I've been a Clinton supporter until this morning, but lately I've been on the fence between Clinton and Obama. Just last night I was thinking I wouldn't vote at all at all because I like them both. Primaries are a political Chinese finger trap; the harder you pull the more stuck you get; both Clinton or Obama would be unimaginably better than the hole there now. I've been a Clinton supporter until now because I believe in playing to win, and with these people that means playing dirty. Up till now my attitude towards national elections has been "screw morality; the stakes are too high. In doesn't matter what it takes, we can't let them win again. There is nothing we could possible do in the campaign worse than losing, so far as anything and everything else is concerned the means justify the ends." Hillary seemed like the kind of politician who could beat Rove at his own game, and that's what we needed. The biggest lie a politician can ever tell is that they are telling the truth; it's their job to lie, to tell us we want to hear, to react to polls.
This was how I felt until in re-reading Obama's speech I realized it was so much more than it's content alone. The act of giving this speech during the campaign put us, the American people, ahead of everything including his own ambition. It was a selfless act, and through that Obama has earned my trust and respect in ways I thought a politician never could. I feel like someone is stroking my skin to wake me up from this 8 year nightmare.
I'm not happy with Casey (the new Democratic senator from PA) at all, he's an anti-choice, southern Democrat, insider, and had he run against Specter I've have voted for Specter in an instant, but he ran against Santorum, and Santorum is such a disgusting pathetic excuse for a human being, that not only did I vote for Casey, I campaigned for him. People would ask me "Why should I support your candidate? He doesn't even agree with most of things I feel strongly about." And my answer was "Because if you don't and Santorum wins..." I'd confess, that I didn't like him much myself, and that I was campaigning against Santorum more than for Casey. Long ago a friend asked me who I would vote for if Hitler ran against Bush, and during the Santorum Casey race I couldn’t get that hypothetical dilemma out of my mind. After 6 years of Bush I was so far beyond caring about anything other than winning, it didn't matter to me anymore.
Then Obama comes along and with the philosophy of, we should not play the game of "who can go lower and not get caught". A game the Democrats have been half playing and losing horribly, until the last midterm election, when we were finally desperate enough to get our act together and do what had to be done, which was running a bunch of half democrats, to take back congress. Lying, cheating, doing whatever you have to do to win, well that's politics. I don't trust a politician who claims to be telling the truth. Hillary is the only one who wasn't pretending to tell the truth, and that's a good enough reason for me to support her. "Straight Talk" from a politician is an oxymoron; it just means they're a better liar than most of their colleges.
I found myself re-reading Obama's speech this morning. A speech filled with so many things I know to be true, and have been afraid to say, or unable to put into words. So much of it I can confirm through my own experience, that I know, for once, a politician is telling the truth. I find myself completely in awe of the level of faith it took in America and in humanity to say those things in a public forum. Never in my life have I seen a political speech that brought out the better part of me and not the worse. I can’t remember the last time I let myself feel emotion while reading anything in the paper. There has been nothing to feel but disgust, with this administration, and frankly, with this country. I just don't let myself react emotionally anymore. Bush is scum, the lowest of the low, he shows his hatred for humanity every day. What more is there to say? Of course he vetoed SCHIP, he wants children to suffer and die, American children, Iraqi children; he doesn't give a damn. His administration did some other despicable thing... It's all yesterday’s news to me. Hell, with the amount of work the Bushites put into damning America, they won’t need help from God. Cynicism is so easy, to force myself not to feel anything about anything. You can't be disappointed when you expect less than nothing.
I had forgotten hope, in favor of dreams which carried no expectation. Until this morning I had thought hope was just a catch phrase (and not a particularly good one), until I read his speech again for the second or third time and thought about all of its implications. In giving such a speech at this point in his candidacy, he did far more than just say things that have long needed to be said, he risked his career for America. To watch a candidate put the American people above everything, above their own ambition, their quest for power, and to show such complete and total faith in us, is astounding beyond anything I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. To see a candidate who loves and trusts humanity and America enough to put himself at our mercy, who risks his candidacy to tell us what we’ve long needed to hear, was unfathomable yesterday, and yet I’m reading a transcript of the Democratic front runner doing exactly that. It is the polar opposite of the Machiavellian leaders we have lived with for the last 7 years and possibly longer. I don’t understand, honesty and decency aren’t supposed to be part of American politics. Or is America better than that? Is humanity better than this? Asking those question in of self, is hope in the truest sense, hope that we are in fact something greater than we appear, that the spirit of good is more powerful than I now believed it to be.
In letting myself believe, even for a moment, that a world where our president has earned my trust and respect through putting the interests of the American people above his own ambition, is possible, I find myself overcome with emotion, and that emotion is hope. It’s frightening like falling in love too early in a relationship, my feelings are outside my control, and I find myself unexpectedly vulnerable. I am afraid to feel anything regarding politics, perhaps I am afraid of disappointment, but it goes is far beyond that. I am afraid that if I let myself feel anything now, I might start to feel something about everything; that the next time I look at a newspaper headline I’ll get upset, instead of the usual, "so Bush fucked up one more time or thing... that’s just the details of yesterday’s news again" reaction I’ve had for the last few years. Or worse yet, that I might let myself feel something about what’s happened over the last 7 years, and start crying in public. Perhaps this is why the cynic in me didn’t let anything Obama said register as anything other than the standard political rhetoric until now. The act of giving this speech has moved me to hope; watching a presidential front runner show a faith in the American people I have long since lost, has forced me to remember what hope is.