Dear Fellow Democrats,
As I’ve been sick, I’ve been perusing the internet and I’ve noticed both pro-Obama folks and pro-Clinton folks threatening that, if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination, then they just won’t vote or they’ll vote for McCain (see this letter here as an example).
I realize that tensions are running high and that we have two candidates that have inspired a great deal of loyalty.
But I have to tell you that, if you don’t get the candidate of your choice, and thus you either don’t vote or instead vote for McCain in an effort to “teach the Democrats” some lesson, you should never tell me that, because I might have to punch you.
I don’t think that either Obama or Clinton is going to be some magic cure for all that ails this country. They’re probably not, in all honesty, going to be able to fix a whole lot. But I’m not looking for some miraculous leader to redeem us.
I’m looking at the families of almost four thousand dead troops. I’m looking at the living vets who come back and can’t get the medical care they need. I’m looking at the destruction of a major U.S. city and how the Gulf Coast cleanup was left to civic and church groups. I’m looking at gas at $3.50 or more a gallon with auto makers just being challenged to make cars more fuel efficient and not less fuel dependent.
And I’m looking at McCain, who seems to be running under the banner of being just like Bush, but more heroic.
How much more “just like Bush” do you think this country can take?
Do y’all learn nothing from history? Remember back in 2000 when a bunch of folks were like “Oh, Bush, Gore, same shit, different day.”? How wrong were they?
Just as wrong as you’ll be if, in your stubbornness, you give the election to McCain.
With Great Concern,
Aunt B.
Tiny Cat Pants 
I am going to have to have this exact conversation with my mother who has never, as far as I know, voted for a Republican in her life. She and I are pretty much identical in our politics, with her perhaps being even more radical on some issues because (as she says) she’s old and doesn’t have much time to waste on gradualism.
However, she told me (maybe to get a rise out of me? She can be pretty deadpan) that she planned to vote for McCain if Obama was the nominee. I temporarily considered the possibility of Alzheimer’s (and then, equally briefly, elder abuse) but I decided that I’d defer an intense discussion about politics until she came to visit next month. I figure if she was funning me, she’ll have a lot better time doing it where she can see me going apeshit and if not, then we need to have a long talk to figure out why we’re so very far apart on this one.
*Cheers & applause! Cheers & applause!*
Don’t the Democrats control both houses of Congress? Maybe if they weren’t so busy running for president they could be working on some of those issues you’ve raised . . . that, or maybe the issues are more complicated than you guys let on.
With what money, exactly? This war is chewing up a heck of a lot of cash and neither the Commander in Chief nor his top advisers will hear of scaling back. Complicated problems, yes, but they become even more so when there’s been drunken sailor war spending that has left the country in a ginormous fiscal hole. That’s going to extend well past the next administration — the damage has been done for the next twenty years, even if we stop spending this very minute (which, naturally, we won’t). That’s not so much a partisan observation as just a statement of sad fact.
Well Ned, you’re right. We took the reigns a little over a year ago, and damn us for our failure to instantly repair the damage done by 6 years of GOP control.
Ned, you guys had it. HAD IT RIGHT THERE. Control, as you say, of everything. What, pray tell, did y’all do with it? Demonised gays, for starters. (I’m leaving the war out of the equation for now, as I hold plenty of Dems responsible by at least their silence) Y’all placed a near retard at the helm and then feigned outrage and surprise when he steered your ship into not one but many different icebergs.
You guys did your level best to thwart stem cell research, sentencing thousands of people to suffer with no hope of a medical breakthrough, all in the name of your god.
You guys managed to slip the mercenaries at Blackwater a few hundred million, but couldn’t justify SCHIP?
Y’all dined and danced and sang while an entire city drowned, and then scrambled for the clean up contracts like children clamoring for the scraps from a pinata.
I could go on and on, Ned, about you and your fellow Republicans not holding your representitves accountable. You allowed them to settle political scores and plunder the public purse.
I guess I’d just appreciate it if y’all just STFU about how we choose our nominee. We’ll get there, in our own sloppy way.
Aunt B. I wouldn’t buy into the idea that some impasse between Dems will result in a McCain win. So much of this noise is only being amplified by right wingers, and won’t amount to jack shit come November.
Like a hanging curve ball, Mack hit that one out of the park!!
Well done!
Sorry for the delay in responding–forgot to choose to be notified about responses. Here’s some amplification for ya.
So are you saying that failing to work on all the “important issues” is forgivable?
You’re clearly in the minority on the issue of re/un-defining marriage, and it’s not like traditionalists went looking for the issue . . . oh, that’s right, that issue is just a ploy to win battleground states. Forgot. Stem Cell research, you need to read up on all the advances that we’re already having on adult stem cell research . . . it would warm your heart, that is if a person isn’t excited about “demonizing” someone for principled policy positions and sincerely believing in “their God.” What does “your God” say about human life, Mack? When does someone become an individual human? Are “retards” worthy of any protection?
Plunder the purse? You mean to BigEducation? To medicare prescription advocates?
Regarding SCHIP (aka, socialized healthcare on the sly–I may need to take back what I said about how busy you little Libs have been) Yep, that stingy Republican Congress . . . d’oh! I mean that spendthrift Republican Congress! Oh, whatever. In any event mercenaries gotta eat, too! And we gotta keep the money flowing for war for oil, you know?
What were all the Democrat executives doing up to, during and immediately after Katrina? Fighting petty and partisan turf wars and then falling over each other to blame Bush.
But I think you are smart not to worry about the election in November, Mack. You guys got this one in the bag.
Bridgett,
Take a seat. Relax. Although I disagree with excess gov’t spending and excessive deficit spending, your doomsdayism is over the top. Bill, with the help of gridlock and a great economy, was able to save the world from Reaganomics.