Four More Years of Annoyance

I should post a link to my favorite bit of music. James Lileks made a great piece of music out of Howard Dean's speech and the Dean Scream. Whenever I worry the Dems might win one, I play that and then chant "Walter Mondale" a few times. Sadly, it means wee are stuck with McCain, who was never my first choice, but, at least it is McCain, not Obama, Gore or Hillary. We can push McCain right, we aren't going to move the other three at all.

I think Gore is possible, thought trotting out a proven loser with his own ethical issues (no controlling authority? Buddhist monks?) may not be the best strategy. But no one ever accused the Democrats of being smart.

In fact, if the Republicans weren't prone to near suicidal infighting, the Demos probably would never win a race.

That was Reagan's genius. He got Republicans to stop defeating ourselves for a while. We should have learned from his example, but we didn't. Just look at how many "taking my ball and going home" comments appeared after McCain locked the nomination.

Yes, the man is a bit left for comfort, but he is still the Republican candidate. Either support the party or join another. And don't use the general election to send a message, that is what primaries are for. (One thing we do need to change is that "open primary" stupidity, primaries should be limited to the party...)

I think I just came up with my next post. Excuse me while I go write...

As I said in an earlier post, whether or not you choose to vote, whether you refuse to select the lesser of two evils, someone will still be elected. So you are better off making sure it is the one who does the least harm.

But there are still a few out there who somehow think letting Obama have his way for 4 years won't do that much harm and will make the Republicans move right.

More likely it will be another Carter (who gave us revolutionary Iran, a strong OPEC, a weak military, and gave away the Panama Canal), and the Republicans, seeing a big lib win, will move left, rather than right.

I am not willing to risk that much. Better a McCain placeholder and fight out our beliefs in the 2010 and 2012 primaries.