I gots to vote on the primary next Tuesday, but I’m still undecided.
Here’s the situation.
I don’t vote on issues, I don’t vote on character. My vote usually goes to whomever can build the most competent cabinet, and whose politics are not totally abhorrent to me. Cause face it, nobody can do it all their damn selves. So I try to think not about the candidate, but about the candidate’s network.
I tend to hate the “authenticity” candidates like last election’s loathsome Howard Dean, possibly the least intelligent silver-spoon candidate to run for the presidency since George W. Bush. (Or so I thought, until Bush’s Skull-and-Bones pal John Kerry’s dismal Yale GPA was made public). As much as I think it was unfair the way that Dean’s candidacy was derailed by getting made into a joke, I still just don’t see what my fellow supposedly Internet-savvy east coast liberals saw in his schtick. I couldn’t figure out what Dean was up to, other than taking donations over the internet and then turning them over to Old Media outlets.
So by my usual logic, I should be voting for Clinton, who arguably has the best capacity to build a strong cabinet. But she’s the same kind of spineless say-anything-to-get-elected weasel as Bill, sans the I’m-getting-away-with-this charm.
I’m leaning Obamawards, but just am a little concerned that he’s more speechifying than substance, and in 4 years, we’re going to still be in Iraq, he’s not going to roll back any of the encroachment of civil liberties of the last few years. But in spite of myself, in spite of my whole basic outlook on life, which says that nothing is more bogus than authenticity and that nothing is more real than artifice, I can’t help but think that there are things in life that can’t be done but without some modicum of faith in one’s own sincerity, in faith in the future, some amount of “I know, we’ll put the show on right here! In the barn!”. And the ability to ignore the fact that this is basically an untenable point of view. And I think Obama’s got that more than any candidate I’ve seen in my lifetime.
The good news is that I’m not a Republican. I’d be in a worse position then, because they’re pretty much all joke candidates, except for McCain, who would be funny if his insanity weren’t so genuine. He used to appeal to the authenticity-minded middle-grounders. But in recent hears he has been able to distinguish himself by being simultaneously a party-line weasel AND a totally wacko loose cannon, so I don’t think he’s going to be able to grab too many independents or undecideds (who will tolerate wackos but not party-line weasels).
