Including a word of warning to the Obamas; tasting Hillary's chicken soup and Bush the Impaler.
Last time I posted a piece on this site I said I was reluctantly voting for Obama because of Hillary's failure to properly acknowledge the huge mistake of her Bush war vote, a mistake that made me wary of voting for anyone who couldn't admit to error after suffering through the Bush years when nobody ever admitted to error. In my personal equation denial equals disaster. I still could have changed my mind inside the voting booth. And maybe I did. You won't know because I won't tell. No more endorsements from this private citizen until the Democratic candidate is finally chosen.
We have old, reliable primitive voting machines in my neighborhood with a small lever for voting for the candidate and a big one for registering your vote, and a lot of green privacy curtains to step into, something like going inside a tailor's shop to have your pants altered. I recall that these machines were in operation when I was a small child and I often went into the voting booth with my folks to watch them vote. For my parents voting was more than a patriotic duty; it was their true religious experience. Indeed, voting may be the last private act in our world of You Tube. I find it amazing that the Kennedys and the Streisands find it so easy to give up their privacy and start beating the drum for their candidate. I know I found it very difficult to commit myself to a candidate publicly feeling that I was violating my own privacy. The more the celebrities hawk their candidates the more I shut my ears. Seeing that skinny Minny Maria (I love Arnold but I'm still a Democrat) Shriver, the great Sun Goddess Oprah, and Michelle Obama onstage shouting the praises of Barack turned me off in a big way, although it may not have affected my vote. I may have voted for him in spite of them rather than because of them. But then I'm a lifelong contrarian.
I believe I am now suffering post traumatic stress from my vote, thus the confusion of these thoughts. The hysterical religiosity of the young Obama supporters who stood down the street from my polling place waving their signs trying to influence the unsaved a/k/a undecided, reminded me of the cheerful Seventh Day Adventists who often came to my door when I lived in California offering me salvation, when all I wanted was to be left undisturbed to finish reading a book, and not the good book they were offering. The Hillary supporters had that Momma/Grandma knows best look about them that can be annoying but can't be readily discounted, knowing these wise women were not easily taken in by promises and they made the best soup in the world. They tell us now that chicken soup does work wonders in curing a cold; maybe it will work in curing Bush's viral mess, and Hillary's soup has lots of tasty ingredients -- including the best thought out health plan. Still, it's hard to throw in your lot with the past. All Americans like to ride the wave of the future, and I'm no exception. And then there was the Bill factor, his smug, sneering joviality. How does he manage to do that all at the same time? More important, how can she manage to control that? Won't say how I did vote, after all the secret ballot is called that for a reason. I haven't even told my good wife, the "You can't be serious, you must vote for Hillary" woman, or my son, the cool/calm Obamamite, about which lever I pulled. If asked now I say that I voted for Ms. Baruch O'Banion, the Jewish/Irish/Black/female candidate, who finally got his/her message across to me
If anyone could have made me change my vote from Obama to Hillary, and I'm not saying I did, it was Michelle Obama. I watched her being interviewed on George Stepenaplous's Sunday morning clown show. When he asked her if she would support Clinton should her husband fail to gain the Democratic nomination she scowled and said "I'll have to think about that" or words to that effect. Lady, if you believe that this election is only about making your husband president, rather than changing the disastrous course in America by getting a Democrat, virtually any progressive Democrat into the White House, you are mistaken. Later, the Great Obama himself (terrific name for a stage magician, right?) suggested that he was the candidate who would capture Hillary's voters while he averred that she didn't stand a chance of gaining his supporters should she prevail, and thus we would all lose to a McCain. I don't want to hear this stuff from the candidate or his wife.
How could Mrs. Obama think of staying home on Election Day should her husband not be at the head of the ticket, and thus helping Republicans towards a McCain victory? And I surely don't want to hear the idealistic Barack use what hints at the race card and ageism by suggesting that black voters and young voters would only support him and stay away should old news Hillary be the nominee. That's insulting to African American voters who know that Hillary has worked hard to better the lives of inner city children, and they certainly know what a McCain presidency would mean for the country - more war, a drowning economy, a packed right wing court, all of which would work against their children and grand-children and those of every American.
If Mr. and Mrs. O care about changing the direction of this country and helping to clean up the toxic mess that Bush has left behind, and I believe they do, they better tamp down their polarizing rhetoric, and promise to get behind any progressive Democratic candidate on the ticket. Okay, maybe they both misspoke in the heat of the campaign, but their words play into the Republican hands, and promising to pick up your marbles and go home if you don't win the game is not a good move for kids in a playground, or for people who care about the future of this country and want to lead it. We are told that Hillary will bring out the disaffected Republican voters who will vote for McCain in order to trounce Hillary, but nobody knows that, not even the wise Obamas. What these past months have shown is that nobody knows nothin' - myself included - except that we have to get rid of the Republicans in power, and we better follow our own heads and our own hearts because that's all we've got to go by these days. George W. Bush, our very own Vlad the Impaler, has virtually destroyed everything else in this country.
