Why I Plan on Voting For Change

Note that I did not say I am voting for Obama, or I am voting Democrat. I am voting to clean house.

I have no great confidence in Obama and I actually think McCain is a pretty good guy with strong ability. I have waffled back and forth in my mind for MONTHS about where to bestow my vote. I have, as Brian Unger has put it, suffered from Political Dementia.

I am pro-life, but don't think we can get rid of abortion. Statistically speaking, for decades, our economy has been strongest during Democratic presidencies. I think that we have become a welfare nation, which appalls me. I think that climate change is being affected by mankind and we need to work to turn it around. I'm dismayed that we went to war in Iraq for such shoddy reasons (although I cannot be sorry Saddam Hussein is gone), but don't think we can just leave without potentially disastrous consequences.

See my dilemma? I have no firm adherence to either platform. I have no great confidence in either candidate, or their VPs. I think that our nation is steadily becoming more politically corrupt, and that we will eventually duplicate the decline of the Roman Empire in our complacency and laziness.

So I am looking at the bigger picture from a historical standpoint, and looking over the last 8 years and what the current administration has wrought... I want what's going on to STOP. The Bush administration has shredded their way through the constitution, has done whatever they bloody well pleased, has made political loyalty their benchmark instead of ability, and has been thoroughly immoral while claiming Christ at the same time. Cheney is destined to be vilified in centuries to come as one of the most corrupt and audaciously grasping administrators in the history of this country. I honestly think Bush is oblivious to how he has been played; that Cheney and the Republican leadership have been running this country into the ground and using him as an clueless mouthpiece.

And I voted for them. Twice. I admit this in shame and self-recrimination, and with a determination to never again let myself just go along with the Conservative Christian political line.

But after all that vituperation, let me just reiterate that I have no confidence in the Democratic party either. I just want the current administration to be rooted out, and no matter how much a maverick that McCain-Palin may be, they will have no choice but to have Republican staffers from the current administration in their White House, and that corruption cannot be allowed to continue under any circumstances. All of the staffers who served their candidacy, all of the high-end donors, the party leadership... they will all have to be rewarded and that means positions in government, and a continuation of habits and political machinations that have been in play for 8 years.

So to that end, I am voting against the Republican party. My family and some friends will not be pleased with me, and I hope they can accept that this is simultaneously a difficult and an obvious decision for me. It is not a knee-jerk reaction based on liberal media, or The Daily Show. I have agonized over this for years. This morning when I woke up, it was finally clear to me that the one thing I was certain of was that I didn't want our government to continue down the same path, and that meant a change in administration.

Period.

9/26/08: A really excellent, well-reasoned interview from a Christian author on why he's openly campaigning for Barack Obama - thanks, Allison!