Published Aug 28, 2008

So I grew up in a part of the country where national politics was everyday news. All the Senators and Cabinet members and whatnot were just down the B-W Parkway and their foibles were as likely to make the Maryland section of the paper as the National. And I absorbed it all — I had opinions on all the Secretaries, every Senator, the fitness of the overall Congressional delegation from each state, to say nothing of policy issues. But I didn’t watch Obama tonight. Sadly, I just don’t care.

As with most everything else bad in the world today, I blame the Republicans for my apathy. I don’t care about Obama’s nomination because, to be frank, I’d vote for a coprophagous goat for President, so long as said goat were a Democrat. I’d had brief bout of hope that the GOP could nominate someone I wasn’t totally against when McCain — who had come off as clearheaded and upright back in 2000 — got the nomination. But now he’s just parroting1 the Bush line on most every policy. Heck, he even supported that asinine gas tax holiday idea, and he supports offshore drilling.

Of course, none of that really matters since I couldn’t vote for a Republican anyway. I’m offended by their use of rhetoric over the past 8 years, and by their use of racism as long as I can remember. I grew up in a majority-black district that regularly elected a black Representative2 in which the GOP wasn’t shy to run a white guy on the “don’t vote for the black guy, he doesn’t know how to run things, vote for the white guy he knows how to run the plantation right” ticket. Later, the Republican party distributed fliers telling people that the Presidential election was on Wednesday, not Tuesday, and threatening arrest for even people with traffic tickets.

So voting Republican isn’t an option. But, then, does it matter? By hook or by crook, Florida went Republican in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Doesn’t surprise me that the racists, bankrupt of actual ideas, would steal an election.

Okay, maybe I could get excited about some barricades. But, seriously, everyone’s so polarized, do you know anyone who would switch the party of their vote this year? Me neither. So, since it’s already fixed out there, how do I get excited?

1 As anyone who’s met Junior could testify, parrots don’t just repeat, they use language with meaning. Nonetheless, this word means “blindly repeat.”

2 And a white, female City Council member