Visual: Heroic sequences of David Murray, ripping pages triumphantly out of 1923 Underwood, motorcycling, golfing, shadow boxing in his underwear.
Voice over:
I’m David Murray, and I approved this message.
I normally pride myself on the breadth of my associations, but around this time during an election year—especially this election year, as the Republicans get more and more peevish—I wish I only hung around other Democrats.
Or at least, that I was black.
If I were black, Republicans wouldn’t pick on me like a scab on their own elbow. They’d know—or at least they’d think they knew—exactly why I was voting Democrat.
Same would be true if I was gay. Republicans don’t fuck with gay guys, don’t try to tell them that it’s really the Democrats that threaten their “lifestyle.”
Why’s he voting Democrat? Well because he’s friggin’ gay, Dummy.
End of conversation.
Even if I was a white woman—Republicans don’t pick on women who are voting for Democrats. They dismiss them as emotion-driven. (May I be dismissed?)
If I was a trucker or a teacher or even Joe the Plumber, most Republicans would acknowledge: I’ve got to vote with my union, as a practical matter.
The Republicans would leave me alone if I were very young or very old. They’d leave me alone if I were unemployed or disabled. (Unless I was mentally disabled, in which case they’d point out that Sarah Palin’s my advocate. But I’d be too smart to buy that.)
But no: I’m a comfortable-class, 39-year-old white dude, and I’m a sitting duck for Republicans, who bark at me like dogs, and all because I’m one of them, and yet I'm voting for the blacks and other minorities, gays and other oppressed groups, women and other underpaid workers who must find their strength in numbers.
I must be a real disingenuous asshole to do a thing like that.
I’m really looking forward to the Election Day. I’m tired of my opinions, I’m tired of your opinions, I’m tired of all opinions.
I’m voting for Barack Obama because he thinks more like I do about the United States and its people and their problems than anybody I’ve ever had a chance to vote for, anybody I ever thought I’d ever have a chance to vote for.
What’s not to like?
Anybody wants to talk to me about the election from now on, I’m going to tell them:
Go read my blog.
David – I LOVED this!! I think this is one of your best blog posts ever (and I’m pretty sure I’ve read them all).
This is the perfect combo of curmudgeonly rant, thoughtful review of the issues, intelligent consideration of varying opinions, and the requisite dash of smart-alecky humour – in other words, penultimate David Murray.
Well, jeepers, Kristen, thanks for that–and for being such a faithful reader. It’s flattering.
>>>>yet I’m voting for the blacks and other minorities, gays and other oppressed groups, women and other underpaid workers who must find their strength in numbers.<<<< Good GOD man, you're not a blogger! You're practically Ghandi! You're MLK! If Rosa Parks had a baby with Harriet Tubman, and that baby was an upper middle-class white kid from Ohio, that baby would be YOU!!!!!! I don't blame you for being tired of the rhetoric. It must be hard for you. Steve C.
P.S. I’m voting or Obama, too. Given the Palin Factor, it’s the only reasonable, responsible decision to make.
I just don’t think he’s going to fix all the shit you think he’s going to fix. In fact, like almost every government official save FDR and maybe Lincoln, he’s probably going to make things worse.
I don’t think he’s going to “fix” all that stuff. But I do think he’s going to try.
Communicator and funnyman Dan Danbom just sent me this bit, from David Sedaris on undecideds, and it applies almost as well, in my mind, to recently-decideds:
“I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’
“To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.”
Well, nobody likes Sedaris as much as I do. And that is a great line.
But I disagree about the “recently decided” part.
I DO think John McCain was once a great man. I think that if he was elected in 2000, we would have seen his greatness.
When he rejected the Religious Right, when he put values ahead of campaigning . . . he was a great man.
And to watch that great man completely dissolve into a puddle of puke, a pussy taking bad advice from shitty people, a grasping, craven man who would put someone like Sarah Palin that close to the white house . . . . well, it’s sad. Really, really sad.
But to say that if you’re in the “recently decided” camp means you’re too dumb to choose chicken over glass shards and shit . . . . well, that’s exactly why most people can’t stand knee jerk liberals and other close-minded people who assume that whatever their party says must be right.
The people who blindly follow the Chosen One because he’s “for the gays and the little people and the unions and the women and the retards and the mongoloids” are eating the same shit-glass sandwich the right wing loonies are eating.
Steve C.
Steve, for the last time: You think I’m a knee-jerk liberal; I think I have a “political point of view.”
This election is not a close call for me. Another election might be, but this one isn’t.
You, I think, take a vain pride in always being contrarian–you hate the left and you hate the right.
But then, you never write about politics on your blog, so I never get a chance to tell you publicly how immature your political ideas are.
Well, there it is.
David:
First, sorry for using the “P” word on your blog. I get so worked up about the rise and fall of John McCain that sometimes I lose it.
More importantly, I like that you put “political point of view” in mysterious quotation marks, to distinguish it from being either a “knee-jerk liberal” or a “right-wing fanatic.”
You should get a big “L” like Laverne, from Laverne and Shirley, and wear it on your sweaters. Then you wouldn’t have to constantly tell people that you are a Liberal, with a captital “L.”
And, maybe you would even start to believe it yourself!!!
I love you. Go Obama!!!!!! You’re right about one thing: In this particular election, it’s a very easy choice.
Steve C.
You two slay me!! I love the openness. David, I agree with you in that I’m tired of all the opinionated conversations. I have things to do like, oh, say, keep my job, educate my child, ensure we all stay healthy, get ready for the holidays, and save money for a college education and – dare I even think it – retirement.
Steve, I’m glad your great man melted into a barf puddle during the campaign, and not in office.
In fairness to McCain (and Steve) I think that if McCain had been elected before he was forced to bend over for the…hmmmm, let’s just be polite and call them “traditionalists” in his own party in order to get and keep their endorsement he probably wouldn’t have melted at all.
McCain WAS (once upon a time), actually the “maverick” he likes to refer to himself as. It’s a shame he had to give up on that to get a shot at the White House, although I’m not going to lie and say I’m sorry it looks like he’s toast. Especially with Palin in the Veep spot. The very idea of that woman anywhere NEAR the Presidency terrifies me like few things have ever terrified me!