Reason #1,429 Why I’m Happy To Be a Democrat
I am so happy to be a member of a party where the highest qualification for office isn’t “I won’t embarrass you.”
Thank you, Chris Christi and Marco Rubio, for letting me add another to my list. Christi’s closing argument in Iowa?
“We need a commander in chief who will make us proud of the vote we made,” said Christie. “Who will not embarrass us.”
Yeah, well, we also need one who won’t shut down bridges just to get even in a political fight. When I die, if the first words I hear are, “Ma’am, you are stuck on a bridge on carpool day with five hungry, tired, thirsty second graders who constantly need to go to the bathroom,” I will know I didn’t make it to heaven.
If “what do you want me to do, go get a mop?” is a reasonable answer, the question was probably not phrased with enough cuss words.
And Rubio is also emphasizing that he won’t embarrass us. Four words: too late – those boots.
I can’t think of any presidential vote I made that I need to be embarrassed about. (Well, okay, maybe John Anderson in 1980, but it was my first time.)
1If Chris Christie did not want to embarrass his constituents, he would be able to engage with people who disagree with him by not yelling at them.
2I’ve always been embarrassed about voting for Ronnie Raygun when I was soooooo much younger and, well, he WAS a movie star and I simply did not know better! It’s the only time I ever went that route!!
3Chris Christie said wut?
https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVvenba5WnAoA_C0PxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw–?p=Chris+Christie+In+Baseball&fr=yhs-avg-fh_lsonsw&hspart=avg&hsimp=yhs-fh_lsonsw
(sorry, I don’t know how to do the tinyurl thingy and I don’t have time to look that up right now)
4Rubio’s boots.
I thought they were pretty cool in ’64 & ’65 when the Beatles wore Cuban heels, but to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen:
Senator, you’re no 5th Beatle.
5RA, if that’s Christie in the baseball uniform again, why do you want to inflict that on our innocent eyeballs? Just referring to it is more than enough for those of us who can’t get it out of our brains no matter how hard we try. And JJ, for god’s sake no more of Cruz in the silk robe. I get the dry heaves every time.
6One word: gulp
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x121/Tinman4ever_photos/RUBIO-IS-THIRSTY.gif
7Rhea, Jane and I thank you! Please, we are begging: no more of Cruz in that robe or Christie’s baseball uniform wardrobe failure.
A little something for Schadenfreude Sunday: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KFzDfeYx2i8/Vq4TQYxX5fI/AAAAAAAAQbc/ZfUBOBi_cks/s400/cartoon01-RogerR20160128_low.jpg
8http://tinyurl.com/
Here you go RA. Click this link,add it to your toolbar and follow the simple steps. No more hundred plus character urls(some photos are in the several hundred character range).
9Good grief, chief! The clowns wrote the book on embarassment!
10@Rhea. I too voted for John Anderson. We must be the only two. And I was in Texas at the time.
11“Who will not embarrass us.” What? From your political party? Ha! Good luck with that wish, chubbo. Hahahahaha….
12When Christie said, “What do you want me to do, go get a mop?” Someone in the audience should have shouted, “It would be a start!”
13If it excuses the Anderson vote in 1980, I ached to vote for McGovern in 1972 but I was 14 at the time. He would have been a lot less embarrassing than that other guy who won.
14When I think embarrassment, I picture Dubya on that ship crowing, “Mission Accomplished.” and then all hell broke loose and our economy was in the toilet. He couldn’t even pronounce “nuclear”. Then there was Nixon resigning after Watergate and Raygun claiming he couldn’t recall anything about Iran/Contra.
15The RKlan has done some more-than-embassing things to the world and to our country. Never again!
Embarrassment I can deal with. The prospect of the entire country in smoking ruins, either figuratively due to brain-dead economic policies, or literally due to nuclear immolation, not so much.
16My first vote was for George McGovern in 1972. I have never stopped being proud of that vote. I’ve only voted for one other candidate who was as good and decent a human being, Jimmy Carter.
17I turned 18 in 1972, and voted for McGovern. Since then, I’ve voted in every Democratic primary and every general, every year. Many, many times, I’ve been tempted to register Green Party, but until third parties become viable in this country, I’ll remain a Democrat.
Register and vote! Help your friends, neighbors, colleagues, and acquaintances register and vote. Make a small gift/loan if your people need help, give them rides to the DMV/polls, let them use your internet if it helps them track down documents they need to register and/or vote.
Nothing is more important. I hope Iowans are feeling the Bern!
18Based on the current Repub primary the highest qualification for office is now “I will embarrass you.”
Or, if it isn’t, it’s because the Repub base has no shame.
19McGovern tried running again in the primaries in 1984, mostly to show them what a real liberal was. He was third in Iowa, dropped out before the Maryland primary, but I was glad that I got to vote for him once. Even dusted off my “Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern” button for the occasion.
20@Debbo
21Same year, 1972. Same candidates. Same pride. Jimmy Carter for King of the World.
My first Presidential vote was for Hubert Humphrey which probably puts me at the top of the seniority totem in the Salon.
22I once forgot I would be away until too late for an absentee ballot in a town election but that is the only time I have failed to vote in any election for which I was eligible.
Not voting would probably get you shunned by my family faster than murder two. Voting Republican would get you shunned faster than murder one.
With the murder thing we would at least ask who you killed and why and how first.)
Rhea and Paul, my then 6-year-old daughter was campaigning for Jimmy Carter in 1980 and insisted on going into the voting booth with me to make sure I didn’t vote for Anderson (I wouldn’t have done so.) I would gladly have lent her to you, with my time machine, if it would help to have prevented Ronald the Reprehensible. I knew and loathed him from growing up in CA.
I have only ever voted for two snacilbupeR in my entire life. THe first was Pete McCloskey for Congress because he was anti-war and a thorn in Nixon’s side (and in fact I did his polling!). The second, and likely last ever, was Weld for MA gov because the pseudo-democrat was horrid John Silber, then president of Boston College and noted for saying that the English Department had become a “g-d matriarchy” (please forgive, Mama, his word, not mine) because they were up to 4 tenured women out of 22 or so. RINO vs DINO – what do you do? Gaaah. Hold nose, vote D.
23Laurel, if my vote would have made a difference, I’d have voted for Carter. Still kind of sorry I didn’t. I knew I didn’t want Reagan in charge of anything.
I voted for a Republican once, for county executive. She seemed reasonably sane and how much damage could a GOP do in that office anyway. The Dem seemed to me to be an arrogant blowhard who assumed he could just waltz into the position, as he did. Some years later he waltzed into prison after telling his wife that the FBI was heading her way and she should flush that $100,000 check and stuff the $80,000 cash in her bra. Nobody’s bra is that big, and they both went to jail.
24Rhea, you haven’t met our local embarrassment, Michele Fiore. She could handle the 80 grand with room left over for one of those poster board 4’x12′ mock-up checks.
25Thanks for the link epo. Sorry to be so long getting back to you. I was even busier than I had planned. :/
Sorry, Rhea, I’ll just offer a “gentle” reminder next time.
26Laurel,
27Ooops! Thanks for reminding me. I voted for Weld, too and not merely because I loathed Silber generally.
Silber defeated Frank Bellotti in the Democratic primary and I was a Belotti supporter.
Trump makes me think of Silber, actually. It would be nice if his political arc took the same
pattern.