I could have been a John McCain supporter. It was possible. There was a guy back in 2000, that I could have stomached voting for. I liked that guy.
And the author of this letter voted for Nader in 2000. This is no small matter. I’ve never seriously considered voting for a major candidate with a (R) at the end of their name. It was anathema to my essential being. But you were different.
I didn’t agree with you on everything (or, let’s be honest – most things), but I did believe the words that came out of your mouth. I saw a man I could trust.
I saw a man who was winning significant support for “levelling” with the American people.
I saw a man who deserved, at the very least, to be President. Whatever that means.
And, to be truthful … I know what happened. Some guy … who may or may not have been from the Bush campaign … let’s call him Rarl Kove. Yeah. Rarl Kove. This pencil-neck four-eyes okays a push-poll in South Carolina. This little prick smeared you in the ugliest of ways. Anonymous pollsters start calling McCain supporters and asking them “if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black” (phrasing from a Boston Globe op-ed). You, of course, have an adopted Bangladeshi (read: dark-skinned) child. The subtlety of this difference … probably lost in the media based on 5 second clips of candidates waving with their family. You get crushed in the South Carolina primary.
All of the sudden … you’re not the juggernaut who’s going to win (and quite possibly reform) the Republican Party.
Now, do I know this was Ka … Rarl Kove? Of course I don’t. Do I assume it was? Probably. Either way, it’s that *brand* of politics that lead to a hero’s demise.
So now … 8 years later. Full disclosure: the author of this letter is an ardent Obama suppporter. Having been a fan of his for years now, I kind of feel like the Red Sox are running for president. He’s my favorite team. I’m die-hard. So, fine … consider the source …
But you disappoint me so much. I remember a year or so just begging the Universe to give this country the choice of McCain v. Obama … then I don’t have to worry! It will be fine no matter what! But then you pandered. And oh how you pandered. I made excuses for the reversal on Jerry Falwell and the like. I mean, you blew my mind when you called his ilk “Agents of Intolerance”. So stumping at his “university” in a primary … I can rationalize that. It wasn’t easy … but I could do it (I have a limber mind).
But this Palin shit. Your switch on gay rights. Why bother? Do you really want to be president that bad? Doesn’t it matter what you do as president … or how you get there?
You’re a pale shadow of yourself … aping the market-tested buzzwords and trying to co-op them for yourself. Mangling the facts and sometimes outright lying for your own campaign’s gain. Running on the image of the man you were 8 years ago and pushing the policies of the establishment that destroyed him.
Why have you sold yourself so short? Why do you make me embarassed to have defended you at parties and such?
And now … now you’ll just be a footnote in your Party’s history. The Party that shredded you in order to let Daddy’s little frat boy borrow the country’s car and wrap it around a tree. And back it up and ram it again.
I don’t even know how you could salvage yourself in my eyes.
My only hope is that the man who will beat you in November does not bow to the temptations of power and office and makes me believe that it is possible to be the Most Powerful Man in the World … and not wilt into the Most Tiresome Asshole Ever.
Your reluctantly former fan,
Matt