In the interests of full disclosure, I did NOT vote for Obama. Early in his senatorial career, Obama took positions and voted in ways I did not approve of. Not just once or twice, but almost all the time. I cannot vote for someone whose only attribute is that he's less worse than the other guy - and his wolf-shooting running mate.
So I research all of the announced candidates, no matter how obscure their party. Out of the fourteen announced major and minor party candidates, I couldn't vote for anyone. I ended up writing in Ron Paul - despite all of his baggage — primarily because he's been right about the then-pending economic collapse. I don't know what I will do this next time.
I cannot award my vote to Obama, for his most recent statement regarding the stimulus - "It worked exactly as planned" doesn't jibe with Joe Biden's late admission that "we didn't know how bad things were". That was why Joe had to go face the Ohio voters who are very mad at Obama and defend the program as penance for wandering off the reservation and telling the truth.
But on the other hand, I cannot vote for any Republican — Huckabee or Romney, for instance — who expects to resume where Dumbya left off. Is there not sufficient evidence dropping on our heads daily as to why this is so? (Never mind. There is no one in there anyway, so why do I bother?) Third-party Palin has already shown me that she is not to be trusted with power, so she is out as well.
Thus, despite the House spanking Obama as they should have Bush, I guess I'm doomed to suffer the slings and arrows of my outrageous missed fortunes and continue to wander the political world searching for my electable Diogenes. As I do so, I'll continue to utter "I wish that I never make a political wish again!"
Article comments
1 - Ruvy
So many of you Americans seem to mistake stupid for uneducated. You've not seen the last of Sarah Palin. If indeed as the author suggests, she will campaign for those candidates she believes believe in the right stuff, her gut will lead her to pick the right issues. She did not become a mayor for nothing, and she did not become a governor for nothing. And there are things she can campaign for in a morally sick America that need pushing - badly.
Her own expereience with a daughter who would not listen to her sexual teachings, who spread her legs for a boy she loved and became pregnant, only to see the boy back away, will give Mrs. Palin, the mother, a credibility with thousands upon thousands of parents who have similar problems. The imperfect woman striving to improve is a very potent symbol among a population of spiritually wounded people.
And as time wears on, Americans will start to see themselves that way.
2 - Joanne Huspek
This is why we need a real alternative. Everyone pooh-poohs the third party concept, but I'm sick to death of the wheeling-dealing that both sides are into. We need a giant shop vac and clean the halls of Congress, start off with new blood (hopefully none of them lawyers... mix some economists in there and people who can READ legislation with a small amount of common sense) and get a new revolution going.
It worked for the founding fathers.