Hillary Clinton's Speech

Wow. If she'd given more speeches like this when she was running, I probably would have liked her a lot more then. I mean, Obama was my candidate early on, and everything he did convinced me he was my candidate still. There were few candidates who could have turned me away to supporting them in the primaries (maybe Kucinich, if he'd had a shot in hell of getting the brass ring). But Clinton delivered an amazing speech at the DNC.

And she's got one thing incredibly right: "Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance.

I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come election day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our nation."

This is why I get so angry when I see that nearly half the country is supporting McCain. It's the same frustration and anger I had when Bush and Cheney got re-elected in 2004. I mean, I understand that there are folks out there who vote on whether their taxes will go up... that's about 5% of the country, the incredibly rich who *will* see their taxes increase under a Democratic regime. I understand that there are people who genuinely believe we need to bomb the fuck out of the Middle East, start up another Cold War with Russia. I understand that there are folks so scared about gay marriage, abortion and affirmative action that they won't ever vote Democrat, because they know that the Democrat position doesn't agree with theirs.

But 50% of the country? That many? That makes me sad. And the worst part for me is that I have family, I have friends (good friends, in many cases) who I know are conservatives. And I don't talk to them that much about this, because honestly, all it's going to lead to is not debate but argument, and I don't think either of us are going to change the others' minds. But I don't understand how people who I can otherwise relate to on so many levels are falling for the Rovian attack schemes and bullshit of the Republicans. I don't see how the realities that McCain will continue to give our country away to the rich while screwing the middle class (and God help the poor), that he'll engage us in more poorly-planned military actions that drain our treasury and kill our soldiers for *corporate gain* are escaping these people.

And it's hard not to take their votes personally, because I see them as potentially costing me and my family our future. The economy is in the shitter, and McCain does not have a plan to fix it for people like me. I don't want my son to wind up drafted in some foreign bullshit war because we spread our military too thin making sure that the oil companies and the infrastructure building companies and Blackwater were making larger and larger profits. I don't want to live in a country that I increasingly think is broken beyond repair.

I'm not, at heart, a Democrat. I've got my problems with politicians of every stripe, and I think both parties are far too much in the pocket of special interests and corporations. My dream world looks more like Fight Club than Wall Street, and that's no politician's idea of a good time. But it's clear to me that at this point, in our two-party system, it's one or the other. And I am 100% for sure choosing Democrat.

I'm pretty sure nobody reading my blog is going to be able to explain this to me... and maybe nobody can, maybe I'm just too arrogant and short-sighted to see it, but... what *exactly* does the Republican party have to offer to the people right now? Haven't they proven how *bad* they are at governing over the last eight years?