The Worst Thing I Could Do
“I’m voting for McCain”, I said casually wondering if anyone would hear me over Snakes on a Plane. My newly minted 21 year old niece picked up on it right away- “getting it” in fact that I’m one of the 18 Million disgruntled democrats who voted for Hillary and isn’t quite ready to participate in the Kumbya in Unity, New Hampshire.
My aunt, sitting across from me in the plaid wingback chair shoots me a look that says I might have been better off confessing to crack addiction. Running a prostitution ring. Robbing a bank. All three recoverable offenses when compared to the sins of the Republican Party which are so far reaching and insidious as to be unforgivable.
As a family, we’ve spent 8 years bonding over our shared contempt for the Bush administration; I was so upset after the 2000 election that my first call was to my Uncle from an airport in Tampa where I railed for some time about the sheer idiocy of the right wing.
I hold the values of the Democratic Party as close as my personal values. I believe in a woman’s right to choose her own reproductive path. I think that equality is paramount and that it should be extended to all human kind. Discrimination in all forms is deplorable. And as someone in a comparatively high tax bracket, I think I should be taxed disproportionately higher than those in lower or middle incomes because I think I have a responsibility to fund the programs in my community that benefit the greater good. The war in Iraq is on my mind constantly, as someone who lives a mile from the Pentagon and saw the smoke from my condo on 9/11 and as someone who regularly visits Arlington Cemetery and sees them clearing space, way too much space in the section devoted to the soldiers who come back in pieces. That Dominion Power announced an 18% increase and that it now costs me on average $60 each week to fill my VW are at the forefront of my economic concerns and I believe that the Democratic Party is far more likely to address those concerns in their complexity and totality.
I’m still going to vote for McCain.
If George Bush’s Presidency taught me anything it’s that ego and inexperience are a lethal combination when combined with power. In the broadest sense, it would be impossible to hear George Bush speak even one time and not know that he’s a man of substandard intellect. Incurious, unintelligent, inarticulate, I nevertheless counted on the fact that he and “his people” would surround him with great minds to compensate for a man who was on perpetual vacation. Great minds. Rove. Scooter. Cheney.
Obama is smart, whip smart in fact and has demonstrated powerful skills in debate and oration. So my decision not to vote for him is predicated on his lack of experience and my unwillingness as a tax-payer and citizen to suffer at the hands of another 4 years of political inexperience- no matter how well intentioned Obama might be. I don’t know if he has an inflated ego as much as he is unaware of the unintended arrogance the permeates ever gesture he makes.
McCain has, to quote him from an episode of Saturday Night Live, “the oldness” and I’m coming into an age where I place tremendous value in the experience that comes from having lived a long and complex life. There is value and respect that he garners from me as a voter for having served our country. While he’s said some things about the Iraq war that trouble me the fact that he comes at it with the perspective of a former soldier, something that Clinton (either of them) Bush, and Obama do not have, bears weight with me as a voter.
He is not my perfect candidate. I admire his experience but he is some serious kind of old. Old like the Pope- and I I’ve blogged about that in the past. I don’t like his wife. She’s the blond, petite nightmare I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid. That she is so much younger than he is plays on my long held resentment of men dumping their first wives for younger women.
The reasons people vote for one candidate over another are both complicated and fluid. So while I can say firmly that were the elections today, I would not vote for Obama, I can’t say for certainty that I’ll hold on to this feeling through the November elections or if my predilection for McCain is that of a jilted lover. He still has to choose a running mate and because McCain is older than most trees in my neighborhood, I’ll be looking at the running mate pretty seriously. And of course Obama could win me back by asking Hillary to be his running mate. Me and the 18 Million people who voted for her. It won’t happen.
… and I’m plenty irritated with Hillary too- but that’s a subject for another blog.
Several years ago there was a study that revealed that most Americans vote for the candidate that they would most want to have over to their house for dinner, the message being that while issues are important, Americans place a tremendous amount of value on the ability to connect with a candidate on a personal level and I’ve not yet made that connection with either candidate.
The last thing my aunt said to me before we each went to bed was that there is a lot of time between now and November. I think she meant for me to change my mind. I hope it’s enough time for the family to forgive me.
I guess I’ll forgive you! I love your blog. Miss seeing you.
1.Do tell about your irritation with Hillary?
2.I would not want any politician to come to my house for dinner. What’s up with that study?
3.I love your blog, too.
At least you plan to vote. I can’t. I’m too angry with both candidates. And I am disappointed in Hillary for not understanding her own weaknesses which are mostly about image rather than substance. I have always believe that you can FIX image if you have substance, and she blew it.
And if Bush drops a bomb on Iran just because he can, none of us will be able to sleep. Watch out for this guy. It ain’t over yet.
I should have sprinkled some cymbalta on coffee this morning.
Love, Mom
COME BACK TO KANSAS CITY!!! We miss you!!
The Worst Thing you could do is support the idea of withdrawing from Iraq in surrender according to some arbitrary timetable drawn up by an inexperienced politician from Chicago with no military background. That’s sheer idiocy. Honor those fallen heroes in Arlington by insisting on victory, don’t demean their sacrifice by retreating in humiliating defeat. Anything else will be regarded by our enemies in Iran and Syria and Al Quaeda as a victory for them over us, a propoganda victory which will have hugely negative repercussions for us for decades, and potentially exponentially worse loss of life.
As someone who had two different husbands serve in Vietnam, and also someone who was vehemently opposed to that war, I was delighted when Bill Clinton (from the same era) was elected to office and kept us out of additional “police actions” or whatever the political phrase is today. However, I also looked forward to the day when a veteran of that conflict would take the oath of office as president of the United States. I’ve hoped such a person would be keenly aware of the ignorance, dishonesty, greed and personal insecurities that led to our involvement in that quagmire, and would do everything within his (her?) power to avoid similar missteps. I respect John McCain’s military service and admire some of his political stances over the years. But his statements indicate he is determined to repeat many of the same mistakes in the Middle East today.
To gain a better understanding of events yesterday, today and likely tomorrow, I recommend reading Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam: A History. Many passages could be directly applied to the policies and actions leading up to our present-day conflicts in the world.
It’s a very old and trite adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but it’s true.