In November 1980 I voted in my first Presidential election. I was 10 and it was a 4th grade "mock" election. Each of us wrote our vote on a slip of paper and we stood in a long, awkward conga line as we waited our turn to put our slip in a big cardboard box at the front of the room. Likely I was standing next to a friend of mine named Dave. The two of us came from poor families and had a ridiculous affinity for Billy Joel’s Glass Houses and a certain pretty blonde girl whose name I do not remember to this day. (I’ve outgrown any preference for blondes, pretty much loving women of all varieties, especially the intelligent and compassionate kind. My love of Glass Houses stands.)
When the votes were counted, I knew I was very different from my fellow students. Only 2 votes were cast for Carter. I cast one of them.
I never asked anyone else for whom they voted; I was too ashamed to admit to my own vote.
As I recall, my parents were not political in any way. They never spoke overtly about government, much less were they activists. Yet, somehow it was understood that we were Democrats. Perhaps it was a pragmatic decision. They were poor, underemployed and always struggled to make ends meet. Reagonomics was very hard on my family; my father was serially unemployed. For years I received reduced price lunch at school; not quite poor enough for the free lunch program, but enough to get a break.
I have to think, also that they were influenced by their own parents who had lived through the years of FDR and sincerely believed that a Democratic Leader was there for the working class. Perhaps my father, being from Missouri, simply stuck with the party of Truman. I know my mother had a fondness for Kennedy and a sadness of his fate that exists to this day. But honestly, having grown distant from them over the years, I can’t really say for sure. None the less, the seed was sown and I blindly followed the Democratic field not fully understanding the reason until many years later. Like my parents before me, I rarely spoke of politics myself, often avoiding the topic.
And then there came Bill Clinton. He was charismatic, spoke of change and hope and came from the same general upbringing as myself. For the first time I voted in a real election, for a Democrat. I was no longer ashamed. And of course, we all know how that went. He let me down in so many ways. He did not receive my vote a second time out of protest of NAFTA and Welfare Reform and a host of other issues. (No, I did not vote for a Republican, Perot got my wasted vote that painful year.) His second term was a travesty of wasted opportunity, not unlike the first term. To this day, I can not believe how poorly he handled the affair. Why he didn't just say, "I made a mistake, it's between me and my family, I ask for your forgiveness" is still beyond my comprehension. The American people can relate to this, especially those of us with lust in our hearts.
In retrospect, I realize only now that this was when I changed how I self identified. No longer was I thinking of myself as a Democrat. My slow gradual tack towards becoming a progressive became a hard left when I realized that Clinton was not what I had hoped he would be. He was a corporatist in populist clothing and I’ve never been able to look back on those years with any fondness. I have nearly as much difficulty understanding his continued exalted status in the party as I understand one of my cousins who proclaimed, while choking back tears, that "Reagan was the best President this country has ever had."
I've voted Democratic ever since, but too often, like that crappy Perot vote, I was voting against someone instead of for someone. Hitting the streets for John Kerry should have felt good, but it was hard to fight for someone who didn't seem to fight for himself.
Like Mulder of old, I Want To Believe. I want to be a Democrat. I want my party to stand for the working class and the poor again. I want to support a party of reason and truth. I want a party that values compassion and dignity; that is smart and decent. And yet...
I wonder often if the Democratic Big Tent is just not feasible. Don’t get me wrong, I am not some Maoist looking to purge those that don’t fit my ideals. But as I watched my party support or remain silent as the Current Administration drove headlong into the Iraq debacle; as they laid down when the torture began and billions of dollars rushed down the Military Industrial rat hole, when I see the Blue Dog capitulations over FISA and Telco Immunity again this week; when this evening I watch while our Democratic congress people are practically screaming at each other because a baseball player, a freakin’ baseball player for Christ sakes, may or may not have used a controlled substance, all while the erosion of our Constitution happens in some dark, undisclosed chamber, I have to ask myself, how many times do I want to be ashamed of my party? Is the tent big enough for me?
UPdate of sorts: Thank you BentLiberal for the Diary Rescue!