Let me say that my dream didn't come true and Al Gore didn't join the race. If there was ever a candidate to pin hopes and dreams to, it was him. However, I don't blame him for deciding not to deal with the Republican smear machine and a clearly antagonistic media. I do think he'd have made the best president in a generation or two.
Back in 2004, I voted for John Edwards even though he'd officially dropped out of the race by the time Texas voted. Regardless, I voted for him because I thought he'd bring something to the table. Sure he was a pretty face, but there was an excitement to him that I felt needed a chance to shine. Not only that, but he could counter the idiotic narrative about who'd you rather have a beer with him or Bush.
As if running the nation should be based on drinking beer and being a frat boy. (I have nothing against frat boys, I find many quite attractive and fun, but I digress.)
However, I am in a quandary about who to support this year. I don't dislike any of the candidates, though I am beginning to intensely dislike some of the candidate supporters on this site. (I am a better man than to let that sell me on a candidate on most days, but some people here are on my LAST nerve.)
In all fairness with full disclosure, Barack Obama really angered me with the whole Donnie McClurkin incident in South Carolina. That was a major negative in my book. But my real issue with Obama comes down to expectations. There seems to be this almost surreal idea that he'll magically make everything better and the whole world will come to together and have a Coke on a mountain top. Seriously, that is how I view some of his supporters; overly naive idealistic individuals with no idea of how to deal with the reality of hardball Washington politics. It seems to invite a generation of new voters to be crushed by unrealistic expectations and be turned off by politics.
Aaron Sorkin wrote a great line in "The American President" about politics in America, that is was a tough business and that you really have to want something to get it. (I can't find the quote and the movie is at home right now.) It took me YEARS to get over the crushing Democratic defeat in 1994. I was 22. That is how I think Obama is setting things up and the aftermath is going to be terrible. (I don't refer to electoral defeat, but legislative defeat or the failure to achieve the great 'change' he talks about.)
I guess I am too much of an old time firebrand Texas populist at heart to buy what Obama and his supporters are selling. Maybe that is why I've liked John Edwards' message for so long. I'm in the mold of Jim Hightower/Ann Richards/Molly Ivins to go for 'feel good' politics. Their rhetoric is/was down home snark with blazing truth. I'm a Texas pol at heart and its LBJ hardball politics to me. That still doesn't say much for my liking Edwards, but he reminds me of feisty politician that is mad as Hell and isn't going to take it anymore.
As for Sen. Clinton, I actually like her. I don't think she is evil incarnate or a bad person. I think she's a warrior who has seen battles that people in my generation haven't lived directly. I grew up in the Reagan 80's and boy is that a hangover that has lasted a few decades too long. I seriously give her props for developing a career and raising her daughter to be an outstanding young woman.
Back to McClurkin for a moment; the reason this matters so much to me and many gay people I know is simple. Obama has and is campaigning as a new kind of politician and yet threw gay people under the bus for the sake of the evangelical vote in South Carolina. Nope, a candidate with his raison d'être doesn't get a pass on that one.
I figure that I will do as I always to do when it comes to voting, I'll vote my conscience when March 4 rolls around. I've voted Republican against my safe Democratic House member in protest and voted for persons who've dropped out of the race before my primary has counted before. I'll vote for the Democratic candidate in the fall. But where my vote will go on March 4th is very much up for grabs. Hell I may write in Al Gore for the fun of it.