Perhaps I don't think too well until I've had about three or four pots of coffee in me, so if this sounds like rambling, I apologize profusely. In other words, I'm still on the first pot.
Before I get into this diary further, let me state...I have not withdrawn anything from Obama, and I believe in him enough to not want him to become the lesser of the two evils in this campaign. (and no, I was not an original supporter for Obama, though he was my second choice.)
So now that I have the disclaimers out of the way, let me digress here after the jump so I can make some sense what's going on with my thought process of the firestorm brewing on dKOS.
I can say I'm psychic, at least to a point. My husband can attest to that also. I told him in 2000 that Bush was an idiot and that he would work for his buddies in the oil business. Thank you Mr. President for proving me right. So yes, when I vote, I do tend to go with a gut instinct. Despite the firestorm brewing now, my gut tells me to give Obama a chance.
I like Obama, he's young, energetic, enthusiastic, intelligent and in a lot of ways not afraid to stand up for himself. Yet because I like him, doesn't mean I can't be critical of my candidate should I feel that he's gone against something that not only I believe in, but something that he stands for. If I wasn't critical of him, wouldn't that make me as bad as those who support Bush regardless of what he did?
There's a firestorm with Obama and FISA. This will die down and thankfully, this happened in June and not in November. Because for each possible disappointment Obama may make, we know that McCain will triple the number of blunders, which will help erode his base.
The thing is, the junior Senator has come out as the candidate of change, and because of this he walks a fine line. FISA only being one of them. FISA, in reality is a no win situation for him. If he doesn't agree to it, then he'll be soft on national security, if he does, it's business as usual. After all, we've stood by and watch our politicians erode our constitution and the rights under it for the past eight years, with very little voice of dissent against it out of Washington.
The thing is, if he is the candidate of change then even the perception of business as usual and going along with the senior democrats could damage him more then help him. Constitutional issues are going to be a big issue with your swing voters, which he needs to shore up the election. The idea of dismissing this as being "okay to compromise" because it doesn't effect the private individual is not the way to secure voters. As much as Democrats would like to think they can get there alone, they can't. They need the swing votes to push him over the top.
I also don't like to be told to shut up and march with the music when I disagree with something. Sorry I'm not a Bushite and saw way too much of that when we were speaking up against the war and other policies that came out of the administration. The "if you're not for us, you're against us" mentality. My question is how the hell did that argument make it over to the blue side of the aisle? Do you really want to adopt this attitude. After all, there are quite a few angry republicans and Independents who have jumped over to the Democrats side because of that very attitude from the Republican party. Isn't it possible that instead of pushing the ones who disagree with Obama over the ledge, attempting to pull them back in? I've seen numerous blogs out there that have done that, and I've also seen the viciousness in the comments from others.
My head right now is spinning and I know my thoughts were incoherent (I'm still on my first pot of coffee) and all over the board. I know it's a critical time for the Democrat party. Their senior leaders seem to keep shooting themselves in the foot, which of course, makes it difficult for their young candidate. There seems to be alot of infighting right now, but honestly, it's really not as bad as you think it is, or the right likes to portray it to be. So I guess I'm going to sit back, breath deeply, clear my head, continue to fight for what I believe in, hold my candidate to his own principles, and enjoy my coffee while I'm at it.
NOTE: Not another FISA/against FISA diary for me. Obama will vote how he votes. I personally would prefer a candidate who stands by his own principles and that's why I'm hoping Obama will be a candidate of choice for me and not a candidate for the lesser evil.