Stop bitching about Obama's Black support

Why does it matter if Black people are only voting for Obama because he's Black? We're only 12% of the population. And we're not like right-wing conservatives, who are small in number but loud and annoying; a good number of that 12% doesn't even vote. So since we're so shallow and uninformed, it's not like the remaining 88% won't have the power to drown us out. After all, the same people who gripe about this are the same well-informed voters who are supporting Sarah Palin just because she said some combination of the following words and phrases: Republican, Bible, Iraq, abortion, overturn Roe V. Wade, family values, terrorists, small government, free market, guns.

I just wonder what the gripe would have been if Hillary would have won the nomination and still have been beating McCain in the polls. Probably the old one were we always vote for Democrats, even though modern-day Republicans are generally opposed to anything that Black people want to do that doesn't involve "getting over" slavery. How Black people vote shouldn't even really be an issue, because there's never been a danger of us electing a President on our own. If there ever was, there would also have been history books with a reference about the "assassination of Presidential candidate Dick Gregory in 1968."

Putting all of that aside, there are a lot of us voting for Obama because of his stance on issues, not because our matching skin tones count as accessories when we go out. Just for the record, when I chose to support Obama, it wasn't because I was against McCain. It was because I like a lot of his ideas. I like John McCain; I just like Barack Obama more. Well, I liked the John McCain that was around before he sold his soul to Cheney, like a conscious rapper looking for a record deal. Today's John McCain does things like select inexperienced women that don't know how to do anything except alienate people as his running mate. So my support of Obama didn't make me vote for him automatically. I wasn't going to vote for him at all at first, because of my desire to help break the two-party system's grip on our nation's government. Then,I listened to a string of his speeches, and I gotta tell ya...that man could inspire a legless man to walk again.

To assume that we're all voting for Obama because he's Black is actually insulting, much like when white people "compliment" Black people by saying, "You speak so well." And just like we're capable of stringing together sentences without sounding like we stepped out of (random example of "urban" cinema), we're also smart enough to decide which candidate we'll support based on the issues. It's not like we supported him for ridiculous reasons like promising to put the Rebel shield back on the Georgia State flag, or because I'm a Born-Again Christian who believes in the death penalty. He's a brilliant man with a clear vision of what America should be, and it happens to be a vision I share, more or less. And to tell you the truth, if Jesse Ventura had decided to run, I don't know if I'd even be voting for Obama. Seriously.

Weren't the failed candidacies of Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004 (or Alan Keyes in general) proof enough that we don't just blindly support Black candidates? Let's find a new issue to gripe about. I can't believe people are STILL talking about this.

Who Are You Voting For?

No, I'm not voting for Barack Obama.

No, I'm not voting for Rudolph Giuliani.

And I wouldn't vote for Hilary Clinton, even if you told me that Bill could legally be her running mate and showed me a way to off Hilary at the inauguration and get away without a trace. I might miss my shot and we'd be stuck with her as President.

I'm not voting for any of those guys who've already declared on the Democrat or Republican sides. This isn't a sudden decision. I've thought on this since before the 2004 election. I had intended to do it then, but I had a moment of weakness leading up to Election Day, where I bought into the partisan hackery that calls itself "The Mainstream Media." Next thing I knew, I was pressing the Kerry button over at the DMV on Memorial Drive.

And a wasted vote was cast. I won't be doing that again this time.

It's got nothing to do with politics. Well, not the politics of the individual candidates. I mean, when John McCain isn't saying something stupid, I like the guy. I don't hate Giuliani nearly as much as I thought I did. In fact, in another time, outside of New York, I might have voted for him. And as far as Barack Obama goes, I've got an unnatural man-crush on him. I haven't felt this way since The Rock delivered his first "roody poo candy ass."

But I can't vote for them because they're Democrats and Republicans. I don't roll like that no more. I'm tired of the two-party system and I can no longer support it anymore. It's time to open up the field and actually have a real presidential race, where the views of the actual average American can be represented. Because regardless of what Fox News might tell you, there are more sides to America than the Liberal Left and the Conservative Right.

Most Americans are actually somewhere in the middle, but because most of us have...I don't know...things to do, the only ones who have time to scream from their soapbox are extremists and rich people. I would say bloggers, but for the most part, no one is listening to bloggers.

So when it comes to extremists, they have sided with the Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right. Now, I know most of us aren't extremists and almost none of us are rich. But the power lies with those two parties. Well, where is a logical-thinking person supposed to turn when it comes to politics?

The only choices are, keep laying our hopes and suggestions at the feet of Big Politics, or start supporting someone else. And that's what I'm doing. In the last round of elections, I voted for everyone who didn't have a "D" or an "R" next to their name. Did I know these guys? Not all of them, but who really knows everyone running at the local level? I was following the Libertarians who were running for a few of the higher offices, but outside of that, I was just pressing buttons.

Someone might have some bad things to say about that, but in previous years, I did the same thing, just for Democrats or people who hadn't publicly embarrassed themselves. Speaking of Democrats, they wound up taking back the majority in Congress. Good job for them. We all know that they didn't so much win the Congressional elections as they did have the foresight to not call themselves "Republicans."

Going back to the Libertarians, I had done a little reading on them and from what I can tell, these are the people we should be supporting. These are the people who aren't on the fringes of the left (PETA, The City of San Francisco) or the right (Halliburton, Corporate America, The Dark Lord Satan). These are the people that represent the views of the average American. There is no party line. They seem to be a variety of people with a variety of views. Just like all of us. I don't think there is any one politician who embodies all of the views of any one person.

Except maybe Jesse Ventura, but he's not running.

But why don't we hear much from these people? Well, there's the problem. They don't have the money. They can't afford to throw their opponents under the bus in their ads. They have to spend the money they do have on things like getting their political message out there. And as we all know, that's no way to win an election.

Well, how do they get more money? I'm glad I asked. If a third party gets 5% of the Presidential vote, they get electoral funding for the next election. That's it. So because I'm so tired of voting for the flip side of the same coin, I'm gonna vote Libertarian instead. While I know that a Libertarian candidate has slightly less of a chance to win the election than Adam "Pacman" Jones has to stay out of handcuffs for the next calendar year, my one vote gets them just a little bit closer to that magical 5%. Let's face it, my vote doesn't affect the electoral votes at all in Georgia and unless the next President has a brilliant idea to completely crash the stock market and start a war with the rest of the Middle East, my quality of life isn't going to change that much, regardless of who gets elected. I might as well vote in a way that I truly believe my vote will matter.

Vote Third-Party. Maybe Libertarian, maybe Green. Maybe Constitutional. Just not Democrat and not Republican.

TM