Letters to the Editor
mintosh
Published Letters: 70 Editor's Choice: 8
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I Call Bullshit!
[Read the article: Undecided '08: Should I vote for Clinton or Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This inability to vote the lesser of two imperfect candidates is - at best - a kind of anti-intellectual naiveté – and at worst, a pretentious and posturing idealism. I know. I was there in 2000, voting my conscience for Ralph Nader over the much too “moderate” Al Gore. Gore was simply too conservative on too many issues. The robotic twin of the aw-shucks folksy Bush.
I KNEW that politics was much more complicated than simply right-left. Nader helped me announce this knowledge to my friends and colleagues. I was continually pissed of at the way progressive ideas were always subverted by a two-party system which always gave us politicians who appealed the lowest common denominators of public opinion. Was I ever smart.
But hindsight is 20/20, and the enormity of my mistake (and of all those Naderites who voted with me) has become more evident each election. Nader was, of course, always and only a pipe dream. Despite Gore’s more moderate values, it is extremely unlikely that he would have got us mixed up in Iraq – have brought us the Patriot Act – and have taken to torturing political prisoners and innocents.
If you want to see your mirror image, just look at the implosion in the radical talk-radio right as McCain gets closer to winning the GOP nomination. Absolute horror at this figure who many see as just to the right of Hillary. Of course, I take a private glee in this behavior, savoring an implosion which will only help put a Democrat in the white House – and, hopefully, endless Democratic Senators and Congressman in Capital Hill. Conversely, they love Kucinich and Nader.
So yes – I call Bullshit. No matter how you slice the political spectrum – if your ideal candidate is someone as far left as Kucinich (and the 2008 incarnation of Edwards) than the voting records of Obama and Clinton clearly show who your candidate is – Obama. By contrast, if you really are as likely to vote McCain as Kucinich – then Hillary is your woman.
But if what you really want to do is stick to your guns, cry foul, and excuse yourself for being undecided this late in the game, then you better go buy yourself some new Birkenstocks to go with that political posturing. You know where they are sold, don’t you? At the mall. Just across from Wild Oats. There is probably still some old Nader campaign literature lying around. Or maybe even some new material, as the most recent word is that he is considering running. Oh. . . is that good news? You’re worse off than I thought.
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I Call Bullshit!
[Read the article: Undecided '08: Should I vote for Clinton or Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This inability to vote the lesser of two imperfect candidates is - at best - a kind of anti-intellectual naiveté – and at worst, a pretentious and posturing idealism. I know. I was there in 2000, voting my conscience for Ralph Nader over the much too “moderate” Al Gore. Gore was simply too conservative on too many issues. The robotic twin of the aw-shucks folksy Bush.
I KNEW that politics was much more complicated than simply right-left. Nader helped me announce this knowledge to my friends and colleagues. I was continually pissed of at the way progressive ideas were always subverted by a two-party system which always gave us politicians who appealed the lowest common denominators of public opinion. Was I ever smart.
But hindsight is 20/20, and the enormity of my mistake (and of all those Naderites who voted with me) has become more evident each election. Nader was, of course, always and only a pipe dream. Despite Gore’s more moderate values, it is extremely unlikely that he would have got us mixed up in Iraq – have brought us the Patriot Act – and have taken to torturing political prisoners and innocents.
If you want to see your mirror image, just look at the implosion in the radical talk-radio right as McCain gets closer to winning the GOP nomination. Absolute horror at this figure who many see as just to the right of Hillary. Of course, I take a private glee in this behavior, savoring an implosion which will only help put a Democrat in the white House – and, hopefully, endless Democratic Senators and Congressman in Capital Hill. Conversely, they love Kucinich and Nader.
So yes – I call Bullshit. No matter how you slice the political spectrum – if your ideal candidate is someone as far left as Kucinich (and the 2008 incarnation of Edwards) than the voting records of Obama and Clinton clearly show who your candidate is – Obama. By contrast, if you really are as likely to vote McCain as Kucinich – then Hillary is your woman.
But if what you really want to do is stick to your guns, cry foul, and excuse yourself for being undecided this late in the game, then you better go buy yourself some new Birkenstocks to go with that political posturing. You know where they are sold, don’t you? At the mall. Just across from Wild Oats. There is probably still some old Nader campaign literature lying around. Or maybe even some new material, as the most recent word is that he is considering running. Oh. . . is that good news? You’re worse off than I thought.
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Xrandadu Hutman
[Read the article: Undecided '08: Should I vote for Clinton or Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]oops - you caught me. Bully for you.
But - I am not really comparing the situation so much as the attitude which gives rise to the situation. A vote for Edwards this late in the game (had he not pulled out) - a vote on principle - simply reeks of the same type of posturing (yes - including my own) that led many to vote for Nader in 2000. Making me suspicious that Traister is the type who would do so again. Posturing must be more important to her than her political committments if she can't see that Obama is the closer cousin to Edwards and Kucinich than Hillary is.