Hello friendly Kossers. Long time, no post. I have come to you in a spirit of reconciliation. I have often split my ballot between Republicans and Democrats. I choose to vote for the people who I feel most comfortable with running my city, my county, my assembly district, my state, and my country.
Obama did not impress me in 2008 nor in 2012. However, I now realize that the Republican Party has abandoned the large swath of voters who are not particularly extreme with regard to social or fiscal issues. They have abandoned those voters, not as part of some grand strategy to come back to power (I do realize that they still control the House and several Southern and Western states) but as a necessary action to keep the "Tea Party" right from bolting the party.
I'm interested in voting for common-sense moderates. Obama is not really impressing me with his talk about bombing Syria. I would not vote for a Republican or a Democrat who voted for such a foolish strategy.
But I do like the Democratic Party's position on comprehensive immigration reform. We need it and the Democrats in office are mostly for it.
I'd like to keep taxes low. Especially taxes on small businesses like mine. But I personally don't care if Congress or the State of California wants to increase taxes on those who report over $300k in income. Just a tad. Especially if it will help the working poor get access to health care, dental care, food, housing, mental health care, etc.
I believe that what we call "public education" in this country is in sorry shape. I'm not blaming teachers. I know that teachers, for the most part, work their asses off to get kids to perform at a level that will make them competitive in the global market for workers. But kids are lazy and/or heavily distracted by video games (including these smart phone games), facebook, instagram, tumblr, snapchat, etc. So our kids may have to learn one day how brutal globalization is.
I'd like to discuss which Democratic candidates for president in 2016 would support the following platform: (1) no war (including non-defensive bombings and missile strikes); (2) reducing taxes on the working poor and middle class; (3) comprehensive immigration reform; (4) social justice (including aggressively auditing law enforcement agencies that subvert justice in order to incriminate the innocent and hit logistical goals for arrests and convictions.