People keep wanting to give me reasons why I should support Kerry over Edwards or Edwards over Kerry or push for a Kerry/Edwards ticket.
I won't do it. And it's not because (at 41) I'm some sort of petulant child.
It's because I couldn't give a sh*t less which one of them gets the nomination. Yes, they're both better than Bush and I'm going to vote for the Dem in November.
I've been exercising my franchise religiously since I received it over 20 years ago. Every election. Local or state. Even when I lived in CA and had to work my way through 50 initiatives on a single ballot.
Except for local elections, I've never felt like I was voting for anybody. I just voted for the lesser of two evils. Mostly Democrats. Occassionally Greens and other 3rd party candidates.
After 2000, I started to feel like that wasn't enough. I'd joined MoveOn back when they started, signed the petition for "censure and move on". And I did kick in $200 when MoveOn picked some candidates to support. Except for Wellstone (who wasn't my Senator), none of them struck me as great candidates.
As BushCo started to prove even worse than I'd feared, I started sending something to MoveOn every month. I couldn't give money to the Democratic Party. I have little respect for that political institution. I was an Independent.
In February 2002, I looked at all of the candidates. Their records, their positions, their personal history. I picked Dean, but I mostly figured it was more of the same -- he was better than the rest, at least marginally. At least he stood up. Then I listened to his announcement speech.
My God! He was talking about things I'd given up on. The American community. Our shared responsibilities to each other and to each others' children. It was MLK's "Beloved Community".
A WASPy white guy from Vermont was calling for a new political direction in this country. And he wanted everybody on board.
He reminded us of what we're supposed to be striving for, what the dream of America really is.
And so for me the long journey of a Presidential campaign has begun with the people I have met affecting me far more than any affect I may have had on them. And because of that, the reasons why I seek the Presidency have changed.
This campaign is about more than issue differences on health care, tax cuts, national security, jobs, the environment and our economy. It is about something as important as our children. It's about who we are as Americans.
Here are the words of John Winthrop: "We shall be as one. We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always living before our eyes our Commission and Community in our work."
It is that ideal, the ideal of the American community, that we seek to restore.
An America where it is not enough for me to want health care for my family but the obligation, and responsibility of every one of us as American citizens to insure that each one of us has health care for our families.
An America where it is not enough for me to want good public schools and a better life for my children but an obligation, and a responsibility as citizens to insure that every child in America may go to a good public school and have the opportunity of a better life.
An America where it is not enough to protect my rights under the law but where it is a duty and an obligation for each of us as Americans to make sure every American is equal under the law.
An America where it is not enough to proclaim the words freedom, self-government, and democracy, but where it is a duty and a responsibility to participate together in common purpose with the sacrifice required of each of us to give those words meaning.
....
The history of our nation is clear: At every turn when there has been an imbalance of power, the truth questioned, or our beliefs and values distorted, the change required to restore our nation has always come from the bottom up from our people.
And so, while the President raises $4 million more tonight to maintain his agenda, we will not be silent.
He calls his biggest fundraisers Rangers and Pioneers.
But today, we stand together with thousands in Burlington, Vermont and tens of thousands more, standing with us right now in every state in this nation. And we call ourselves, simply, Americans.
And we stand today in common purpose to take our country back.
Yes, it's rhetoric. So was "I have a dream". The difference, the important difference, is that it is not empty rhetoric.
I actually registered as a Democrat. And I personally got 20 other people to shake off their lethargy and register to vote. I brought them the registration forms. I addressed them and put postage on them, so all they had to do was fill them out.
Yup, I'm a total, 100% drunk-the-Koolaid Deaniac. I'll vote for Howard Dean in my state's caucus. And I'm part of the movement, whatever shape it ultimately takes.