The Ketchup Is A Vegetable weblog has three endorsements to make for its four or so readers before Super Tsunami Godzilla Leviathan Callipygian Tuesday and before our own state of Virginia votes on Feb. 12.
First, we endorse voting. No matter what, no matter for whom, please do exercise your most basic natural gods-given right as an American. It would be nice if you would vote Democratic, and nicer still if you’d spend an hour or so in front of the Google first learning a few dozen things so your vote is informed. But the fact is, friend, that your vote and the song in your head, those are the two things in life nobody can take away from you. In America, your vote is supposed to be your great awesome powerful equalizer. Whether you earn $40K a year or $400K a year, whether you buy or rent, your vote is the one little piece of power your country offers. You can vote. You can always vote. So, get out there. Vote.
Second, we honorarily endorse Dennis Kucinich for President. The Ketchup Is A Vegetable weblog has not altered its entry category for presidential politics, “Dennis Kucinich for President” and will not, despite the man’s untimely departure from the race. One day, this country may be ready for Mr. Kucinich, who was truly the best man for the job, may be ready to elect a man to the office based solely on his integrity and his steadfast support of what’s right. The category remains in his honor and always will, as we are hopeful for another Kucinich run in 2012. We also strongly suggest that the next President review and implement Kucinich’s plan for a Department of Peace and choose him as its first Secretary. To the average person, the notion of a Department of Peace seems rather moonbat, but it is actually a solid policy notion that would be of great benefit to the nation, especially considering the awesome damage recently inflicted upon our nation’s image and stature worldwide.
Our final and main endorsement: Barack Obama for President.
Mr. Obama is the best candidate still standing, primarily because he did not vote for the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. It is true that Mr. Obama was not a Senator in 2002 and therefore could not have voted for it. It is also irrelevant. Having voted for the Joint Resolution is an incredible political liability. It tripped up John Kerry chronically in 2004, and it similarly haunts Mrs. Clinton now. When grilled on it in last week’s Hollywood “debate,” she was forced into nuancing reminiscent of Kerry’s. If voters did not warm to “I voted for it before I voted against it” by November 2004, there is little chance of it growing on them by this fall. Whether Obama’s clean record on that vote is by conscience or by luck, it is. In the current political climate, the Democrats should run a candidate who does not bear that particular, and largely underestimated, political liability.
Much has been made of the perceived experience gap between these two candidates, but this argument is easily pulverized. And experience will mean nothing to a Democratic candidate who cannot vanquish the Republigoat nominee in November. Polls on which candidate will run better against a Republigoat fluctuate and flutter with decent standards of error. But no poll measures the often forgotten power of the weird, seething, psychopathic hatred a swath of American voters hold in their hearts for the Clintons. These Republigoat voters are just as pissed off as you are about where Chimpy McCokespoon has led the country; witness the unlikely surge of Ron Paul. But Republigoat outrage is less likely to translate into protest stay-home votes if our nominee is Clinton. The power of weird seething psychopathic Clinton hatred cannot be underestimated; it clenches teeth and throbs forehead veins, and it will energize the Republigoat faithful even if their nominee is McCain. We need a candidate who can win, and Barack Obama can. (Yes, he can.)
And he will win based broadly on his badly-needed, hopeful purple-state message. It is easy to poo-poo Obama’s inspirational power, to write it off as proof somehow that he lacks substance. But America needs inspiration, it needs a candidate who can bring us the previously promised “morning in America,” but without all the union-busting and voodoo economics and New Deal peen-hammering.
“The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats,” Obama said in his now-legendary 2004 Democratic Convention speech. “But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”
A man who describes his vision of America in these terms, who so accurately portrays its peaks and valleys, who rails so effectively against the blue-red pigeon-holing of America for the convenience of television broadcasts, that man is a stunning contrast to the Presidency of the Have-Mores we’ve suffered for too long. Barack Obama is not just any candidate. He is The Real Deal, the one for whom all the elements align to create an undeniable, unbeatable, and nearly revolutionary powerhouse. Even Freddie “The Beadle” Barnes gets it, as he suggested recently on Fox “News”: “When I watched [the South Carolina] speech, one thought came to my mind and stuck with me through the whole speech, and that was, ‘this guy’s going to be President of the United States—probably this year.”
But Obama isn’t just a pretty speaker. He is a Constitutional scholar at a time when our current administration uses said document as Charmin. Yes, his term in national office has been short, but this freshman senator scored committee appointments to Foreign Relations, Veterans’s Affairs; Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He has traveled officially to Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. He has tackled many vital foreign and domestic issues, including loose nukes, Darfur, an end to the occupation of Iraq, transperancy in government, Congressional ethics, energy and climate change, veterans’ issues, education, and health care, among others. And, if we’re really scrupulous about comparing records here, the truth is that Obama’s time in elected public office is actually double that of Hillary Clinton’s.
So, the Ketchup Is A Vegetable weblog proudly endorses: Voting. A theoretical Dennis Kucinich. And Barack Obama for President of the Untied States.
Eat Snacky Smores.
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