My Voting Strategy: A Better Tomorrow

Most of mother’s family comes from Missouri.  They call it the show-me state.  It’s considered one of those bellweather states in elections because they tend to go with Presidential winners.  I think I know why.  Like a good Missouri denizen, I never take anything on blind faith.  When I say, I have faith in something, it’s because I’ve tested and tested and tested it so that I have faith the thing will happen again.  To me, faith is confidence. I think that is the legacy my mother taught me.  This is also why I became a Buddhist.  The Buddha’s teachings about faith are all about that kind of faith.  Sogyal Rinpoche is a teacher in my tradition and explains this type of faith far better than me.

How do we arouse this faith? The only way is to begin by using our ordinary intelligence. Through the wisdom of studying, reflecting deeply, and meditating on the teachings, we examine them, just as, in the famous example, Buddha says we must examine gold:

O bhiksus and wise men,

Just as a goldsmith would test his gold

By burning, cutting, and rubbing it,

So you must examine my words and accept them,

But not merely out of reverence for me.

 So in the Buddhadharma, faith is not blind faith, but one proven through reasoning and investigation.

 I like to test things and examine things so that I can always be completely confident in them which is probably why most of my life I’ve had jobs doing research. This is also how I approach my voting strategy.  Even when I had a certain amount of doubt in John Kerry, I still voted for him because I had faith–given our experience with President George W. Bush–that Senator Kerry could do no worse.  I didn’t think he would be Harry Truman, but I knew he wouldn’t be George W. Bush.  Afterall, we know a lot about Senator Kerry from his war record and his senate record. 

This year, I have I had to put away habits of years and a lot of assumptions I’ve lived with for a long time.  I always saw the choice issue as that one issue where I would draw my line in the sand.  That one issue that told me the mettle of a candidate and if he truely wanted to leave me to my constitutional rights or inject his religion and worldviews into my life.  I was, at one point, a Republican because I came from a Republican family.  But, I voted Democrat more than Republican election-after-election.  This is because I studied the modern Democratic Party and Republican Party. I voted Democratic because I believed they were the party that stood for fair play.   I knew this because of the legacies of FDR, JFK, Truman, and Clinton.

I am a democrat because I’m basically a Crusader Rabbit.  I’m all for the little guy.  That is probably why I love Harry Truman.  He was a President that fought all of his life for the little guy as a little guy. The powerful used to put him down even as President by calling him  “that Habadasher”.  Harry the Habadasher was the one that had to make the decision to end a long World War with the use of a weapon of unimaginable destructive power.  Who would have know this farmer’s son would rise to a place where he had to make such a decision?  Do you think any one could’ve have imagined that he would one day make that decision?  When we vote for a president, do we ever know what kind of decision they will have to make?

I know that the only way to pass on all that I love about this country is to pass on a fighting spirit that sees a wrong and rights it.  I like to think that I am quite cosmopolitan, but I believe I have that most enduring of American traits–a fighting spirit.  I also would like to think that is why I can tell when rhetoric is authentic and when it is feigned.  You see, I was a skinny little girl in Iowa that got a black eye taking on a bully named “Bubba” who picked on the little kids when no one else would.  I know that Senator John McCain has seven houses but I do not think that has jaded his fighting spirit.

I want some one that will fight for a better tomorrow for my children and your children.  I know that some times folks can say some pretty fancy things in a fairly genuine way so that is when you have to use the method that Buddha suggests.  You must look at the metal of the person and see how it has been tested.  You must see how that metal stood up to extraordinary circumstances,  fortuitous circumstances, and negative circumstances.  John McCain has been human and made mistakes.  I also disagree with him on many things.  But I do not question his life, his experience, his heart, his values and how those things have shaped his heart and his actions.  Who knows what kind of decisions might face this next President?

John McCain fought the big tobacco companies.  He did not vote for the Bush/Cheney Energy bill and stood up to the pork that would enrich the big energy companies.  He stood up to Donald Rumsfeld and questioned him on the conduct of the Iraq War.  As a victim of torture himself,  McCain stood up to his own party and said that we should never torture others.  He said that the Bush tax cuts were wrong and expedient.  I don’t think that he will always do the things that I would like, but I do believe that he will try the best way he knows how to create a better tomorrow. 

Can you imagine your spouse showing up with an infant from India with heart problems and announcing you have a new daughter?  Can you imagine what it must take to let others go ahead of you to freedom when you have been tortured but you know that it is special treatment because of your father’s position and you refuse it?  We can see how John McCain made these decisions.  We also know that he made some bad ones–his involvement with the Keating 5 and the end of his first marriage.  He’s not really hidden any of it from us.  We have watched him learn and carry on.  Even after that horrible Bush/Rove primary fight, he persevered and continued as one of those senators who could work with all sides.

When all the democratic candidates stood up in the debates earlier this year, I was prepared to give each and every one of them a chance.  After about two of these debates, I chose Hillary.  I knew that not only did she have the experience and the knowledge of the issues, but I knew because of the work that she did in the past that she was working for a better future for all of us.  I could look back on the years of work she did, her education, her training, and her actions, and know, with confidence and nearly irreversable faith that she would continue that work.  Her life has been very public.  We know she has made some very tough decisions. We have also seen her learn and persevere and I’m sure she will continue to be an effective senator.

With both Hillary and with John, I see a life time of actions.  I see a life time of decisions.  I see a life time of experience and knowledge.  I can check their records.  I can find people who will talk about growing up with them, serving with them, and loving them. I know that when the tough decisions have to made, that neither of them would be sitting with a blank stare holding a copy of “My Pet Goat”.  I have that confident faith in them. The faith that comes with testing the metal.

So I have examined the words, the actions, and the experience of Senator Barack Obama.  While the speeches are well written and very well delivered, I see nothing in him to give me faith that he can bring a better tomorrow.  I look back to his first campaigns and see that he ran unopposed because he had his opponents–including an important mentor–disqualified on technicalites.  I look back to his senatorial campaign, only two years ago, and find that his opponent’s sealed divorce records mysteriously opened.  Divorce records sealed to protect small children.  I see some one whose home was bought with the help of a felon.  I see some one who cannot produce his own legislative records but whose voting record is made up of few decisions and accomplishments not his own, but handed to him by some one else.  I see speeches with borrowed words on teleprompters.  I see off teleprompter moments with mistakes made that would flunk a freshman.  I see bristly, offended looks when asked tough questions.  I see reporters tossed off planes when newspapers endorse other candidates.  I see long term associations with folks that I would chase off if they came near my children.  I’ve seen misogyny and race-baiting.  I’ve seen money go to organizations breaking laws and perpetuating fraud.  When I look for the simplest public records, I find nothing.  I see only carefully crafted stories. 

I have also seen the Democratic party turn against its past values.  I saw the RBC throw out one-man, one vote.  I saw the DNC punish some states that moved election dates early and leave others alone.  I saw the DNC allow misogyny and race-baiting run unchecked.  I saw the DNC push a candidate with no experience and no record ahead of a field of much more qualified candidates.  I saw cheating in caucuses go unpunished.  I saw impeachment come off the table.  I saw my party enable the passage of domestic spying. I saw a candidate and a party so avarous of power and desire to rule that it turned its back on everything that had made me a democrat.

Another lesson taught by the Buddha and by the Christ of Christians 500 years later is that nothing good ever starts with a bad seed.   A better tomorrow does not begin with injustice done to others.

I have to say that I have faith that John McCain can handle the presidency.  My voting strategy is to do what I always do.   I support McCain because he is the person in this race that is best suited to be president.  My strategy is that I have traded votes with SM77.  She wants to vote cast her vote for a third party candidate but is in Florida, where her vote REALLY counts.  I will vote for Cynthia Mckinney so that she will be able to do that through me.  She will vote for John McCain for me and for all things PUMA and for a better tomorrow. So yes, I’m not voting based on my priority issues. I’m asking SM77 to vote for the person I have faith in to do the job between the choices that I have left.

John McCain in 2008.  Hillary Clinton in 2012. (Hillary in 2012 will definitely bring a better tomorrow)

Update:  SM77 has come to support McCain without reservations and his released me from our pact.  She feels strongly that McCain will be a better candidate for the millions of immigrants that look to our country than will Obama.  As of this moment, I will be voting for McCain with no reservations.