Mid-term elections are still 9 months away, but the political posturing is already well under way. Last November, The Nation magazine published an editorial stating:
“We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position.”
Republicans must be quaking in their boots...
I've heard these paper tigers roar before. A couple of years back Michael Moore had a pledge posted on his website that I signed (and abided by), it read...
"YOU ARE EITHER WITH US OR YOU ARE FIRED! I pledge to never vote again for any Democratic candidate for public office who has voted for George Bush's war in Iraq."
Moore went on to break his own pledge by supporting John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential race.
The Nation is also receiving flack from progressives for being a fair-weathered friend...
"Is this the same magazine that spent nearly all of 2004 vilifying Ralph Nader and treating him like a traitor because he came forward and spoke some extremely uncomfortable truths, truths that you now – more than a year later – acknowledged as truths?" -- Barbara Bacon, Albuquerque, New Mexico
"Now that the Nation has taken a stand of absolute moral clarity against any candidate who is not antiwar, perhaps you can apologize to Ralph Nader and any voters who took a stand of moral clarity in the last presidential election." -- M. Heller, San Francisco, California
The Democrats and their supporters have much to learn about conviction. Earlier this week, I received a survey in the mail from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that listed several questions. Perhaps the one that angered me the most was the question that essentially asked whether I thought our health care system could best benefit from 1) Tax incentives to businesses 2) More money funneled into Medicare/Medicaid or 3) A universal health care system. What the hell?
Franklin Roosevelt would roll over in his grave if he saw how Democrats were behaving today. We know our health care system is failing to meet the needs of our citizens, we know universal health care works in just about every other industrialized nation on the planet...explain it, run with it, preach it, convert the misguided! But no. Don't look toward the DNC for leadership on an issue that might be construed as controversial...they'll just poll and ask you to send them $35. Screw them. My money and my votes go to whoever speaks what I believe in and holds to their word, even when times get tough.
Hear, hear! I voted for Kerry, but my conscience is clean. I never signed any pledge and I'm from Massachusetts, so he was a sentimental favorite for me. (I wrote him a letter in 8th Grade.) I voted for Nader in 2000 in a state easily won by Gore, but I wasn't going to vote for that dweeb.
Posted by: CBK | February 03, 2006 at 11:20 PM