Nuclear Rays From My Halogen Haze

It’s the seventh anniversary of the 911 attacks.  Looking back on how badly our leadership has handled everything that’s happened since, it makes me more resolute than ever that McCain must lose this election, and we have to get a Democrat in office.  Obama was not my first pick (that would be Edwards, before I knew he had personal issues that should have precluded his run), but Obama is a solid Democrat with a record of voting for and supporting for the good guys more often than not. 

And that’s why I’m so puzzled by the Hillary supporters who still refuse to back him in the general election.  I get it that they feel cheated by real and perceived slights (though in my mind, Hillary played a bit of dirty pool in the election too).  But didn’t Hillary and Obama come together, he supporting her campaign with a pledge for financial help, she by giving her New York delegates to him on the convention floor in a dramatic and heart-warming display?  They’re political allies now, and she’s rooting for him, so why won’t her followers support him?

Looking through the comments on sites such as The Confluence, I see alarming fear of Obama, and what seems to be a spiteful support of McCain simply to thwart Obama.  Comments like the below are pretty typical: 

This race continues to be so close and I have such a fear of Obama taking the Oval office that sometimes I can’t sleep, I can’t concentrate on other things and I can hardly wait for it to end. When I hear people say they won’t vote for Obama but they can’t bring themselves to vote McCain Palin, I understand but I just feel more panic. I definitely am not philosophically and politically for McCain but there is some core there that is desperately missing in Obama.  

What is Obama missing that McCain has?  Senility?  Wrath? 

Though politics is about personality, leadership is about knowing what the right thing to do is and getting it done, and McCain has neither of those skills.  Every little thing that Obama has done that has seemed sexist, or politically incorrect, or just plain dumb (like his vote on FISA or his snubbing of MoveOn) is something that McCain has done a hundred times more and a hundred times worse.  How does it make sense to vote for a man who follows Bush’s policies in order to thwart a man who at his worst made an off-color lipstick remark (that McCain himself made about Hillary)?  

I know how engaged I was during the primary, and how I was rooting for Obama.  I can bet I’d have been mad if Hillary had narrowly beaten Obama to the nomination–she was pro-war and seems beholden to the health insurance industry, and those are both things that frankly disgust me.  But I know that compared to McCain, she’s a far better pick–just as Obama is.  If she were running against McCain, I’d be singing her virtues and getting out the vote for her even if I was a little bummed at her imperfections.  What matters most is getting the Republicans out of office and away from the steering wheel of our country!

So come on, Dems in exile.  We need you.  Right now we have so many important issues to tackle, from health care to a real crisis in global warming and energy policy.  Not for party unity, but for the good of our nation, please, please, come back to our side. 

Please, don’t let McCain’s attempts to woo you make you vote against your own interests.  A vote for him and Palin is a vote for big oil, big war, and a big appeasement of the religious right–which also equates to a vote against women’s rights.  You don’t need that.  We don’t need that.  If you must hate Obama, vote for him because he’s the lesser of two evils.  But vote based on what will make this country, not this party, go back in the right direction.