wish i may
i might
make a wish upon a star tonight..

Wednesday, August 13
 
i've not discussed my politics much here.. for a few reasons, the biggest of which i don't think anyone is reading. also, i don't feel a need to record every political thought these days as i believe most of my political thoughts are being recorded through my activism. finally this space and how i threw it together in a short time doesn't lend itself to a political site. i have thought about actually using the template i created that i called "river's rants" and it is a thought i've not fully put away.

that said. right before i left for the east coast i went and saw dennis kucinich speak. he is a democratic candidate for president. at the time i was only going to listen to what he had to say, i hadn't yet made up my mind about who i would support. i had already decided that i wouldn't be supporting gephardt or kerry as they are too mainstream, too centrist, too bush-like for my taste. then there is sharpton, who's idiocy from the past i can still taste in my mouth.. and carol mosely braun, a candidate that i would usually put my feet firmly behind simply because of her gender, but after this country making such a big deal about an upper class, white man who happened to be jewish running as vp i know she doesn't have any chance in hades.. and the last candidate up for my consideration was howard dean, a man not counted out in my mind, but not counted in either.

i've been watching the campaign of howard dean since he started making stirrings with all of his web candidating. i'd been listening to progressives make noises about him. but i heard about his stance on gay marriage........ then while i was home and spent a couple of evenings with c-span and c-span2 i got the chance to see the man speak. and i actually liked what he had to say. and he was asked a question about gay marriage and funnily enough it wasn't the awful kind of attitude i'd expected of him, it was actually well thought out.. and though he's still not where i am on the issue, he makes a good enough point that i'm not going to reject the guy on that one issue.

now, the main thing i liked about howard dean, and this was after seeing kucinich speak and sen. ron wyden speak, was that he actually said something of substance. kucinich and wyden both gave a lot of political speak, they both gave speaches with no density, speaches to please the voters at hand. but dean, in his answers to this group he told them that what he was going to say might not please them, but that he was going to tell them the truth about how he felt. i liked that. and i liked that he said some real things.

so, i've finally decided to put my mouth where it counts, and thats with dean. i honestly think he's electable, i think he's got a lot of good things to say, and i think that he's a man that even the most die hard of us progressives might actually be able to get our votes around.

oh, and here's a great article from common dreams: the progressive case for dean