Cooler Heads!

Let me begin by saying that Joe Biden is a man I admire, both for the way he lives his life and the way he has served his nation over the many decades. Politics in America has become an increasingly dirty and downright dangerous affair, and I have no scales on my eyes about what might have had to be done under his leadership. He is not a perfect man by any means, nor is he a perfect President, but his fundamental goodness is evident, if only one is willing to see it. He is not an angel. But the other side offers us a demon. 

Now Joe has withdrawn and has thrown his support to Vice President Kamala Harris. If this choice had to be made then, this is the only really acceptable way in my mind.  I have endorsed her candidacy officially. My fury at the Democratic Party for abandoning the President has cooled, though the facts of the betrayal seem all too evident. Politics is hardball and Joe has been a player long enough to understand the game. In my loyalty to Joe, I pledged to leave the Party if they shoved him aside. They did. I'm not. Here's why. 

To leave the Party now is to send the message that a black woman is an unacceptable candidate to me. That is hardly the case. I applaud that choice and will vote for her and her running mate at the earliest opportunity. When I cast that vote, I will wish I had one last chance to vote for Joe Biden, but I'll take solace in that I'm voting for his choice for President. I'm staying a Democrat, because that's what I think Joe Biden would want me to do. I won't abandon Joe. 

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Passing The Torch!

It seems I might have a new date for the prom this year. President Joe Biden has bowed to the pressure from his own party and stepped down as a candidate for re-election. He has passed his torch to his VP Kamala Harris. Let there be no doubt, I will vote for Kamala Harris. 

But will my former party? 

The Democrats now have an open convention coming up. With Biden standing down, there is no one who can formally claim the title until the convention decides to confer it. Technically neither could Biden, but he was the presumptive nominee with more than enough committed delegates to lock the nomination. Kamala's campaign claims to have more than enough. She has abundant and enthusiastic endorsements. But as I understand it anyone who can gather three hundred delegates can lay claim to the nomination. They won't win it in all likelihood, but they can run.

If perchance Kamala's poll numbers dip lower than Joe's will the party once again call for the candidate to step down? Doubtful in the extreme, but there will be voices who will still ring out. Having sacked the only politician who has defeated the other side, the Dems are left with choosing to support the first black woman for President. They must, to almost quote Lady Macbeth, "screw their courage to the sticking place". 

I'm all for it. 

But the United States is still a nation racked by racism, and the juice which gives life to the terror on the other side has a Democratic face as well. Will that face, that outdated and feckless face show itself now that there is an opportunity. In passing the torch in this unprecedented way, have the Dems allowed the same fire that consumed the Republican Party to perhaps spread to their side. 

And then there's the simple fact she's a woman. The United States is one of the few Western states not to have been led by a woman at some time. It a shameful fact we need to put behind us. Women in the U.S. have already had some rights sheared away by the noxious Supreme Court. Could Kamala be their retribution? 

Is Kamala Harris the powerful black woman who can claim the candidacy and control the convention and move forward with the gusto needed to win the day against the Fascist forces arrayed on the other side? 

I sincerely hope so. 

Maybe sooner than later I will sincerely believe so. 

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My Pledge To The Democratic Party!

If efforts to push Joe Biden off this year's Democratic ticket for President succeed, I will vote Blue to help save my nation, but the day after I vote I will change my registration to Independent. The leaders of the Democratic Party will have demonstrated that they have as little regard for the vote of the citizens as do the Republicans, so I see no need, even after decades of loyal support to continue to identify myself with them. 

The latest round of back-channel discussions among leaders of the Party to oust Joe come on the heels of the end of the Republican Convention and are clearly keyed to setting up a Democratic Convention in which some way and somehow the candidate with 14, 465, 519 votes to be the nominee, or 87% of the total is replaced. That's an overwhelming number. He should under normal circumstances clinch it on the first round. He and Harris have accumulated 3, 894 delegates with only 42 remaining from the total number of 3, 949. 1968 delegates are required to become the nominee. Joe Biden has more than enough. 

Now I'm well aware that a Party can choose another nominee despite the one chosen by the voters. They have that right. But if they choose to exercise that right this year, it will come with a great price. I can see droves of disaffected voters like me, leaving the Democratic Party in disgust. To turn against the will of the thousands of loyal Democratic voters who have expressed a preference, in order to cater to the will of rich benefactors fearful of actual changes in policy that might cost them a few extra dollars, will wound the Party in way they can't imagine. I'm at a loss to imagine what alternate ticket might be proposed. I cannot imagine any that will have the name recognition of the sitting President. 

The last time the Democratic Party did this the President was Lyndon Johnson who was wounded by the Vietnam War. What enemy has Joe Biden succumbed to? Old age? To remove him from the ticket is a catastrophic move which could well lose the election, one which is easily winnable due to the lunacy on the other side. To do this is to openly admit for all practical purposes that the United States is a plutocracy, and that both our parties have been purchased by the ultra-wealthy who want to see things done to maximize profits. 

I have been a Democrat my entire voting life, but after fifty years of support the Dems will only be able to count on my support in the general elections from now on, if then, should they make this move. 

Update: I pledged to leave the Democratic Party if the Party rejected the nomination of Joe Biden, the sitting President, a leader and man I admire greatly. Let me amend that pledge, because something just occurred to me. Kamala Harris is the new presumptive nominee. I do not want it to look like I'm leaving the party because they nominated a black woman. I celebrate that choice, if the choice must be made. There is more than enough racism and the appearance of appearance racism in this country without me adding to it. 

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Better Angels!

I will continue to speak out strongly for our democracy and stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law. I will continue to call for action at the ballot box, and not violence in the streets. 

That's how democracy should work. We debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the record, the issues. the agendas, and the visions for America.

We cannot lose sight of who we are. 

In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box. NOT with bullets. 

We cannot -- we must not -- go down this road in America. We have traveled it before throughout our history. Violence has never been the answer. 

-- Joe Biden 

This is part of a message I found in my mailbox this morning.

This is why I want to vote for this good and decent man. It's why I've voted for him in the past time and again. He's better than me.  He's a leader for us all. 

GO JOE! 

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Go Joe! Go Joe!

I have spent more than a few minutes the past two weeks, ever since Joe Biden's less than impressive debate performance fuming. Not because Joe performed poorly. That often happens to incumbents in a first debate, so often that scheduling the debate this early was a strategy to get that one out of the way. At least that's what I suspect. The debate would be mostly forgotten now save members of my own party keep bringing it up. No, I'm fuming because some members of the leadership of the Democratic Party and some allies have been spending the days since the debate calling for Joe to drop out. No calls for the larcenous, lying, sociopathic, sex pervert and felon in the cremains of the Republican Party to drop out! No, the Dems are saving their ammunition for their own guy! The devout long-time legislator, loyal Vice-President, devoted husband and loving father, and successful first-term President is the one they've targeted. And it's all because he's had the great fortune to have lived four score and more. Outrageous! 

Joe has said repeatedly and forcefully he will not drop out. He's the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party which just completed an extensive series of primary elections to determine that very fact. He has won all those primaries and assembled more than enough delegates to win the nomination. I voted for Joe myself. I got out of my house, drove to the polls and voted for Joe in a state in which the primary is the only election he will win in my lifetime. My state is ruby red and my vote this fall for Joe, which I will cast at the earliest opportunity, will be a cry in the wilderness. But it's still my vote and I'm damned if my own party will take it away. The Republicans have been doing that in various ways for some years now. Stealing one of Obama's Supreme Court choices was robbing me of my vote. And now a bunch of Left-leaning pundits and celebrities want to light cigars find and in a smoke-filled room pick a candidate they'd prefer. 

Bullshit! 

Joe Biden is the going to be nominee of the Democratic Party and if many of my own party leaders can quit stepping their own dicks, we might just win the Presidency and save this democracy here, and order in the free world for a few more precious years. 

And here's a special note to any advertisers out there.  I am no longer watching any television show which wastes time murmuring about the health of my President. Nor am I apt to return if they don't stop crapping the bed on that topic pretty much immediately. 

To put it bluntly -- Shut the Fuck Up! 

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