Reply #79: You have stated exactly why I voted for Obama

[Lydia Leftcoast]

It was the old "lesser of two evils" bit.

I was never fooled by his populist shtick, because I listened to his speeches with my editorial ears and realized that he wasn't saying anything. I realized that the whole "Do you want to have the first black president or the first woman president" argument was just a bunch of much ado about nothing, generated by the media (which is why the primary flame wars were so stupid) and that whichever won, it would still be business as usual.

As I've said many times, I deeply regret not emigrating when I was younger and could still be easily admitted to other countries. (I had actual job offers! :banghead:) This country is deteriorating in so many ways, and if I felt that my government (or even just the mainstream Democrats) really cared about people outside the Beltway/Wall Street cocktail party circuit, I could be more sanguine, but I see no evidence of it. Even the alleged health care "reform" is nothing more than corporate welfare for the insurance companies, with single-payer taken "off the table" (along with every other real change in any aspect of life) before serious discussions even started.

I feel like embarking on what people in the former East Germany called "die innere Migration," withdrawing from public concerns and finding satisfaction and ways to be helpful only on a personal level. I sort of did that already in 2004. I neither contributed to nor went door to door for the Obama campaign. I felt like a chump for doing that for Kerry only to have him concede so easily, and I sure wasn't going to knock myself out for someone I viewed as a phony. Probably a nice guy, but pretending to be something he's not.

The system is corrupt, and any candidate who really, sincerely tries to change things will be either assassinated or ridiculed and marginalized (by their own party) until we can get the money out of politics. I believe that at the highest levels, they're all in it together, and that such disturbingly bad and inept campaigns as those of Mondale and Dukakis, and Kerry's lackluster campaign, were set up to fail.

The "hatred" of the Republicans for Clinton and Obama is real at the grassroots level, where it has been carefully fomented, but at the top levels, they're all buddies. Look how easily both Clinton and Obama have acquiesced to Republican pressure. Look how Hillary Clinton is known for "getting along so well" with the very people who smeared her and her husband for 8 years solid. It was all a game for the people at the top.