The picture is the reason I'll vote dem

I can't believe I am going to write this, but it is time    to admit it. I had vowed not to write anything about it until it was officially over, but I simply can't stop myself. I do so love to express my opinion and I do so love to disseminate it. What can I say? I'm self absorbed.

I have always had mad love for the Clintons. I have some serious issues with some of the things Bill did in office (no, nothing to do with his penis), but I loved his drive, his idealism and his ability to get things accomplished in the face of overwhelming opposition. I wonder what it would have been like if Richard Mellon Scaife hadn't decided they were the people to tear down to nothing. The country would probably have benefited a great deal from the above mentioned characteristics of Bill Clinton.

When Bill was in office I didn't pay much attention to Hillary. I didn't know anything about her, didn't really care. Out of curiosity, I read her memoir, Living History. I was surprised to find that I developed a deep sense of respect for her and for the work she has done in her career as a lawyer and as a politician's wife. Her focus has always been on children and her belief in the autonomy of children is one I absolutely endorse. She is a complex woman, this is true. I don't know how she was able to stay with Bill, but she did and she did it successfully. She explained her reasoning in the book, but I don't remember it; I just remember being impressed with it.

I was saddened when she announced her intention to run for president because I already knew I wanted to support Obama. I was saddened because I wanted to support Hillary, too. I also didn't think it was the right time for her to run as there is still too much animosity toward the Clintons by people who are still in power. Either way, I knew that I would vote for her if she secured the democratic nomination. Truthfully, I would vote for almost any democratic presidential nominee. It's not that I follow the party line and do whatever they tell me to do; it's just that the republican party has very little to offer me ideologically. If there was a republican candidate who matched my ideology, you bet I would vote for him or her; but that is unlikely to happen since our philosophies are quite disparate. Remember, I am all about the idea behind the idea, and I can't get behind the idea that money is more important than people or society. I do believe that is the driving force behind most of the republican party's ideology. That said, I have some serious problems with some of the democratic party's ideas, too. However, the idea behind the ideas tends to be that society is for everyone and everyone has a right to protection and a certain amount of care. It isn't communistic, it's simply a matter of ensuring that society prospers because it takes care of its citizens, rather than prospering because it takes advantage of its citizens. I have to do it, I have to bring him up: my idea of how society should work is from Kant's idea of the kingdom of ends. We should never treat other people as a means, only as an end, as that is what they are as deliberative, moral beings. That is why I am a democrat.

Getting back to Hillary Clinton: I had decided that I would not vote in the upcoming election if Hillary was the nominee. However, I can't do that simply because she has pledged to bring the troops home from Iraq and I can't be a party to their continued presence and casualties in the middle east. The death and destruction, the things that never should have begun, have gone on too long. I have a heavy, heavy heart in regard to the Clintons, though. Hillary's relentless smear campaigning, her incredibly disturbing remarks about Robert Kennedy, and her inability to do what is so clearly right for the party and the country by getting out of the race are things that I find sad beyond measure. Bill's tactics in this race are also appalling. I suppose it is hard to realize that someone you looked up to, someone you counted on as one of your own, as someone who matched you in thinking, is not any of those things and does not do any of those things. Being human and fallible can be an existential pain in the ass.

Having integrity and expecting others to have it too is a difficult path to take. I wonder how easy it would be to get rid of integrity and therefore not be surprised or hurt when someone you respected showed themselves not to have integrity? I imagine it is the way many people feel who supported Bush all these years only to find that he is truly displaced from the reality those of us without money must live in. I feel for those people, I really do. When our idols or role models betray our trust, it hurts as if they were hurting us on purpose and personally. I feel personally betrayed by the Clintons; I thought we were the same kind of people. To know that we are not, and probably never were, hurts me.

Two more role models have left the building.

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