This is very exciting -- my first blog post. What should I write about? Something safe and family friendly. Say, my mom's recipe for hush puppies (very good and certainly worthy of greater exposure) or something a bit more risque?
Well, since I couldn't find my mom's recipe and it is Super Tuesday, I decided to go for the "risque." (Though not too risque, yet; I'm still working on the "I don't support the troops" essay.)
As you may have inferred, I live in a Super Tuesday state and one where an otherwise unaffiliated voter can vote in the Democratic primary. I took advantage of that today to cast my vote for Barack Obama. I began life as a Kucinich man, became an Edwardian when Dennis bailed out, and wound up in Obama's tent when Edwards elected to allow "history to blaze forward," or words to that effect (I'm not sure what he meant by that but I guess his speechwriters thought it sounded good).
Even if Kucinich had remained in the race, I don't believe I would have voted for him despite the fact that he's right on every issue (and I mean "right" in the sense of "correct," obviously). I probably would have opted for Edwards and hoped that he accumulated enough delegates to influence the Dem's convention (in August?). The problem with Kucinich is that even if elected he just doesn't have the charisma to carry Congress to enact his programs -- he's no Roosevelt or Lincoln (or Reagan, for that matter). Edwards wasn't as "right" but he had charisma and passion and would have stood a better chance to enact an agenda that would have helped this country recover from 30 years now of neoliberal economic and political insanity.
A neoliberal insanity that Hillary Clinton (and Bill during his reign) faithfully represent, and which is why I hope that Clinton doesn't get the nomination. Make no mistake, I'll vote for Clinton because even with all her negatives she's 10 times less paranoid and 10 times less lethal to our Constitution than anyone on the Republican side but it would be with heavy heart. Hillary can be swayed to vote progressive but it takes an enormous amount of pressure from the grassroots; a pressure that would be difficult to sustain long enough to counteract the "good old boy" network that lurks in the Beltway.
Unfortunately, Obama is an unknown quantity. He talks a good game but he hasn't done much of the walking that would make me trust him. (A lot like Bill Clinton in 1992 -- he lulled the progressive wing into thinking that the Reagan nightmare was over and it turned out to have only just begun [NAFTA, anyone? Telecommunications Act? Welfare "reform"?, etc.].) On the other hand, as Tom Hartmann likes to keep pointing out on his radio show, Roosevelt didn't run as a progressive, he promised not much more than Hoover and he wound up giving us Social Security and the other New Deal programs that saved this country from last century's neoliberal illness. If Obama is swept into the White House on a wave of people demanding "change," he may feel confident enough to reverse what Reagan began in 1980.
NOTE: I'm also working on a "Constitution" essay and how this country has been lurching towards a corporate police state for the last 60 years; and why no Democratic nominee wants Congress to look at the resurrection of the Imperial Presidency and attempt to limit its powers.
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