The back seat of my car is the microcosm of my life. It has in it a hockey stick, yard signs for "yes on prop 93" and the banner for the Silicon Valley LGBT Dem club. Oh and empty water bottles waiting to be recycled. I am playing hockey again on Sunday so I will just leave the stick there. I may run into some protesters I need to whack.
Tuesday night was the club's Presidential forum. WE had reps from the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards campaign answering three questions we gave them in advance and then questions from the audience. We had over 40 people in attendance. Final results of the straw poll:
Obama 41%
Edwards 28
Clinton 25%
undecided 6%
Interesting, huh?
The election is less than a week away and I still can't decide who I am going to vote for in the California primary. I found it interesting that the campaigns were taking swings at each other, "Hillary did this, Obama said this." I just didn't expect that. Maybe because I have kept my distance and tried to look at the candidates pragmatically and the campaign people were more emotional.
I am having a hard time getting past my issues with Obama. I hated the way he was so condescending with Hillary at the NH debate. I really have a problem with his supporters acting like 5 year olds and saying we won't vote if Obama is not the candidate.
Four years ago when Howard Dean was running for DNC chair, I got lots of emails and letters asking me to vote for Dean. I answered all the emails politely saying I hadn't made up my mind but that for sharing your thoughts on voting for Dean. I got one particularly memorable letter. "If you don't vote for Dean, we will come after you with torches and pitchforks." Democracy doesn't thrive on those kind of threats. So when I hear the other threats, I wonder how mature this movement is, to take up the mantle of leadership and give full inclusion to all of us.
With Hillary I am struggling too. Everyone my age if supporting her. I like someone who knows and understands policy and what effect that ahs on the state of the union. But, I don't know, there is something missing, a connect that I can't say what it is so how can I ask the campaign to give me something I don't even know what I want. My friend Jorge Mursuli says you can't know what you don't know.
Time for me to figure it out. I'll let you know when I get there.
Wild Thing! You make my heart sing! You make everything grooooovy!
Chad hibiscus
from my backyard
About Me
- miss wild thing
- I live in San Jose with my spouse, 3 dogs and 3 cats. I live for Hockey and am ardent support of the San Jose Sharks and the You Can Play Project. I garden and volunteer at Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale, Ca.
1 comment:
I have to go with my cousin, who worked in Democratic politics in Washington during the 1990s. She thinks the world of Hillary Clinton; she says Hillary is the best strategic thinker she's ever met.
She also worked for Gov. MacKay in Florida and had to assist the Jeb Bush transition team when they took office after campaigning on the meme of "we're outsider businessmen who can run government better" or something like that. Three weeks in, they were calling her, desperate for help, saying they had no idea governance was so hard. She just doesn't think Obama is ready to run the US government.
My cousin is a lesbian who has lived almost all of her life in the south (FL and GA). BTW, Rep. Patricia Todd also supports Hillary. They both seem comfortable that her heart is in the right place on LGBT issues.
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