Politicking

The only presidential candidate I’ve ever been excited about voting for is Ralph Nader. He was never going to win, but he had some good ideas and he stood by them.Unlike seemingly every other non-republican in the world I was (and still not) all that impressed with Al Gore. Or Bill Clinton for that matter. And you know what? I don’t think that many people were really that impressed at the end of Clinton’s terms either. The clusterf*ck of the last eight years has given the country (and the world?) a case selective memory. These were okay guys, but really still a far cry from the kind of leadership the country actually needs. And John Kerry? Did anything about him really matter? We just wanted to get anyone else in.

But now it’s actually an election again, kind of. And don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a woman or any minority in office as much as anyone. I have just been feeling more and more that Clinton is REALLY not that woman and Obama is probably not that minority. They are both so gotdamn eager to impress, to the point where they sellout in a big way, the exact thing republicans are always making fun of democrats for.

Clinton is all about Universal Health Care until she meets opposition and then she sells out and gets bought by pharmaceutical companies like everyone else, and she voted for a bunch of Bush’s crappy ideas: No Child Left Behind? Sounds Great. The War? Sure thing, want some more money? For a long time I was on the fence about her because I felt like her personality was the only thing that was criticized, never her politics, and so I though, well maybe she has her sh*t together and people are just afraid of her. But the more I read, the more it does seem like electing her might be like a slightly worse version of the 90s, which, weren’t THAT bad in comparison, but we can do far better.

Obama I can’t completely decide about, but what worries me is I don’t think he can completely decide about himself either. It must be incredibility difficult to toe the racial line your whole life. If you’re a woman, you’re a woman period. But being both white and black, you can never be seen as one completely. And yeah, he’s getting a lot of flack for playing too much on the white side and ignoring the problems of black people in America, but that’s unfair, when Clinton caters to the interests of (mostly men) in corporate ownership no one says she’s ignoring the problems of women, by virtue of being a woman she must be lady-sympathic right? Racial identification aside, what does Obama stand for? He was against the war, but other than that it seems like a lot of vague lip service, just like Clinton he seems pretty interested in keeping the wealthy and upper middle class happy. From everything I’ve read, he’s not a bad guy at all, but I do get the sense that he needs a kick in the pants because he doesn’t seem to stand firm enough and seems, like Clinton, too eager to keep the rich white guys happy.

So that oddly leaves me liking the rich white guy, Edwards, the best. I didn’t even think about him until the last month or so, because I wrote him off as more of the same Kerry, Gore blahness. And yes he’s far from an ideal choice, but he’s the much better not-ideal choice. He’s the only candidate that’s really noticed that working class people exist and that they are the voters and citizens a candidate should be most concerned about. And he’s passionate, and has ideas that differ from the rest (slightly) but still says them. But everyone knows that ideas and conviction often has little place in the election process, so his chances are slim. But maybe Obama will pick him as a running mate, and Edwards can serve as Obama’s conscience