As many of you know, i’m not a big supporter of either of the Democratic candidates for President. The fact is my guy was Edwards, and he dropped out, so I’m left with what I like to call the Clintoon and Oblahma.
Having lived through the Bill Clintoon (th-th-th-there go your jobs, folks), and jumped off that bandwagon in 1996 after NAFTA and the PRWORA, it was still more difficult than I expected to support Obama.
I honestly don’t get the soaring rhetoric about his “soaring rhetoric”: I’ve heard some of his speeches and they strike me as fairly standard policital mumbo-jumbo. “Change!” “We are the power!” Whatever dude, whatever works for you.
However, there is no way I can support Clinton. not after her husband’s policies, which she claims as part of her 35 years of experience. Not after the failures of the DLC, which lost elections and hurt Americans, and who a Clinton restoration will return to power.
Today it got a lot easier. Surfing the blogosphere, I read one too many stupid, inaccurate, and downright offensive posts about Obama and his supporters. It included all ingredients sure to make me want to pick up my computer and hurl it across the room. Cultist and his followers? Check. False comparisons? Check. Right wing frames that are easily disproved with 5 seconds on google? Check. Dismissing his supporters as freaks, lunatics, and ignorant selfish children who don’t know any better? Check and double check. Obama supporters are sexists? Check.
So I emailed BMT poster Luam, co-chair of Philadelphia’s Obama campaign. “My annoyance = your guy’s gain” was the subject. I’m volunteering some time to phone-bank, and may knock on doors as well. I probably won’t give money (that’s in short supply these days, and I have a 4 year old boy to feed, clothe, and entertain), but I think the legwork will make up for that. I’m certainly going to get a bumper sticker and a poster for my living room window.
And it’s all out of spite. If the Clinton campaign and its supporters want to tell me that I don’t count, that the campaign that promises to more closely meet my demands is the equivalent of Ken Starr, that Rove-style dirty tricks (ie, NAFTAgate in Ohio) are OK, that tearing down her opponent in a way that helps the Republican is fine strategy, and that actually having some tiny little last remaining hope for change is foolishness, well that’s their business.
My business is to say “DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT” and work to make sure the candidate I don’t support loses, and loses big time. You want to tell me I don’t count? To turn a certain someone’s chant upside down, “No, you can’t.”
I’m going to show you I DO count, just to spite you. And yes, I can do that very well.
