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Refuse the Fence: Discern Between Obama and Romney

The Displaced Plainsman poses a challenge to my Presidential vote. I will rebut GOP nonsense and check the Obama box this November. LK reminds me that on civil liberties, war, and education, we both have serious beefs with Obama and Romney that should have civil libertarian semi-pacifist teachers like us conscientiously objecting to the rule of either Harvard grad.

LK turns a new phrase: he characterizes the Obama-Romney dilemma as forcing us to "vote against the more evil of two lessers." A conservative commenter here agrees that we are forced to pick between two awful choices.

Bothering to pick a side may matter less here in South Dakota, where my Obama vote and my efforts to get others to vote similarly move the chances of Romney winning the state from 97.7% to 97.6%. But my distaste for agnosticism requires me to pick a side in politics as much as religion.

Perhaps I cherry-pick Kant: if I act under the assumption that my action should serve as a model for everyone's action, I must vote. If I, LK, and everyone else right through the Electoral College and the House of Representatives decline to vote for President, then on January 20, 2013, Speaker of the House John Boehner probably assumes the Presidency. John Boehner is worse for America than Barack Obama or Mitt Romney (what's he going to do when the Chinese invade, cry at them?), as is allowing anyone to become President by default rather than the active will of the people.

Perhaps I offer the President rhetorical support. This point may not affect the Independent LK, but as a good Democrat, I know that if I bail on the President, I hand our right-wingnut neighbors ammunition to support their lies: Even Democrats don't support the Marxist Muslim usurper! (Don't forget: Romney may not be Christian, either.) By standing up in the middle of Romney-bound South Dakota, flying Obama colors on my bumper and declaring I will vote for him is a necessary and moral act of culture-jamming.

But the best argument I can make is that Barack Hussein Obama is still more one of us than Willard Mitt Romney. Barack grew up in conditions much more like those in which LK and I grew up than silver-spoon Mitt did. When Obama makes policy, there's more of a chance that Obama will understand how those policies will affect middle-class parents like us and folks getting by on less than our teacher salaries. Obama is more likely to sympathize with us Job Doers and dig the need to protect us from the excesses of powerful corporations who would hoard all the wealth and burn up and pollute all our resources without some governmental check on their power. President Obama is not putting his anti-plutocratic cred into perfect practice as he crafts pragmatic compromises to keep his job, but he at least won't embrace the plutocracy the way card-carrying plutocrat Mitt Romney genetically must.

LK and everyone else, I welcome your honest criticisms of President Obama and his policies. When the President engages in unnecessary foreign adventures, when he defends the Constitution-trampling Patriot Act, when he falls for the same pro-corporate malarkey with which Dennis Daugaard wants to wreck our schools, he deserves to catch heck from us. But Mitt Romney will commit everyone of those sins and worse. If we leave the field, especially the South Dakota field, we give Romney backers freer rein to distort reality and impose a regime where we natural allies of the President have even less leverage to fight for what is right.

Keep blogging, LK. Keep criticizing the President. But help me out: on November 6, check that Obama box. And tell your friends to do the same.

12 Comments

  1. Carter 2012.07.04

    Unfortunately, Cory, you're right on the money. I think if there's one thing that Republicans and Democrats can agree on this election cycle, it's that we both have to vote for someone who will more or less suck at being President. All we get to decide is which one is the "less".

    I do wish Santorum would have been the nominee, instead of ol' Oven Mitt. I would have voted for Santorum, if only because he would have been so horrible he might have sparked a revolution like in Egypt.

    If there's one thing to keep a little flame going at the end of this unnecessarily dark tunnel, it's that Obama's been leaning a bit more to the left this year than he has since he was elected. We can only hope that his second term will see him keep going that way and actually getting something done.

  2. Donald Pay 2012.07.04

    Elections ain't Christmas. At the end of election day you don't elect a savior.

    At best, this year or any year, you're going to get nominees who meet about half your criteria or issues, and will move the country in the direction you want it to move. If a politician met all my criteria, they would be unelectable.

    People are going to have to decide whether it is better to move the country incrementally forward or support someone will take the country backward, or worse.

    We are electing someone who is going to shape the future of our country for our children. You want Mitt Romney nominating 3-4 Supreme Court justices who sit for life?

    There isn't even a question in my mind, but I live in Wisconsin, where there could be a serious contest for our electoral votes. If I lived in South Dakota, it might be different, but I'd look to pair my vote, or lack thereof, with someone from a battleground state who feels similarly.

  3. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.07.04

    Supreme Court -- yup, that matters.

  4. Stan Gibilisco 2012.07.05

    "Barack Hussein Obama is still more one of us than Willard Mitt Romney."

    I agree.

    Not sure I'll vote for Obama, but I'm quite certain that I will not vote for Romney.

    And I definitely will vote.

    When I took the online quiz at ontheissues.org to see which politicians' views most nearly aligned with mine, Ralph Nader topped the list.

    He ain't running, is he? Or is he?

  5. Carter 2012.07.05

    He's not, Stan. Jill Stein's looking like she'll be the Green Party candidate, though, and she probably comes pretty close to Nader.

    As far as I know, though, the Green Party won't be appearing on the South Dakota ballot. I'm thinking your only choices will be Romney and Obama.

  6. Troy Jones 2012.07.05

    Don is right. Because no candidate is perfect to us, we often "lesser" them. I think it should not be so.

    We are not electing the President of Cory or Troy but of the United States which definition means they are "greater" than my outlook.

  7. LK 2012.07.05

    At the start, let me say I am not advocating eliminating political advertising or negative ads.

    With that caveat in mind, it strikes me odd that the nearly every political ad during the Republican primaries and nearly every ad during the upcoming general election season will be a negative ad designed to "lesser" the opposition. The one exception with be the candidate intro ads that will be so sweet that some diabetics will go into shock while view the commercials.

    Given the tone of the campaign to come, I doubt my little rhetorical flourish is beyond the pale; it's just a bit more direct.

    I don't necessarily disagree with Don. I acted on that principle until 2000 or maybe 2004. I began to believe that civil liberties were under serious assault after that. Obama's rhetoric convinced me that he would reverse policies and alter practices in 2008. His record doesn't, and Romney's rhetoric indicates that he will continue the Bush administration's policy of expanding the security state.

  8. Carter 2012.07.05

    I hate to break it to you guys, but if you're hoping for a president who won't expand the security state, you're going to be looking for a long time. We'd been moving slowly towards it for many years, off and on, but 9/11 pushed it over the edge. I'm willing to bet we won't see a drop in security levels for 20 or 30 years, and even then "returning rights to the people" probably won't give us back the rights we have even now.

    You just give it time. They'll switch from monitoring us all secretly to monitoring us all "secretly" in not too long.

    And as for "lesser" or "greater" outlooks, just because they appeal to a wider audience doesn't mean they're "greater". Presidential campaigns are almost exactly like big budget movies and video games. They're carefully crafted to be appealing to the most people possible even when that severely weakens the overall product.

    So, Donald's right to say a President who agrees with all your values isn't electable, but not because his ideas are somehow better, or wiser, or more suitable. It's more because they're watered down and spread out so that the fans of rom coms will vote for that guy, and so will action fans, and drama fans. Metaphorically, obviously.

  9. LK 2012.07.05

    Carter,

    I'll try to keep this brief. I certainly accept the fact that I'll never find a candidate who agrees me 100% of the time. I don't want to; that eventuality frightens me.

    I also accept that campaigns by their very nature try to go for a mass appeal. That effort may be one of the reasons that many assume that one knows when a politician is lying when one sees the politician's lips move.

    If, however, the point is that I should legitimate the loss of civil liberties by voting for candidates that I know will take them away, voting is reduced to selecting the politician who promises to deliver the bread and circuses I prefer. Giving in to those choices may be one reason the country is in the shape it's in.

  10. Bill Fleming 2012.07.05

    If I may interject here (and I'm sure you guys know this, but perhaps forgot) these general election national POTUS campaigns are decidedly NOT designed for "mass appeal." They are aimed at a very specific segment of the population that almost no one belongs to (aka: the undecided voter.) Even more specifically, they are targeting the undecided voters in very specifically targeted "battleground" states.

  11. LK 2012.07.05

    You mean that the voice-over guy with the scary tone isn't trying to get everyone to go to a movie adaptation of the latest Stephen King novel? I've always been disappointed that they didn't use him for the "Prometheus" trailers; his voice and that music would have been truly terrifying

    Point and reminder taken

  12. Troy Jones 2012.07.06

    LK,

    My biggest beef with Bush was his too often insensitivity to personal privacy issues. Obama is just as bad if not worse which surprised me.

    Regarding the ads, they both have decided to drive down turnout by discouraging the other guys soft support. Obama's outsourcing ad is basically doesn't even tangentially touch the truth. I think they are making a mistake.

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