“I don’t like President Clinton or her husband.” ~ me, 1992
to 2001.
Right about now most of my friends are scratching their
heads - but you worked for a Democrat, right? Yes I did but we’re not there
yet. Someone would have to know me for a long time to know the rollercoaster my
political leanings have endured.
The first presidential election I ever participated in was
via absentee ballot in 1992 from Sembach Air Base Germany. My independent
streak was visible immediately – I voted Perot. I couldn’t vote for Clinton –
what self-respecting member of the military was going to vote for a Democrat
who wanted to slash military spending and I couldn’t vote to re-elect Bush
after he broke his promise – does anyone remember it? “Read my lips. No new
taxes.”
I personally blamed Clinton for the battle of Mogadishu and
the bodies of American servicemen being dragged through the Somali streets.
Requests for armor had been denied at the highest level because this was a
peacekeeping and humanitarian mission.
A new breed of Republicans came to us on the heels of those
images. A group of Republicans lead by Newt Gingrich that brought us the
Contract With America in 1994; a group that appealed to the middle of the road,
independent voters who wanted congressional accountability. We wanted fiscally
responsible and smaller government. We wanted term limited congressmen rather
than life long politicians. A return of the traditional “of the people, by the
people, for the people” governing.
I was part of that wave that swept the country. They
promised us constitutional amendments to term limit members of the House and
Senate. They steered clear of the social issues and I supported them
whole-heartedly.
I voted straight ticket Republican for the next decade –
except for that one time in 1998 when Jesse Ventura came along but that’s
another story.
Things changed for me after the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. I reacted like any dyed in the wool GOP supporter would. I
became xenophobic and wanted to punish any Muslim on the face of the earth. I
clearly remember wanting to end it all by using nuclear weapons and turn the
whole region into a glass parking lot.
I said on more than one occasion that we could name that new state “New
Texaco” and we could drill through the glass and get our oil cheaper.
We invaded Afghanistan and went after the people responsible
for those attacks. I waved the red, white and blue as hard as any American. My
brothers were both serving and as a veteran myself I knew that not only my
family, but the families of thousands of Americans would pay a price but that
we would show the world that the United States was not to be trifled with.
Then in 2003, our leaders decided to invade Iraq. My
brothers were ordered into another country in the Middle East to wage war on
behalf of the United States. This time I had questions.
I took my fear and distrust of Muslims and did research. I
read the Quran. I learned about Islam. I learned there were different types of
Islam, much like Christianity. I learned that Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim
and Osama Bin Laden was a Shiite Muslim. I learned that they were sworn enemies
and would likely have killed each other rather than worked together.
The hunt for weapons of mass destruction was a farce played
upon the American people. Our troops were sacrificed for reasons that still
aren’t clear to me.
The fiscally conservative side of me was confused. President
George W. Bush cut taxes during a war, the first president not to raise taxes
to pay for the war he decided to wage. The Republican Party kept shilling about
tax and spend liberals while running up a budget deficit. We were spending
billions of dollars and growing government without paying for it.
This wasn’t MY Republican Party!
This Party was lost – wandering with no direction and no
leadership. Rather than sticking to the principals of Ronald Reagan or the 1994
Contract With America this new Republican Party was taken over by religious
zealots. The new litmus test for whether or not you were a good Republican was
where you stood on social issues and whether or not you were Christian enough.
We started to use terms like RINO to describe people and pushed moderate
Republicans out. Moderates like General Colin Powell were pushed out of the
Bush administration.
As a moderate myself I no longer felt like the Republican
Party wanted me. I was left without a party. I became an independent voting for
the candidates rather than a party.
I voted for my first Democrat in 2004.
In the fall of 2005 I met a Democrat who changed the way I
viewed the party. This guy was a military veteran who believed in social and
fiscal responsibility. He knew I was a Republican but welcomed me anyway. I
felt like this man truly represented me and my interests, so I did something I had
never done before. I joined a campaign, for a democrat, against a Republican
that I had helped elect in 1994 under the Contract With America.
In the 2006 mid term elections I helped defeat the
Republican Party that I had believed myself to be a part of for my entire adult
life.
You would think that the Republicans would have figured out
what went wrong but they didn’t. They turned even harder to the right and
brought out the Tea Party conservatives. They brought forth candidates who were
generally unelectable. They appealed to the far right base but not to the
general electorate. Any junior political scientist will tell you that unless
you can appeal to the middle you will never win a general election.
Still the GOP went deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole.
Now fast forward to the 2016 Presidential election. Both
parties nominated candidates that fail to appeal to the middle. For the first
time in my life a presidential campaign isn’t about which person is the best
candidate to lead the United States. This campaign is about which candidate is
the lesser of two evils. A campaign of sound bites between two individuals who
are so nasty and vapid that I am uninspired.
We have third party candidates but both major parties
insured that Gary Johnson was excluded from the debates – a lesson learned from
the last time a third party candidate actually appealed to the general
electorate – 1992.
If not for my fear of an incompetent person being elected, I
would vote for Governor Johnson. The problem I have is if that vote allows
Donald Trump to be elected we will open a Pandora’s Box. We will run the risk
of this country being managed like any of Trump’s businesses. We will default
on loans and he will not care. Women’s rights will be set back 50 years under a
Trump presidency. If he were to be elected we may as well tear down the Statue
of Liberty and send her back to France, since she too, is an immigrant. The
words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free…” will never ring more hollow.
This is why I will be voting for Hillary Clinton. It is not
because I like her. Quite frankly I do not support much of what she says. I
will cast my vote for Mrs. Clinton because I want to be proud of this country
and our imperfect democracy. I believe she will give my daughter a better world
to live in – something Mr. Trump definitely will not do.
Republicans – take heart. If you return this party to the
respectable party of old, where social issues take a back seat to fiscal
responsibility and religion is again separated from politics, I will entertain
voting for your candidate in 2020. If you continue on your current path, I will
vote to re-elect President Clinton – and her husband.
