Thoughts from my mom about party and principles, [View All]

[LWolf]

and the journey of a voting lifetime:

My mom is a great-grandma, and she is an incredible woman. She has led an incredible life, overcoming more obstacles to survival and personal growth than any other single human being I've ever met. I admire and respect her, as well as love her. She's my mom.

For her young adult life, she was a Democratic-leaning liberal independent. She adored JFK, RFK, and MLK. I was too young to remember JFK's assassination, but I remember how hard she took the other 2. Still, she was an independent, often voting for the Democrat, but not trusting party politics to eschew corruption.

During the 80s, as we lived through Reagan and saw Bush I inaugurated, she registered as a Democrat. She was uneasy with the direction she saw the country going, and decided to vote a straight Democratic ticket to defeat Republicans whenever possible. They were the strongest opposition to Republicans that she could find.

When Bill Clinton entered the primaries, she fell in love. She is the hardest-core Clinton fan I've ever met. I never liked him, personally. We just agreed to disagree. I understood why she thought he was so great, even if I couldn't agree. He was obviously better than a republican, after all.

In '04, she didn't feel a strong connection to any of the candidates. I introduced her to DK, whom she, of course, had never heard of. She liked what she heard, but since he obviously wasn't going to win, put her focus elsewhere. She was not enthused at all by Kerry, but voted for him anyway, as I did.

A couple of months ago, she brought up the current primary season and asked me what I thought. So I told her. I knew what I thought would disappoint her. She was prepared to love both Clinton and Obama; Clinton because she's a woman and a Clinton both, Obama because he's black. She'd love to see a woman, or a person of color, in the WH during her lifetime. So I told her. I told her why I wouldn't be supporting either. She was quiet for a few minutes, and then spoke hopefully about Edwards, and asked what DK was up to. So I've sent her updates on a regular basis.

This morning she asked me, flatly, who I was going to vote for in our primary. I said, surprised, "Kucinich, of course. Is there really any competition?" She said, angrily, that she didn't expect him, or many of them, to even be on the ballot when the primary finally limps into Oregon in late May. I said I was pretty sure he'd still be there, referencing his persistence in '04, and that I'd write him in if he wasn't. She agreed with that idea.

Then she asked, "But what about the general election? I've been voting a straight Democratic Party ticket for almost 30 years now. I don't want to vote for ANY of those likely to win the nomination. I became a Democrat, and have been a loyal Democratic voter, for all these years because I expected them to oppose the conservative agenda. Look what they've done since 2000. Look what they've done since last November. My vote's the only thing I've got left, and if they can't do better than Clinton or Obama, or Edwards, for that matter, then I'm done. I'll go back to being an Independent."

Thirty years of party loyalty about to be lost. Does the party care? I'll predict that this thread will be filled with posts from people who are eager to rationalize support for failed principles, are happy to tell my mom "Don't let the door hitya," whether they themselves have given 30 years of loyalty to the party or not, to call her "fringe," to foam at the mouth about Nader, even though she's never voted for him or paid him any attention, and to launch all manner of attacks.

Does the party care? Care enough to do something to prevent the loss of long-term loyal party members? What can be done?

I'm not going to tell her to shut up, get in line, and vote against her heart, soul, and intellect because the party tells her to. Sorry. It's the party that needs to do something to win those lost votes, not the voters who need to set aside who they are and what they stand for.