This will be the third presidential election in which I've been old enough to vote. I narrowly missed the opportunity to vote for Clinton in 1996, but I put a sticker on my '74 Beetle. ;)
In 2000, while in college, I volunteered for the Nader campaign, and I don't regret that. I knew Bush would win Texas, and I thought (and still think) that Nader had a very important message, and, more important, deserved to be heard, rather than sidelined by the corporate media. I wanted the Greens to get a high enough percentage to get matching funds in future elections, because I believe (and still believe) that the two-party (especially at the national level) hold on our system is fatal to our democracy. After the election, I was very disappointed. All of us rational Texans couldn't
believe anywhere near half the American electorate would vote for our joke of a governor - enough to throw the veracity of the election into question to begin with.
In 2004, I had been living in the UK for three and a half years, having left shortly after Bush's inauguration, as promised (I went to graduate school). That was when I discovered DU, too. I naively thought that Kerry had a chance, maybe even in Texas, after four years of war, war, war, and profit, profit, profit. Again, I was disappointed. I had to go into work and vainly try to answer questions from colleagues along the lines of, "Why did they vote for that idiot
again?!" and "Well, there's no mistake this time - and they all deserve what they get."
This year, I came into election season (well, should I say, two years ago...? haha!) cynical, weary, and pretty fatalistic about the fate of the tenuously-held-together battered and torn Constitution. I was, like many DU idealists, pulling for our man Dennis Kucinich. I was so pleased he was "allowed" in the debates. Then, when he dropped out, I reluctantly shifted my support to John Edwards, especially as he became "angrier" and more focused on poverty and economic disparity issues. I was grateful he was "allowed" in the later debates against media-petted heavyweights Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Then he dropped out (thank goodness!). So I even more reluctantly decided to support Obama. I had been dreading what I figured would be an inevitable coronation-by-elite-consensus of Hillary Clinton, whose policies I opposed on many, many levels. I began to actually allow myself to be a little excited about Obama as he performed well in the debates against Clinton, and as he thoughtfully and eloquently spoke of some issues I care about on the rounds of political talk shows. When he finally won the nomination, I was ecstatic, if only to have been spared what would've been the definitely pro-corporate policies of Clinton (as opposed to the possibly, maybe, probably pro-corporate policies of Obama).
I have also been keeping up with the Nader campaign, as it is, and I am grateful still to Nader and his minions for all the work they have done over so many decades to protect American health, labor, and the Constitution. I will continue to support and praise him. I was torn as to whether to vote for him or not, as his policy positions are closer to my own than any of the other candidates still standing, and he will, in fact, be on the ballot in Texas. Obama has said a lot of things I really liked, and some things I really did not like at all.
Then, I heard him say this:
For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy -- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is -- you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.
I knew that Obama "gets it." I knew that he was one smart cookie, who wasn't going to say the radical things I say every day, out of anger and frustration at the misplaced values and void of logic that characterize our nation's policies on so, so many issues. But Obama proved to me that he gets it, it being the motivating principle that led me to register to vote at 18, that has led me to vote in every election in which I was eligible, that led me to choose a life of relative poverty in order to retain my self-respect and try to avoid breaking the backs of others in pursuit of a "career", by his succinct demolition of that one idea, which my boyfriend, who is currently an urban community organizer, and I talk about night after night: the Horatio Alger myth. Republicans' values are fine and dandy when applied to economically comfortable, well-connected, well-fed, white, usually male Americans. But they don't work so well for the rest of us. The other 95% of us.
That night I decided I would maybe, probably, possibly vote for Obama.
Then, the next morning, McCain picked the unqualified reactionary Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. Then she compared herself to Hillary Clinton.
That morning I decided I would definitely vote for Obama.
And now, now - this. This hypocritical, greed-worshiping, narrowly sectarian Patriotism-Off 08.
As I said, I am not, nor will I ever likely be, financially comfortable. I am doing better than many, many Americans, most of whom no doubt work harder than I do every day. Ten dollars is three beers. I am sure I would've bought three beers during the course of this month. Ten dollars, really, I can do.
I have never donated money to a political candidate before. I figured the people who did were saps. But... oh, I just don't even know what to say, watching That Law and Order Guy, and Ronnie "Kill American Labor" Reagan, and Joe "Vichy" Lieberman, and the paper cowboy.
Obama was right - we are better than this. It must stop. Now.
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