Dems on way to selecting sword they want to fall on...

Since just the beginning of this week, I’ve had four die-hard Republican friends confide in me that, for varying reasons, they’re supporting Barack Obama for President. And they weren’t even peevish about it or angry; to the last one, it was almost with a giggle of excitement. They were peevish and angry with their GOP choices, no question, but there was also a joy attached to their decision to support Obama. They’re not just voting against their guy, whoever it turns out to be (don’t count Romney and his deep-pockets out yet, my friends), they actually kinda like Obama. For a Democrat, there’s something about him that appeals to them. My only GOP friend who’s not supporting Obama (see post below) is going with Romney just because he thinks Obama’s honeymoon period wouldn’t last long enough to justify his crossing party lines. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, and he’s the loyalist.

The only other thing they all agree on is that if Hillary is the Dem candidate, they will instead hold their noses and go down to the polls and vote their own party ticket, whoever it is, no matter how odious they find the candidate.

That’s pretty simple math. Most of the Democrats plus some of the Republicans plus some of the Independents is gonna add up to enough votes to beat any other combination out there come election day. If Hillary is not is the Democratic candidate.

If...

As usual, the only thing standing in the way of a landslide Democratic victory in November is – that’s right! – the Democrats!! Once again, proudly poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even the left-leaning, occasionally bellwether state I live in gave Hillary the nod on ‘super Tuesday’ yesterday.

I’m so ashamed of my state I just popped my political-finance cherry and donated money to the Obama campaign. My friend “Dowdy” has a page with a thermometer on it and everything. After I donated, I hit “refresh” on Dowdy’s page and felt a happy tingle watching the mercury inch microscopically up from my donation. You should check it out. It’s even got a scary picture of Dowdy on the page (he has since removed the offending photo, see inset). He looks like a super-villain in his secret civilian disguise, preparing to welcome Wal-Mart shoppers all day but still thinking about ways to conquer the world after work. That photo alone is worth a $25 donation, at least I thought so.

Besides hyperventilating blog posts and throwing shekels into the ocean, what can we do to stop Hillary? Couldn’t Bill please oh please get caught with his dick somewhere it shouldn’t be? Some 527 out there has to mount an ad campaign reminding people of the double-edged sword of the gay ’90s – that the country prospered, but the political situation was poisonous and brutal and lasted from day one till the Mark Rich pardon on their way out the door. I’ll give the GOP this: they run a merry old ship. The country has gone to hell, but the party line has held on almost everything and the Dems have helped by caving on everything as it came along. It’s created unholy chaos in the real world, but its done so relatively civilly.

It should be much easier to get rid of Hillary than all the Reeps who hate her. If she was just to step aside – for the good of the fucking country – Obama would roll into office with an honest-to-god sweeping mandate. If anybody else wins, it’ll be another bitterly partisan squeaker followed by at least another four more years of Ugh.

I get more pissed at Hillary every day she doesn’t throw in the towel. If she sticks with it to the bitter end, win or lose, she’s going to drag us further into ruin. It’s like when the war with Iraq when it was brewing up. How come I could see it was definitely going to happen but she (allegedly) couldn’t? I’m growing to hate her as much as my Reep friends hate their choices.

I recommend we all write angry blog posts with links to Dowdy’s fundraising page, and follow that up by throwing a little bit of our own cash Obama’s way. Our democracy runs on petroleum-based products and greenbacks!

You know, when I first moved to this state, back in the ’80s, I was delivering pizza for a living. There was this super-hot girl who worked there (Roxanne, even her name was sexy) and she had a “FREE MANDELA” bumper sticker on her car. Now, I’d just moved in from the sticks, so I didn’t know who this Mandela was or what he’d done wrong to find himself behind bars. I made a joke about picking me up some free Mandela if she told me where to go to get it. Oh, she told me where to go... Then she told me about Mandela and apartheid and the whole thing, and I remember thinking, “Poor confused girl who’s never going to have sex with me, you’re kidding yourself. In this world, once a fascist regime gets its hands on power, all the happy thoughts and bumper stickers in the world aren’t gonna get its political enemies out of the pokey.”

And then I turned out to be wrong about that. Shook my ass up to think that sometimes, sometimes things do turn out right. I’m still a cynic, but to this day, I’m no longer completely without hope.

And I figure if I can afford to give a shit, I can afford to give $25, too. At least until Bill gets caught with his zipper down again! Let’s just hope it happens before Hillary has the nomination locked...