You may or may not know that I live in Missouri. What you also may, or may not know, is that Missouri is right next door to Iowa, the state currently with a big red bullseye painted on it because of the Democratic Caucus this coming Monday.
I’ve been reading about folks heading to Iowa in order to get people out to support their candidate. In particular, now that the candidacy for Democratic nomination isn’t as clearly defined, the effort expended on Iowa, and I can only imagine, New Hampshire must be overwhelming to the folks that live there.
I thought about going to Iowa to attend one of the caucus meetings; outsiders can attend they just can’t participate. I thought about taking photos, interviewing folks and publishing my views of the meetings – being on the scene and reporting all that’s happening.
And then I woke up from my dream that I was employed by the New York Times.
Contrary to my earlier views on the matter, I’m rather pleased that there is such a contest going into the primaries: he who ends up on top of this heap will have honed whatever political weapons he has by the time he survives to make it to the Democratic candidate position. Where once I supported Dean, now I’ll support whoever survives. If it’s Dean, well great. If it isn’t Dean? Well, that’s just great, too. I want a strong candidate heading into the general election, running against Bush – not one that limps into the candidacy.
I think all of the top Democratic candidates now are decent people who will go into office, make mistakes, learn from them, and go on. None will run from a fight if forced on us, but none will seek one out. And none will discard entire segments of this country in order to support corporate interests. We’ll get back our air and our water, and maybe even a little of our dignity. Whoever will follow Bush will walk into a mess, but I think all the major candidates will deal with it the best they can.
When I vote in Missouri’s Democratic primary, I’ll vote for one person – but all the candidates have my support until we have only one.
One person, one party, one purpose.
