Here Comes the Silly Season!

Congratulations! We’ve started another year on the Gregorian calendar…which means we have just one more year of Bush occupation in the White House, and a long road ahead of political punditry and (no doubt) stupidity as the media gives us front row seats at presidential debates and what-not.

I am sure some of you have made up your mind about which person you would most like to see attempt to undo the damage done by Dumbya and his goons. I have not. I know I am only interested in the Democratic candidates as I think the Republican Party was hijacked a longtime ago by the radical right, and what I’ve heard from most of the GOP field indicates that they’re all vying for the right-wing of the party. The bald eagle needs two wings to fly! And that goes for those on the far-left of the Democratic Party, too!!

Politically, I am liberal. Not extremely liberal, but enough that I have no home in the GOP of the current day. Perhaps back at its founding with President Abraham Lincoln, I would have fit in. I think slavery is wrong, and I have dealt with Southerners hissing, “Yankee!” at me (just as long as we’re talking about regions of the country and not baseball allegiances!). But the Grand Ol’ Party has shoved its historical underpinnings into the attic to gather dust, and I want no part of their hatred and distrust for “the others”.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party frustrates and annoys me. It has always held itself out there as the alternative to the mean-spirited, anti-little-guy Republicans. And yet, so often when the Democrats are faced with making a difficult decision and standing up for something like rights of gay Americans to be allowed to pursue life, liberty and happiness….they tremble, they crumble, and they allow the bullies to get their way. Hell, some of them even help the bullies get in a few good kicks to the head! I’m still disappointed in the way they all rolled over and played dead when Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia were nominated to the US Supreme Court. And don’t get me started on this current bloody war in Iraq that I knew was so plainly wrong-headed from my seat in Tallahassee, and yet so many of the Democrats, fearing that they’d be called un-patriotic or un-American, gave the administration (and Haliburton) carte blanche to go to war.

I’m an independent. I think the two-party system isn’t working. We need to establish a way to let third, fourth, and fifth party candidates compete fairly for our votes. Maybe then, the Democrats will refine their focus and stick to who they (supposedly) are, and the Republicans can drive themselves further into obscurity…or at least over the right-sided guardrail into the pit below.

I will vote in our Primary. I will be forced to change my registration, but I will vote for a Democrat. I just don’t know who yet. And I may not know until I’m sitting with my ballot in front of me. I hope that when I do cast my vote, I can feel as though I’m actually voting for someone as opposed to against their opponent!