I remember my excitement during the 2000 election as a first time voter. I took an American government class during my senior year of high school and to this day I remember the regular rants of my instructor during the 2000 debates and primaries. It was here that my understanding of the crazy system that we use to elect our presidents was built, it was here that I was altogether apathetic about Mr. Al Gore and it was here that my disdain for Mr. George W. Bush began. As I started as a freshman in college in the Fall of 2000 I continued to pay close attention to the candidates and the issues and tried to make a decision prior to the November election. When my vote was cast I voted for Nader, not because I was particularly intrigued by him or the Green Party, but simply because I was particularly unintrigued by my other choices. I remember returning to my dorm that evening and being scolded by my roommate for “wasting my vote on someone unelectable.” At the time, I thought I was making a statement but looking back on it I wonder if she was right. Should my abhorrence for Bush have outweighed my detachment from Gore (which has changed completely in light of his recent efforts)? Perhaps I should have cast my vote for the electable candidate that I disliked less? These questions followed me into the 2004 election and now haunt me in 2008.
In 2004 I did completely the opposite of what I had done in 2000. I voted for John Kerry, who was an electable democrat but also a complete bore. I voted for him not because I knew he would be great but because I knew he had to be better than Bush. I remember being shocked and appalled that everyone else in America did not agree with me, especially the people in states like Ohio where the economy and the people had suffered tremendously over during Bush’s first term. It was at that moment that I realized for the first time that my Father was not the only conservative republican in America, and that Americans are deathly afraid of change, regardless of how bad things are. Not to mention that putting an issue like same sex marriage on the ballot brings the evangelical Christians out to the polls in record numbers.
With the Iowa caucus results rolling in tonight I feel my excitement about the 2008 election growing but at the same time I feel a repeat of my 2000 and 2004 experiences beginning. Although I have not completely ruled it out, I am fairly certain that I will not vote for a republican candidate this year. This in mind I have focused closely on the democratic race, hoping that one of the top candidates will grab my attention, but even more importantly my passion. That has yet to happen and I am starting to wonder if it will. The thought of having a woman president is altogether much more interesting than I find Hilary Clinton. Her ideas seem run of the mill and her stance on the issues seems very safe and unassuming. At the same time the thought of having a black president is altogether much more interesting than I find Barack Obama for much the same reason as Hilary. John Edwards is neither a woman nor a black man and is uninteresting to boot.
Being a true “nerd” I created an excel spreadsheet tonight that scored all of the candidates according to how well their stances on various issues aligned with my own. I had hoped that a clear front runner might emerge from the top three candidates with this scoring but what I found is that based upon these scores alone I would cast my vote for Kucinich or Gravel (two very unelectable candidates) if I had to decide tonight. All of the other democratic candidates were a virtual tie with Obama on the lower end. This highly interesting activity revealed two important facts. The first is the fact that I am a hardcore liberal. I won’t waste much time examining this fact as it was not really a surprise to me and I doubt it is for any of those of you that will read this. The second, more interesting fact, is that all of the top candidates are pretty much united in taking a safe and dull approach to most of the issues that will inspire very little change. I am clearly not interested in the status quo or even small steps towards change; I am looking for a candidate that will shake the very foundation of politics and demand large scale change across most of the “hot” issues in 2008 including health care, immigration, the war, social security, fighting poverty and same sex marriage. I find it very uninspiring to hear politicians go on and on about the issues plaguing America while spending very little time talking about how they will fix them, or coming up with ideas that will only “kind of” fix them. Health care is one of the issues that I am most informed about and can best use as an example. Our health care system is completely broken and no “band-aid” approach is going to fix the rising costs, shrinking results and growing population of uninsured. Large-scale change is needed on all levels to fix the problems that we face. Universal coverage which is proposed by most all democratic candidates (though in slightly different ways) is only a part of the solution to our problems. Laying down a universal coverage program without reducing health care costs and improving care is unimaginable and even irresponsible. I will back this up with a fact that truly opened my eyes to the problem: the average life expectancy of a male in the U.S. is around 80 years of age, the same as Mexico; the shocking part of this statistic is that we spend over $5,000 per person on health care each year while Mexico spends just over $500. Now I will get off my soap box and get back to the point…
Using my psychic powers it is easy to predict that Gravel and Kucinich will loose the Democratic nomination to Obama, Clinton or Edwards (alert CNN and the Washington Post). This means that I will ultimately be left with the same decision that I was left with in 2000 and 2004, choosing between a candidate I despise (especially if it is Mr. Huckabee) and a candidate that is passionless and commonplace. My realization is that I will probably never feel the passion that I want to feel for any mainstream candidate because my candidate would probably never make it into any position of power (mayor, senator etc) that would give them the credibility to make a realistic bid for president. I will find myself making the same decision every four years to either throw my vote away to Ralph Nader or some other independent or vote for the democrat or republican I hate the least. I will let you know what I decide for this election in November.
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