The righteous voter

Another reader writes

I am really trying to stay positive and pledge to support your candidate if you'll support mine, but I feel I have to say something about campaign rhetoric.

Alright go ahead and vote for Mccain. Vote for John and don't support a candidate who has nearly identical positions to your candidate. Don't support Barack because you dislike his lofty rhetoric,. Don't support Hussein because you think other people are voting for him for the wrong reasons. If really it is about results of the elections and the policies a candidate implements, what makes your qualified support a good idea? What is the need for the veiled threat?

However, I would think the average less-informed casual voter thinks, Oh, he's an outsider, he won't play politics as usual.

Barack is the first democrat in a while who could win not only the policy argument but also have the best prose. Gore couldn't turn out the working class swing voters because he was boring. Additionally, he had the legacy of Bill's blow job motivate them to come out in droves against him. People voted against Kerry because of the swift boat ads. In the end all that mattered is they didn't turn out. The democrat candidate didn't get their vote.

If it was possible, I wish Barry could use a vulcan mind meld or the Force to change minds, but the truth is he is not Jesus, Spock, or even Luke Skywalker. He is just a man who has a history of taking good government policies seriously. As long as he gets more votes I don't care If people think he is the second coming.

How, then do you explain things such as the report yesterday in that Times: "Senator John McCain's presidential campaign said Thursday that it stood by a year-old pledge made with Senator Barack Obama that each would accept public financing for the general election if the nominee of the opposing party did the same. But Mr. Obama's campaign refused to reaffirm its earlier commitment." Obama proposed the pledge in the first place; now his campaign is saying they will "address that issue in the general election, when we're the nominee. We're just not entertaining hypotheticals right now." Please note he is raising more than $1 million a day, far more than he would get with public financing.

A couple points.
He does not take money from Political Action Comittees.
The money is from individual contributors and is capped at $2300 per person.
He has almost 500,000 individual donors since december 31st.

He will try to make a deal with Mccain.

He told reporters in Milwaukee that if he defeats New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in their close race for the Democratic nomination, "then I will make sure our people talk to John McCain’s people to make sure we abide by the same rules. … My folks will sit down and see whether we can arrive at common-sense ground rules.

If Mccain agrees to "common sense rules" like capping individual contributions at $1500 or $1000 per person, mccain will find himself in the unwanted position of being outraised 5 to 1 instead of 2 to 1. This whole thing is a moot point. There is potentially $200,000,000 pool of money out there in Political Action Committes. Barack is going to have to respond to Madrassa, Islam, and black negative smears. Mccain wont (and cant)keep a leash on these guys. The attempt to make a deal will fall through. There was no "pledge".

Also, an African-American congressman/superdelegate said yesterday on NPR that he is getting calls from other African-American superdelegates saying that if he does not pledge for Obama, they will run someone against him in his next election campaign. Politics as usual, yes. But what about uniting people and transcending race? I have not heard Obama speak out against this.

If you represent a constituency that voted 4-1 for OBAMA and yet your representative does not support Barack do you not see what is wrong with that. I even could see the argument that your representative needs to be primaried for going along with the will of the people. If people started representing the will of the people we would be out of Iraq, have universal healthcare, and have higher paid teachers.

I do not expect my politicians to be more than politicians. I don't expect to get more than politics as usual. But if you promise something more, then how can it not be hypocritical when, if push comes to shove, you are politics as usual as well?

It is not about playing nice. It is about figthing hard and representing the american people not some elite constituency.

Ok, you can yell back now.

I will support the candidate whose political philosophy is closest to mine.