Jim Stillman
Nevar
Part I: the 2008 election
August 19th 2007 19:10
In about 14 months and a week or so, on November 4, 2008, I will go to the First United Methodist Church of Lutz, just west of the Public Library, enter the polling place designated for Precinct 591, and participate in the choosing of those men and women who assert they will perform with honesty, honor and courage. As of today, it appears that I have only one choice.
In the 13 elections in which I played a role, with one exception which will be explained forthwith, I voted for the Democratic candidate for president. I did so out of my belief in social-progressive-liberalism that I have described many times on these pages. The “exception” about which I mentioned was in 1980. Faced with a Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter race, one in which there was no way to choose the better of the two candidates or, perhaps, the less objectionable, I threw my vote away and pulled the lever for John Anderson, a third-party candidate, a former Republican in the later repudiated moderate wing. Mr. Anderson had no chance whatsoever and his support came from independents, moderate Republicans of the “Rockefeller Wing” of that party, Doonesbury and the Village Voice. Anderson ended up with 7% of the vote and failed to carry my, and every other, precinct in the country.
I will not throw my vote away, again!
So for whom will I, can I, vote? It is almost certain that I will not vote for the Republican candidate. This is not blindness on my part; it is the result of the GOP’s primary scheme in which each candidate adopts, sometimes suddenly and inconsistently, positions far, far to the Right in an attempt to woo the base. These positions are, likely to be to the right of the moderate centrist opinions of the majority of Americans.
I would vote for a Republican who was a “compassionate conservative” but that’s what Bush 43 claimed and that’s not what he was and is. I would vote for a “uniter not a divider” except when Mr. Rove embarked on a program specifically aimed at division, there is wariness.
It’s more than slogans. The Bush/Rove administration ruined any reasonable immigration reform bill by insisting on forms of amnesty, guest workers, and the like, in the hope that Rove’s vision of a permanent Republican majority would be formed with an expanding Hispanic vote.
So, I will, as of now, probably vote Democratic.
Again, as of now, the front-runners are Senators Clinton and Obama and John Edwards. I would be willing and proud to vote for any of them. However, and I acknowledge this with shame and embarrassment, the American people will not choose a woman or an African-American as president. This would make an ideal ticket (in my mind) of Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton a poor choice for the Democrats. John Edwards, on the other hand is electable and brings with him traits often lauded by the GOP. He has the further advantage of being vilified, untruthfully and with pure hate, by the folks at Fox News.
There are cogent arguments in support of John Edwards. I will discuss these in my next post. I will also refute many of the tales spewed by Fox.
Stay tuned.
In the 13 elections in which I played a role, with one exception which will be explained forthwith, I voted for the Democratic candidate for president. I did so out of my belief in social-progressive-liberalism that I have described many times on these pages. The “exception” about which I mentioned was in 1980. Faced with a Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter race, one in which there was no way to choose the better of the two candidates or, perhaps, the less objectionable, I threw my vote away and pulled the lever for John Anderson, a third-party candidate, a former Republican in the later repudiated moderate wing. Mr. Anderson had no chance whatsoever and his support came from independents, moderate Republicans of the “Rockefeller Wing” of that party, Doonesbury and the Village Voice. Anderson ended up with 7% of the vote and failed to carry my, and every other, precinct in the country.
I will not throw my vote away, again!
So for whom will I, can I, vote? It is almost certain that I will not vote for the Republican candidate. This is not blindness on my part; it is the result of the GOP’s primary scheme in which each candidate adopts, sometimes suddenly and inconsistently, positions far, far to the Right in an attempt to woo the base. These positions are, likely to be to the right of the moderate centrist opinions of the majority of Americans.
I would vote for a Republican who was a “compassionate conservative” but that’s what Bush 43 claimed and that’s not what he was and is. I would vote for a “uniter not a divider” except when Mr. Rove embarked on a program specifically aimed at division, there is wariness.
It’s more than slogans. The Bush/Rove administration ruined any reasonable immigration reform bill by insisting on forms of amnesty, guest workers, and the like, in the hope that Rove’s vision of a permanent Republican majority would be formed with an expanding Hispanic vote.
So, I will, as of now, probably vote Democratic.
Again, as of now, the front-runners are Senators Clinton and Obama and John Edwards. I would be willing and proud to vote for any of them. However, and I acknowledge this with shame and embarrassment, the American people will not choose a woman or an African-American as president. This would make an ideal ticket (in my mind) of Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton a poor choice for the Democrats. John Edwards, on the other hand is electable and brings with him traits often lauded by the GOP. He has the further advantage of being vilified, untruthfully and with pure hate, by the folks at Fox News.
There are cogent arguments in support of John Edwards. I will discuss these in my next post. I will also refute many of the tales spewed by Fox.
Stay tuned.
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