Pizza Diavola

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. If your state primary is tomorrow and you’re registered to vote, go vote! If your state primary is tomorrow and you’re not registered to vote, google ‘provisional voting [state]‘ to see what your state’s rules are on provisional voting and on-site registration at the polls. If you aren’t registered and can’t vote tomorrow, register now so that you can vote in the general election come November!

I’ll be voting for Clinton, because I think she’s smarter, more competent, more experienced, more liberal, and tougher than Obama. I think she knows her policies better, I think she’d be better at the actual work of governing, that she’d be better at managing the various factions vying for attention and power, and I think she’s run a very good campaign in the face of undisguised, unbelievable misogyny. I think she’s better prepared to deal with a general election than Obama is–she’s a better debater and the Republicans have nothing new to throw at her. I am also a fan of the fact that she had the most diverse campaign staff of all the Democratic candidates and that she doesn’t hang out with ex-gay bigots.

Other than that, I got nothing for you, except this: both the Democrats are better than any of the Republicans. So no matter what happens tomorrow, I’m volunteering for whoever wins the Democratic primaries and I hope that both Clinton and Obama heed Bob Herbert’s advice and work together in the post-primary season.

On a side note, I am so sick of this generational shit and this unity/end of partisanship shit. As for the former, I’m a recent college grad and I’m not enamored of Obama and his vague promises of change and unity, whatever the hell they mean, and I’m not charmed by his poor oratorical skills (full disclosure: I haven’t been impressed by an orator since Cicero died). I do, in fact, pore over the details between the Clinton and Obama health care proposals; “the bitterness, divisiveness and ineffectiveness” do not make politics “seem so unsavory,” it’s the Democrats’ repeated and cowardly capitulation to the Republicans that make politics unsavory to me; and although I am “just fed up with the status quo,” I want something more than vague, unspecific promises of “change” and I’m skeptical of a “rockstar who embodies [that] desire [for change].” Would you all please stop with the “college students love Obama” crap? Not all college students do, and we’re not all idiots who want nothing more than “change” and don’t care about policy differences and platforms, whether we support Obama, Clinton, Edwards, or none of the above.*

As for Obama’s unity/end of partisanship shtick, I have a real problem with that, which Melissa McEwan articulates at Shakesville: “I Have Questions For Barack Obama.” In November 2006, the Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress. It was going to be a period of change, it was going to be the beginning of the end of the social conservatism, fiscal irresponsibility, mindless militarism, corporate pandering, and everything else that Bush & Co. have been doing to destroy the country.

Instead, the Democratic Congress has repeatedly failed to get its act together and advance a liberal agenda (pro-choice, pro-environmental, anti-Bush tax cuts, pro-civil rights, pro-social welfare programs, anti-war) and instead it’s consistently capitulated to the Republicans. And yet, that is unity. That is bipartisanship. To me, in today’s world, bipartisanship and unity don’t mean working together, they mean the Democrats capitulating and giving the Republicans whatever they want. I want partisanship: I want the Democrats to stand up for liberal causes, challenge the Bush administration and the Republicans, and do the job I elected them to do, which is to represent my pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-civil rights, anti-war, anti-lobbyist, liberal self. The Democrats and the Republicans have fundamentally different opinions on policies, and for some issues (environmental protection v. allowing companies to pollute; pro-choice legislation v. abstinence-only education and overturning Roe v. Wade; withdrawing from Iraq v. staying the course for the next “100 years;” restoring habeas corpus v. indefinitely detaining individuals and denying them due process; S-CHIP v. “you can always go to the emergency room;” etc.), never the twain shall meet. I am perfectly happy with the twain never meeting, if that means that the Democrats do their damned jobs. Standing up for your ideals means you have to be partisan on some issues and I see nothing wrong with that. They’re called “ideals” for a reason.

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*I don’t mean that people who support Obama are idiots. What I do mean is that a lot of the press about young voters supporting Obama, such as the Bob Herbert op-ed, portray those young voters as idiots who vote based on charisma and rockstar appeal because they can’t be arsed to make thoughtful decisions about their votes. I’m tired of this demographic stereotyping and I’m disappointed that Bob Herbert succumbed to such lazy journalism.