I wrote the following on my MySpace page in answer to a correspondent who said that Kucinich was his choice for president because he was the only one with a spotless record of opposition to the war:
I agree, and Kucinich would be my choice for president. But if it looks like Kucinich isn't going to win, then it seems to me that to make sure the next Republican DOESN'T get in, you would have to switch your vote to the best Democrat with the best chance of beating him. I have been doing the same thing in the UK for the last three elections. I disliked Tony Blair, especially when he yolked his political cause to Bush's, but a vote for the Greens, who are the best alternative to the two parties who run the show in Britain would have been a surefire way of electing the Conservative Party. They are massaging their image right now, but they will always be racist, homophobic, anti-union, pro-war (not much different from mainstream Labour in that respect), and the arch-enemy of true social mobility: under them the poor will always be poor and the rich will always dine on their suffering. Which makes them the British equivalent of the Republican Party in the US.
America may view Obama as morally compromised and a creeping hypocrite, and that he may well be, but set his character profile against John McCain's or any of the other Republican lunatics running against him. Who would you rather have running the show, really? Oscar Wilde once said, "Cynicism is intellectual dandyism." Those who genuinely want to end suffering, or at least ameliorate it, don't have the luxury of sitting back and tut-tutting about corruption while the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
2 comments:
i took an online quiz to see which candidate my views matched up with - and Kucinich came out on top - Republicans were all on the bottom
not mind you, that K has a chance for the nomination - Obama and Clinton were both 80+ % matches.
Yeah, the only thing that troubles me about my argument for tactical voting is the number of people who have come forward and said they like Kucinich. But mainstream America never would, as far as I can tell. So to stop Bush's successor on the Republican side, it does seem like a choice between Hilary and Obama. And I can't get past the idea that she's a fake.
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