well i've mostly kept quiet for this discussion, but hey why not throw my two pents in? nielo and SB have already heard a bit about my own views on voting. before i say anything else, i sent my absentee ballot in last week. in my case i felt the most important thing i voted on was prop. 8, the initiative to change california's constitution effectively banning the right for people to marry others of the same sex.
i've lived in california for every presidenttial election i've been old enough to take part in. it's almost a foregone conclusion that caliofrnia's electoral votes will go to the democratic candidate. i voted for Cynthia McKinney, even though i think she's kind of nuts, and here's why. since it's kind of a no-brainer that the state as a whole will vote democratic, it's not more a wasted vote than anything else i can do; no matter who i vote for, my electoral vote will still go to Obama. i registered democrat and voted for Obama in the primaries. i consider that the most important thing i've done in this election cycle. i voted green for the actual president, not merely because i could do it in confidence that my electoral college vote would go to Obama, but because i believe third parties can bring issues to the table that the mainstream parties tend to ignore, and the green party tends to have much more similar priorities to my own than any other party. here's the thing: if a third party gets 5% of the popular vote, they will receive federal funding next election and have a place in the major debates, and i want to see that happen.
were that to happen, would that mean next election the democrats would have a tougher time securing the 'far' left? perhaps. it really depends on how they respond. i think if they were to show a strong, tempered, well-thought-out platform addressing the sorts of issues the green party brings to the table, they wouldn't have to worry. the thing is, the democrats are weak as a party. Obama happens to be a very strong candidate. in my opinion he takes the time to understand the issues about which he speaks, rather than simply memorizing talking points (even if the debates this election have been little more than recitations of talking points). the party needs more politicians like him. i think he is, or rather those characteristics are, the reason voter turn-out among democrats has been so much higher this year.
this election's been about the war and the economy, and on these two points i think Obama is clearly the stronger candidate. but these won't always be the issues du jour (god willing). if the democrats wish to become the strong party they once were, they need to stop being so wishy-washy about so many issues. i don't think their real challenge is developing stances on various other issues; i think their real challenge is to learn to talk about them in ways that give people confidence. i think as long as they play the same game as the republicans, relying on 3-syllabe sound bites and "common-sense" (i.e., poorly informed) notions of issues, they'll always come in second to the republican party as a whole. hopefully i won't offend anyone in saying this, but i believe conservatism thrives on ignorance. not necessarily the abstract philosophy, valuing things like tradition and community. any civilized person should see the value in those things. i think what some republicans call conservativism is really blatant manipulation.
take prop. 8 here in CA. the conservative argument is that they are protecting the integrity of their families and the family as a unit, and asserting their rights as voters. they don't spell-out in any way how same-sex marriages threaten their own families, let alone the "integrity" of "the family unit." in fact, numerous anthropological, psychological and sociological studies have show that families with same-sex parents are as strong or stronger, have children as healthy and well-adjusted or more, and contribute to their communities just as significantly or more so--than families headed by heterosexual couples. and the fact that they believe it's their right to do this? well, all i'll say on that is that i think it means such people fail to understand the constitution itself. and the sad thing is, i'm a lot less certain about the outcome of this measure than i am of the presidential election.
i've also said this before, but personally i want it to go the other way around. government should have nothing to do with marriage. in my eyes, awknowledging that it's a tradition rooted in religion, and not government, would solve all the problems. any couple would register as domestic partners for tax and other purposes, and marriage is a ceromony left between you, your partner(s), and your spiritual ogranizations. but i digress.
i wandered off topic there for a minute. my point about the democrats is, if they can't be "the party of the people," then i'm prepared to take my vote elsewhere. but if they get their sh*t together, i'll be happy to stay true blue. as for the republicans being manipulative, well, here's the thing. they say they value tradition and community and the family, but they also value de-regulated markets and even taxes. and it's the market, vis-a-vis consumerism, that's destabilizing traditional values in the country. how person X or Y votes is of little importances when it's unequivocally businesses that are peddling so much of the media influencing children who grow older and de-invest in families and communities; it's businesses making it harder to keep parents at home and involved by creating workplaces that sap almost all a person's energy, and it's the people in charge of businesses making so much money and demanding lower taxes, tax money which had once been spent keeping kids off the streets, the mentally ill in places they could (maybe possibly) get help, etc.
oh, and it's businesses (those guys at the top) who profit from war, not "joe sixpack." so how the party can advocate that kind of a market and yet claim to value tradition and family, well, it's beyond me.
