I have firmly made up my mind that I will not vote for Barack Obama in November. It was a foregone conclusion that I would not vote for John McCain, but I had a hard time working up much enthusiasm for Obama during the Democratic primaries and only begrudgingly came to the rationalization that I would vote for him anyway simply because he was the Democrat.
Now even the idea of voting for him just to vote against John McCain and the Republicans has lost any appeal for me. His effort to “run to the center” demonstrates that Barack Obama was already right-of-center and has decided that his political aspirations can only be achieved through total appeasement to the ultra-right fundamentalist Christian activists who have overwhelmed the Republican Party. His “refined” views on withdrawal from Iraq, telecom immunity in the FISA bill, wiretapping, continuation of the odious “Faith-Based Initiatives” program, expansion of the federal death penalty, the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling, and even his sudden embrace of NAFTA place him so far outside the realm of “liberal” or “progressive” that he could just as easily be the nominee of the Republican Party, were it not so committed to its own twisted, theo-fascist platform.
The Obama people have spent a lot of time spreading spin that their guy hasn’t changed (no pun intended, I’m sure), that this is where he has stood all along. Now spin is spin, but if there is even a shred of truth in this, then either he is a complete hypocrite for his primary campaign rhetoric, or the rank and file of the Democratic Party are complete morons for not paying closer attention to what he was saying. Though I thought Bill Clinton ran a very poor campaign for his wife, it turns out that his political sensibility about Obama was correct after all: the Democratic Party, in its desperation, has allowed itself to be sold a bill of goods.
Further, as the polls show that he has overtaken McCain and has begun to cement that lead so early that some outlying pollsters have dared to whisper the word “landslide”, there doesn’t seem to even BE any need to “run to the center” to pull in those swing voters. That, I feel, is the telltale sign that these shifts are not electioneering tactics but represent what an Obama presidency will mean for this country. If John McCain symbolizes four more years of the same destructiveness of the Bush Administration, Obama is nothing but “Bush Lite”. Like the Spineless Duo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, we should be prepared for a Democrat who bends over or caves in to the merest hint of displeasure from the far right. The high crimes and misdemeanors of Bush and his cronies will go unpunished. The unconstitutional usurpations of our rights will continue in the name of “homeland security”. Disastrous foreign policies that have hindered our interests abroad will be continued with only some cosmetic changes. And, worst of all, the efforts of the hard-core Christian activist crowd will continue to have a strong supporter in the White House.
And the motherfucker didn’t even wait until he was elected to stab us all in the back. Even George W. Bush pretended to be a decent guy up until 9/11.
If you are committed to voting Democratic in the November election, I urge you to consider this: I received an e-mail from Democrats.com recently suggesting that anyone who was planning to support Obama consider giving their campaign contribution to an escrow account they are setting up and letting the campaign know that they cannot have the money until he renounces his right-wing positions and returns the party to a progressive platform. I think this is a wise idea. Obama’s ability to fundraise at the grass-roots level has been enormously strong, and it would hit him where it hurts if that source dried up, particularly in light of his decision to not accept public campaign funding. It would also give him one more chance to demonstrate that he is willing to listen to the people of his own party rather than the loud-mouthed freaks of the far right. It is too late at this juncture for the Democratic Party to dump Obama and go with a better candidate, and so the only good move is to try to swing him back to progressive values and hope that he won’t sell us all out again after the election.
As for me, I will almost certainly write in the name of another candidate come November. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain deserve to be the next President of the United States as far as I am concerned. Each represents the failure of the two national parties and the failure of a political system left too long without meaningful changes. Though I agree with some of the positions of Ralph Nader, I do not support his choice to run yet again, nor could I ever support someone like Bob Barr. My vote will simply have to stand in opposition to the bad choices made by others so that those choices have one less voice of validation.
Links to accompany this post:
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/06/sellout.html
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/06/whos_who_in_meetings_with_obam.html
http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/barack-obama-an.html (via TPR)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25455916/
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/02/anti-telecom-immunity-protest-group-tops-obama-website/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/memo-to-obama-moving-to-t_b_110026.html
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3787/holding_barack_accountable/
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/fisa-compromise.ars
http://www.sixhoursaweek.com/2008/07/netroots-what-did-you-expect-f.html
http://www.theseminal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/fisa2a.jpg
http://prorev.com/2008/07/swampoodle-report-making-muddle-of.html
http://www.kskirby.net/mccain.html
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