The issues dialogue among Democrats this year is exciting! The contest for the Democratic Party Presidential Candidacy is exciting!
Only one big cloud hangs over it, in my opinion.
The stakes are far too great for any of us to go into a pout and stay home if the candidate we personally would most like to carry the banner for us all does not win the nomination.
Remember what happened in 2000. Would Al Gore have been a good or great progressive as President? Some would argue the answer is not clear. Certainly in 2000 there were Democrats who wanted someone else.
Would Al Gore have been as bad as “George W. Bush/Dick Cheney” turned out to be?
Would Al Gore have given us John Roberts and Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court?
Do you think Al Gore would have led us into the utter debacle of Iraq War 2?
Do you think Al Gore would have turned us from continuing to reduce our national debt into doubling it, by giving the surplus and more all back just to the wealthiest 1% of Americans?
Those who stayed home or voted against him, because they thought Al Gore was a “Republicrat” made it possible for the Republicans to steal the election and stick us with W.
Who will be the President to choose the Supreme Court nominees to replace the probably soon retiring Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia?
Who will be the President to guide our nation through the hard choices that will inevitably fall on us (as they always do) starting in 2017?
While we fight for the progressive issues each of us holds most dear, let us never again go near the tragedy of 2000. Would any of us stay home and let any one of the Republicans now seeking the nomination of their party win the Presidency, rather than fight for any one of the Democrats seeking our party’s nomination?
To any who might say that Americans would never elect any of these Republicans to the Presidency, so we need not worry, I remind you that W was reelected in 2004.