Edwards is too. I say this though I still support Obama, in the sense that I want him to get the nomination and then the presidency. (Though as I have said elsewhere, I am rather ambivalent about Dems in general, and in Congress in particular. While that remains true, I still think we are better off without a GOP president).
I say Obama is an idiot because the Michigan presidential primary is today and basically there is no point in voting in it. Because Michigan scheduled it "too early" for the party, they took away the delegates. But that really isn't a problem because I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of those delegates will come back by the time of the convention because the Dems need Michigan in November and they don't want to totally piss off the whole state. No, what was stupid was Obama (and Edwards) taking their names off of the ballot "in protest." Particularly where Hillary Clinton did NOT take her name off of the ballot. So now there is a choice. Vote for Clinton or vote "Uncommitted." If you try to write in a name, the ballot is simply discarded. So the contest is totally pointless now. And Obama is an idiot. If he truly knew how to ruthlessly exploit power (like the GOP and like Clinton) then he would have left his name on the ballot. Then we could see how well he fared against Clinton - even better, you'd see how well he does without Edwards on the ballot. Instead, he took his name off in a meaningless "protest" and ceded the state to Clinton. Pretty boneheaded. I'd write him off as a complete idiot except I still can't help but smile every time I think of him telling Fox Noise Channel to go fuck themselves (by refusing to go on there). Still, Obama - you are going to have to do better if you are to have a chance of getting the nomination. Ceding ANY ground to Clinton is always a mistake.
Oh well. My wife, who just voted for the first time in 2006 (she was not a citizen until the end of 2005), just called me and asked if we got to vote today and how that works and I had to tell her that there was no point in voting because of all of the above. She also agreed that Obama was stupid, though she thought the Democratic party was stupid, too. But she's still, like me, voting to keep any GOP nominee from winning. Even if that means voting for Clinton. I told her we could go vote in the Republican primary for Mitt Romney - to help push him as the nominee - because I think he'd be easiest to beat. But somehow, it just doesn't seem worth the effort. Though he certainly has made a big push here - I've gotten like three robo calls from him now.
Reminder
11 years ago
4 comments:
What are these "elections" of which you speak?
I've become so monumentally uninterested in the whole affair that I can barely force myself to vote at all, either in the primary or general election. It's a choice between nuclear Armageddon or drowning slowly in our own shit... or drowning in our own shit and then nuking the planet.
Really, without savage reprisals against both the mainstream media (Fox News is by no means the only offender, although it is the worst) and most of the Republican party (and I'm explicitly talking about trials for capital treason) the absolute best we can hope for is four years of weak, ineffectual, constantly-harassed Democratic government followed by a Republican regime which will make the Bush administration look liberal and competent in comparison.
I can understand your sentiment. I've almost stopped caring at all about Congressional elections.
I have a small bit of hope that at least a little will be different with Obama - at least it won't be as bad as it could have been. I don't have much hope of that if Clinton wins, though at least she'd put competent people into government positions.
The only other options is to give up all hope and I guess I'm not quite prepared to do that yet. There are degrees of bad.
If Clinton wins the primary, I pretty much don't care much what happens beyond that except that I don't ever want to see a GOP president again. The weak and ineffectual nature of the Dems works in all of our favor when they are the ones who actually hold power, particularly the executive branch. I'd rather have ineffectual bad politicians than ruthlessly efficient (at least at exercising power) power-mongering bad politicians.
But you are probably right and nothing much good will come in the end. I do think you are wrong about one thing - we probably won't have a GOP regime that is less competent than Bush, simply because he set the bar so low. I could so another as bad as him. It would be difficult to imagine one that was worse - how many brain-damaged ex-coke-head fundamentalist sons of previous presidents who have a long friendship with Karl Rove can there be?
There's one other option: Keep your back to the wall and keep a clear path to the fire exit.
Worse than Bush? How about Giuliani, Huckabee or Romney? Godwin be damned: any one of these bastards would be more than happy to open up the actual concentration camps and put in a really big order for some Zyklon B.
I don't disagree with you about those candidates - Godwin be damned times two. My only disagreement is to say that I think Bush/Cheney is just as bad as them, and that if they got into office, and, to extend the anti-Godwin analogy, they'd probably find the orders for the Zyklon B had already been sent out for them in advance by Bush's transition team.
Bush has already said he fully supports torture, and his administration has already tortured people to death, has already violated FISA and spied on the entire nation, he has already argued that he is above the law and can do whatever he wants. He already has his concentration camp at Gitmo. What worries me about those candidates you list is not that they will be worse than Bush, but that they will simply continue his legacy and do the same things as Bush.
Is there a fire exit here? Given the random kidnappings of foriegners off of the street in other countries, is really anywhere safe?
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