I woke up this morning early as I do every election day and made my way to my local polling place here in New Haven, itching to cast my ballot. The issues of importance to me were health care, Iraq, and, given the ugliness of the Prop 8 business in California, marriage equality.
There has only been one candidate this cycle who represented real change on any of these three: John Edwards.
I normally don't do "write-in" ballots. Some say they're wasted votes and, well, they're entitled to their opinion -- I say wait until the votes are counted. But the fact is, only John Edwards has offered a universal health care plan. Now you may say Obama has a great plan and I agree it's better than McCain's, but I'm just sick of the politics-as-usual, nickel-and-diming incrementalism. I don't want to hear about how Obama is going to give insurance companies "a place at the table." This is not the time for compromise!
And what about Iraq? Obama has been remarkably mealy-mouthed about when and how quickly to get out, not like John Edwards. You see, while Obama talks about being responsible and "not wanting to play chicken with the troops" (as if to say the rest of us are just infantile college kids trying to stick it to our parents with braided necklaces and patchouli, sporting anti-war sloganeering buttons who don't give a damn about the lives of those who serve), John Edwards has presented an unequivocal plan for withdraw with straightforward deadlines. He doesn't buy into right wing slogans and frames like "the War on Terror." See, that's courage.
Then there's marriage equality. I don't think I need to remind anyone here of Obama's odious associations on this matter. We all remember the way he booked an anti-gay folk singer (whose name, admittedly, I don't recall), supposedly without vetting him first (or so they'd have us believe), for one of his campaign events in the south, where he could probably derive some political advantage from gay bashing. Then, even with all of this out and around the 'tubes, he let that horrible bigot talk at the event! No cut mics and all of it to approving nods from an equally abhorrent audience! Well, the precedent was set and those who spoke up against it were brutally shouted down. Now with Proposition 8 in California in danger of going the wrong way (whichever way that is), Obama hasn't cut a single ad in support of marriage equality. Hell, even Samuel L. Jackson made an ad, but Obama can't be bothered?
Finally, I just think back to the primary and all the things Obama supporters said about John Edwards. That he's a phony. An opportunist. A closet DLCer. A slick southern white guy who fathered an illegitimate child with a campaign worker then orchestrated an elaborate cover-up even as his primary campaign rolled on until it abruptly stopped for reasons those Obama supporters would say we can now surmise. I remember them calling Edwards supporters unhinged fanatics who abuse the recommended diary system to publish sleazy and dishonest hit pieces against the chosen one around the clock. Oh yes, I remember. They thought they could get away with brow-beating us loyal John Edwards boosters? They didn't think they'd need us in the general election? Well, I sure showed them, didn't I?