It was a sad day for me yesterday because my candidate dropped out of the race. Wisconsin is a post Super-Tuesday state which means we rarely have a wide selection of candidates to choose from, but this year I will do what I did four years ago, vote for John Edwards. I was hoping that he truly would stay in until the convention, but rumor had it that the other candidates were threatening to trot out the old Ralph Nader spoiler argument. Nothing makes me want to punch someone in the face like the spoiler argument. I voted for Ralph Nader in stead of Al Gore and I don't regret it. Do you know why? Because Al Gore wasn't progressive enough; I agreed way more with Ralph Nader's views. That is the beauty of America. The electoral system exists to be a referendum on how a candidate feels about various issues. If Democratic candidates want me to start voting for them, they need to start voicing concern for core Democratic issues, not calling the guy who does a spoiler.
I loved John Edwards because he married the right woman. Some people may think that is a poor reason to choose a candidate, but I don't. I honestly believe that you can tell a lot about a person by who they choose as a life partner. John Edwards could have married a blond Barbie doll of a wife, but he married a law school classmate who even he admits was smarter than he was. Elizabeth Edwards is the only spouse who has openly shown support for gay marriage and when questioned about the fact the her husband disagrees, she simply stated that he had his own journey to make, but that she loved him because she knew that eventually he would get there. Classy. She also managed to call out Ann Coulter without raising her voice.
Most of all I felt like John Edwards spoke to some very important issues in this country. I personally believe that poverty is the root cause of most of not only this country's, but every country's problems. My mom and I grew up with not a lot and I have certainly spent most of my working years in education and my time with Big Brothers Big Sisters as witness to the horrible dichotomy in living conditions, education, nutrition that exist in this country. Anybody who is willing to stand up and say that it is a moral shame that millions of American children only get fed when they show up at school is my candidate. He is the only one talking about the lack of health care for our vets and putting universal healthcare in the context of alleviating poverty in rural areas as well as reducing burden for people struggling to stay in the middle class.
The Kennedys hitched their wagon to the wrong candidate. If they were looking for someone who was talking about Jack and Bobby's issues it was John Edwards.
Thursday
Un-Super Tuesday
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Lucky for me, I procrastinated on returning my ballot so I was able to switch to Obamma from Edwards when Edwards became a non choice. Lets face it, Clinton is a poor choice no matter whether McCann (Mr. war and death) or Romney (Mr dishonest as the day is long) is the republican candidate. All three want more war and death and couldn't care less about the non-wealthy people of the US. Come on, more tax cuts? The US is so under-taxed now it is ridiculous.
This election is getting back to the tradition of the lesser of two very evil people.
Well said, Liz. I am an Edwards supporter, too, but have decided to put my worthless Washington state primary vote behind Obama. I vascilate on whether he's experienced enough for the job, but then I look at Bush. Yeah, I think Obama will do just fine.
And, as for Snow Falling on Cedars, I'm in the home stretch - less than 100 pages left. I'm still plotting my next choice. It's always a very intense decision.
BC please consider Obama. I know you are still a bit raw following Edwards'withdrawal and I agree that he and Elizabeth are an extremely classy couple---but don't rule Barack out. He too has a very intelligent wife and she WAS his superior at the law firm. And let's face it EVERY ultra conservative in this country will turn out to defeat Hillary. Right or wrong maybe Obama has a better shot than Hillary at being elected in November. And getting a Dem elected is what its all about, right??? No more Republican war loving years.
I was sad when Kucinich dropped out. Well, not really. But I would have voted for him. (You know the matchup I really wanted to see? Kucinich v. Paul. Bring the crazies!)
I liked what Edwards was talking about, although I had some doubts. It didn't help when I read Feingold's comments attacking Edwards' voting record. Interestingly, on one of the sites that is supposed to match you with the best candidate, based on your answer to some issue questions, Edwards and Hillary were almost even in terms of progressiveness, with Obama a few points behind.
Post a Comment