Several of my emerging theories/resulting emotions from the recent events:
1. I am never backing the candidate I love in a primary ever again. In 2004, I saw Howard Dean speak and was enamored, probably like those who first heard Obama. I was excited and hopefull, then I listened to my few democratic surroundings (including my dad) as they played armchair pundit and declared Dean unelectable. I sighed and tried to smile and support Kerry, especially after Dean spoke on campus and compelled us to do so. That year boiled down to the anyone but Bush platform, and I suffered the defeat my dad claimed to have been long suffering as a blue heart living in a red state.
This time around I was the jaded hipster of the game. Don't get too excited, he'll peak, she's not electable. But I was so incredibly moved and motivated by Edwards 2004 stump speech. And I was decided. I knew that Barack was the patron saint of Illinois and that the hype combined with the Clinton machine would likely eat up the mainstream to a point. But I had faith, in my peers and in my country, that once they looked for concrete answers, plans of actions towards real issues like economic disparity, unemployment, universal health care, climate change, dependence on oil, they would here substance from Edwards and it would be the logical choice.
Instead, we watched entertainment news reporters highlight the soundbites, the reality tv worthy mudslinging over who said what when to whom. It became a pageant and the criteria centered on degree of marginilization -- to be a person of color or a woman. Edwards had neither and couldn't get in the game. You couldn't hear his logic over the shouting.
So this is the second time I won't be able to vote even symbolically for the candidate I support in the primary. Dean dropped out before the Oh primary in 2004, Edwards left me today.
2. I didn't have a second option. I honestly don't have a strongly positive enough feeling on Obama nor do I hate Clinton or oppose her enough to swing to the Obama side. According to his website, Mike Gravel is sitll in the race, what do I have to lose that my fellow partymembers have not already taken from me?
3. What does it say about me, lefty lucy, when I always see Mike Huckabee as the best performer in the debates even though I don't agree with any of his policies? How can I love and hate this scary man simultaneously? Does it make me a bad liberal if I disagree with his policies but admire the way he communicates them during debates?
In conclusion, I hope the democrats are fabulously pleased with the campaigns they demanded. I know with the writer's strike you can't watch enough carefully scripted bickering pandering to viewers under the guise of reality television as it is. I hope you have eaten yourself sick on this sham of a campaign by super tuesday, because I have a feeling you'll be eating crow by November I'm sorry to say.
