even 75% the candidates i wish they were. if i'm going to vote for one of them, i feel like i should get to have the feel-good vibes of voting for a woman or a person of color. when i look at john edwards, all i can think is, "sit down, whitey." if i was going to vote for a middle-aged straight white dude, i would just vote for dennis kucinich.
2. (which is why i almost want to vote for kucinich in the primary, although i would never vote for him in the general. i hate it when people say that they voted for ralph nader/third party candidate of their choice because they lived in a state that was overwhelmingly in favor or either the democratic or republican candidate. i voted in massachusetts in 2004, and i fucking loathed john kerry, so i could have voted for theo epstein and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. but if i was going to expect like-minded progressives in florida and michigan and ohio to suck it up and vote for john kerry, i felt like i owed it to them to do the same.)
3. and so, yeah, as much as i am almost ashamed to admit it, a lot of my discontent with the democratic slate of candidates is rooted in same-sex marriage. which sucks, because i fully understand and appreciate that same-sex marriage is a political football that republicans like to throw around to rally their evangelical base, and that the government-sanctioned marital unions are fundamentally problematic. but the cat is out the bag, and i can't un-know what kind of retarded wishy-washy bullshit democratic candidates say and have said when they are trying to talk around the issue of same-sex marriage. and i'm smart, and i'm a dedicated voter, and i get it, but it hurts my feelings, you know? when barack obama, who is happy to allow himself to be painted as crown prince unity of the happy land of breach-healing, railroad conductor of the big purple equality train, when he says that he can't embrace gay marriage because it intrudes on the traditional religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, it makes me really SAD, you know? (and when he hangs out with ex-gays, that makes me feel ... something else.)
4. and i used to be mostly okay with that, you know? but then in november of 2006, i got to vote a massachusetts gubernatorial election where, among the democratic candidates, same-sex marriage was a non-issue. i got to vote for deval patrick (a historic candidate in his own right, when he was elected, he became the second african american governor ever in the united states), whose position on same-sex marriage was, basically, "yeah, it's civil rights issue. period." and i know that's why i live in massachusetts, and why i can't really imagine living anywhere else. but somehow that experience raised the emotional stakes for me in a way that has soured me on what should be an awesome, invigorating and empowering primary season.
5. but, so, between obama and clinton, i don't know, it's a toss-up. i don't care that obama is allegedly inexperienced, because what's he gonna do, put "other countries i have ran" on his resume? give me a presidential candidate with a sound set of political principles, and i'll trust that s/he will be surrounded by staff who makes sure that the trains run on time and the nuclear warheads don't go missing. i equally don't care that hillary clinton is only viable because of bill clinton, because there's precedent for women achieving political firsts through their husbands (the first female senator was elected to fill her dead husband's seat). i think i prefer hillary because of the emphasis she puts on health care. i even don't care that she can't yet articulate a national health plan that'll actually work, i mostly like that she seems to get that healthcare is really at the root of a lot of different kinds of problems, similar the the way that john edwards centerpieces poverty. on the other hand, as someone who has a "housing is healthcare" bumper sticker hanging up in her cube, i'm pretty sure neither of them have it 100% right, but that's another can of worms.
6. (brief detour to talk about something i feel no confusion about: i fucking hate mitt romney so fucking much i could fucking skull fuck him. i actually hate mitt romney more than i hate george w. bush, because i do believe that bush, in his own warped, cokeheaded way, loves america, where mitt romney hated massachusetts. fuck him.)
7. but then sometimes i realize that i'm splitting hairs, bitching about the relative social liberalism of a woman and a person of color, and when they finish duking it out, one of them is going to be the nominee of my political party of choice, i just want to fucking cry, you know?
8. and, anyway, here is a really smart article about barack obama by andrew sullivan, which presents the most compelling argument for electing obama that i've heard anywhere: basically, andrew sullivan believes that the vietnam war is at the root of all current political divisiveness in america, and that the only way to move past it is to elect a candidate who politically came of age post-vietnam.
9. no matter what else, the huge turnout in iowa and now new hampshire is really amazing, especially among young people. i saw somewhere that 20% of voters in the iowa caucus were under the age of 21!