Is he comin round the bend??
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Nader considering another White House run « - Blogs from CNN.com\
The green party has a candidate, Bloomberg is still denying, Ron Paul says no, but I still think he's waiting to make a splash at the convention with his delegates and then announce.
Oh, having Paul, Bloomberg, Green Party, Nader in the mix against the Obama - McCain will make me sooo happy.
I love being able to vote for someone I'd like to see as president, even if they don't have a chance!!
I have to tell you, for the first time since Kennedy/Nixon, I feel we would be faced with a genuinely meaningful choice if the two on the ballot were Obama/McCain. I almost never feel this way, and I've been following politics avidly, with heart and soul, and voting faithfully, since 1972, usually with a pang of regret at the choices but deeming it extremely important that I still be involved.
I'm at a point where I could probably give you the most wearying details of multiple-candidates lore stretching back nearly forty years. I'm not proud of that; it's just that I've tended to throw myself with more intensity than I sometimes liked into watching every conceivable campaign. Consequently, the (involuntary) campaign addiction I've had over the years has effectively seared into my brain every excruciating curve of every single campaign season of the recent past. OUCH!
At every political cycle, I swear that this time I'm not going to throw my heart into it, and yet every cycle I get pulled into it emotionally, winding up with a broken heart and dashed hopes, and ultimately in a state of disgust at the final two choices, while voting for one of them (holding my nose) anyway. Consequently, you can bet that in past years I'd always have been delighted at the thought of a strong third-party choice. But this time I truly believe that if the choice is Obama/McCain, that would be downright educational for the country, let alone meaningful as a real choice!
Both of them are independent thoughtful participants on the political stage; they've honed their ideas through intense personal reflection rather than simply becoming wind-up dolls for whatever special interests have dumped enough dimes into their "box".
And the most inspiring detail of the campaign so far would probably be the amazing coincidence on primary night in Wisconsin, when both of them just happened to say individually [paraphrase] "No, I'm hardly flawless, but I'm ready to call those around us to a higher calling with as much personal dedication as I can possibly muster; nothing is more important than that. I may sometimes stumble, but I'm ready to acknowledge any faults like a man and move on."
Do you realize how refreshing that is to one like me who has been frankly a bit put off by the tendency of President Bush to imply (if not say so in so many words) that he never makes a mistake?
Finally, the philosophical perspectives of these two is very distinctive and apart, one from the other, and neither one tries to pretend "me-too"ism when confronted by strong personal claims on behalf of the opponent. This will be a clear honest choice in which both candidates will stress their differences openly and thoughtfully and respectfully. So a third-party choice this time would actually compromise the gloriously educational aspects of the contest hopefully coming from the two main parties this year! (Of course, if Obama is ultimately derailed by Clinton in Ohio, Texas and/or Pennsylvania, that would leave me with a broken heart once more, and I'd probably welcome a third-party choice again.)
I too would love being able to vote for someone I'd
like to see as president, not merely tolerate. And after countless battle scars across forty years, intense scrutiny of the issue positions and the intelligence of presentation has left me assured that Obama is the finest choice we've had since I first voted so many years ago.
Sincerely,
Operacast
