I'm happy to see all the bullshit going away and the shape of things starting to become clearer.
Four years ago, I voted for Kerry because he wasn't Bush, who even then I considered a criminal threat to American values, principles, and specifically, its Constitution. I didn't vote for Kerry so much because he was Kerry, but like many Americans, because he did not seem like a criminal. I take my vote seriously, and I cannot vote for a man who called the Constitution "just a piece of paper" even as he lied to the American people in creating the pretense for a war everyone with either a brain or a conscience knew was not going to be over in "a matter of weeks."
Bush was handed the election by the Supreme Court in 2000, and the attacks of 9/11 hadn't happened yet. That was back when the presidency was mere politics for me, a matter of choosing policies and hoping for some changes in the direction I felt were a better one. But I had never considered the matter of the presidency as a matter of life or death for America.
After 9/11, that changed, and we went to war against Al Queda and terrorists, primarily in Afghanistan (a move I supported) and then a costly, seemly endless quagmire in Iraq (which I think will go down in American history as an even bigger mistake than Vietnam, and did not support).
Knowing what could be known then, a vote for Bush meant further endorsement of his irrational foreign policy, unilateralism, and his sheer arrogance and seemingly growing disconnectedness from reality. That vote -- the second one, which was, for the most part, fair and square, unlike the one that got him elected -- was a crucial one for me. When Bush got reelected, it really did cast a gloom over me, and was a funk I haven't been able to shake for years. It was also a funk that has made it easy for me to be an expatriate, and to not feel much desire to go back.
I get angry even seeing Bush on television, but even angrier that the American people, or just over half of us, actually put him back in office a second time. I can't say which disappoints me more.
But to the extent that I despaired in 2004, I have hope again. I am voting for Barack Obama, barring a revelation that he is an alien infiltrator in human clothing, or was secretly a street pimp named Big O working the Tenderloin in the 1980's. Short of such levels of scandalous revelation, I've seen enough to make it clear that he is the most fit, as well as the most likely to become the next President of the United States.
I truly believe, for the first time in my life, that I'm able to vote for a candidate who will bring about true, fundamental change in American life, as well as its policies abroad. He's not a crunchy Nader, an emotionally inaccessible Kerry, or a formerly uninspiring Gore. And he doesn't look like the picture of "the politician", as Clinton the First pulled off with charm, confidence, and a certain degree of pimptitude, but are warm character traits that Clinton the Second sorely lacks.
And let's not forget that Hilary is no different from the other politicians who voted to send American troops to die for what is nothing more than an business opportunity for the connected, and a vainglorious distraction from the fact that Al Qaeda is still running around while Bin Laden continues to draw breath in the land of the living. And laughs at us. Why are we fighting these wars again? Wasn't it to round up the several hundred badguys in this criminal network and put Bin Laden into the ground? Why are we just creating a new breeding ground for terrorists and pissing away the power of our moral mandate to strike back? Well, we've pretty much pissed that away completely at this point.
Yes, Bush. "Mission accomplished," right?
Now, comes a man whom I would truly follow, whom I think of worthy of being followed, who has the morality, vision, and ability to lead. And now that the old arguments are starting to tatter -- "C'mon. A black man as president? If he could win, I'd vote for him, but" -- it's time to question just what the value of a vote means.
I didn't vote for Nader -- my history as an adult in the final races have been Clinton, Gore, Kerry, although I registered Green in the primaries to give them viability, yet voted in other directions. Yet, I still bristle when people needle him for "giving Bush the election" by dividing the electorate. That's short-sighted.
The real problem has been that the Dems have been pussies for far too long, and the electorate should have never BEEN that divided to begin with, to the extent that a blithering idiot such as Bush could even make it a close race. The fact that Nader made it a bit harder for Gore is besides the point, and people shouldn't use their votes as political tools, like pawns in a game of chess. People who vote for whom they think is best. If people simply do that, we don't have to play counting games and talk about "throwing away votes."
And the political inefficacy of the Democratic party was where votes were "thrown away" for long before Nader even showed up. If anything, his brief upsurge in popularity was a mere reflection of the growing disillusionment of the stuffed-suit politics of a party that had seemed to forgotten where it had left its balls, not to mention a clearly-stated vision for the country.
Now, I feel we've got a man with a vision, as well as a man who CAN win. I've always been saying that anyone who isn't going to vote for Obama because he's black, or because "his name rhymes with Osama, dude!" isn't a vote the Dems ever had, anyway. And now that Clinton is starting to feel the heat from her past political mistake of supporting the Iraq war, is playing the role of eminent politician, and continues to make clear her utter lack of a personality, Obama's star is really starting to shine.
I'm ready. I'm on board. Actually, I've been there since 2004. Don't you hate it when you go to see a movie, and the trailer for the movie you REALLY want to see comes on? Well, now, after nearly four years of waiting, it's almost here. Looks damn good so far.
Frankly, Obama "had me at hello."
P.S. And in a crisis, who still thinks a black man can't be president? We've already seen this applied. Still can't imagine it?
As they say, "Once you go Black, you never...vote Republican again!" Or something like that.
Obama/Freeman 2008!
