So, the bullet went in here, and out here, and then in over there, and then ...
If, in 2005, you proposed a $100 bet claiming I’d even be remotely upset if Arlen Specter’s political career ended in 2010, I’d have shaken your right hand and started making plans on where to spend my salt-rubbing-wounds winnings. Heck, five weeks ago, I’d have asked to up the ante to a cool ten grand. Good thing I didn’t. You’d have emptied my savings.
That’s not personally about Specter, who fell from my graces when I first read about “magic bullets” and defiled soda cans. True to lesser-of-two-evils form, I held my nose and pushed his button Tuesday for two reasons. One: I loathed Joe Sestak for turning his daughter’s brain cancer into a political prop (and still do, since it wasn’t a prop when I watched my mother die day-by-awful-day from it). Two: I feared Sestak can’t beat Pat Toomey in November (and still do, since the incumbents’ economy is in the tank and uneducated folk blame Sestak’s party.)
This is a major problem for those of us not foolish enough to think abortion should be outlawed, government should be limited while for-profit greedbags’ handed the vault keys, waiting periods for guns reduced, same-sex marriage outlawed and that global warming’s a scam. I haven’t seen any new polling, but I presume Toomey’s still the Flyers to Sestak’s Canadiens; up a little, but the players will still have some say in the outcome.
So, add a third reason for the Specter vote: Sestak’s win is being absurdly perceived as an endorsement of the anger that citizens have with power. Psst, people have wanted control since Ben Franklin was cavorting down by the Delaware, so that rage has existed for all of my 36 years. Yet now, it’s being wielded by all sorts of rabble-rousers as a fresh-from-the-factory dynamic. The really sad part? The “angry” don’t realize they’re just being used as political props to send money and votes to kneejerk-conservative entities who quietly run the flag of Toomey’s agenda up the Capitol Hill pole.
My biggest fear? I won’t be the only one who can’t bring themselves to push Sestak’s button, thus letting people who trade in hyped-up fear and ignorance prevail. Still, I can’t pinch my nose hard enough to block the stench of people who treat morality like pack mules, even if that cedes the advantage to those eroding this country’s honest soul day-by-awful-day.
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