The view from the undecideds
I got into blogging by answering a forum post on O-Live back in 2004. Kevin “Velveeta” Cosgrove originally brought two of us in to give our insights into the election and blog our thoughts in what turned out to be near real time. My partner was David B. Wright. He’s now writing at TwoPennies.
David made up his mind fairly early on that he would be voting for Kerry. I still had a lot of post-Limbaugh baggage to overcome and didn’t make up my mind until late-October that things had to change.
He doesn’t post much these days, given the fact he’s now got a big boy job down in Las Vegas which allows him to have both a mortgage and a nice sled. But every now and then he’ll pop-up with some thoughts on what’s going on in politics. He’s made no secret he’s voting for McCain this time around, partly out of dislike for Obama, but mostly because he prefers the idea of divided government. Fine.
I asked him yesterday whether Palin changed his calculus at all. The answer?
McCain could have picked a ham sandwich (to paraphrase) as his running mate, and I still would have to vote for him for the good of the country. That I happen to like him, and distrust Obama, makes that choice easier. That he made a questionable pick for VP is a bit troublesome, but I understand entirely why he made that choice. I’d have chosen differently, myself, but that’s OK.
Gulp.
McCain’s choice, his first true executive decision, shows an impulsive, risk taking side that I don’t think this country can handle during this time of both domestic and worldwide uncertainty. In my mind it truly is more of the same. And while I sympathize with Wright’s idea that government is at its best when its divided, I don’t think we can allow a religious zealot to be this close to the seat of power. Especially post-Bush/Cheney. This was the argument against Huckabee, you’ll recall. Two years, or even four, of one-party rule will not bring this country down. The Dems are particularly afraid of their own shadows and will not stray too far from the middle, no matter their rhetoric.
The question on everyone’s minds now is how many Davids are out there? We’ll know sooner rather than later.
