two poorgradstudents

I registered to vote in 1999 in New York state as a Republican. Turns out, affiliating myself with the Republican Party was a grand mistake, not because of what that party was about to unleash on us, but because I did not, not in 1999, and do not reside anywhere in the vicinity of the political right. I registered as a Republican (sigh…) because my twelfth grade, Government teacher told my class that there was no Democratic Primary in New York State.

Perhaps I misheard my teacher, perhaps he misspoke, or perhaps, as one of my high school friends contends, he manipulated me for the sake of the G.O.P.; there is, in fact, a Democratic Primary in New York. Not that my mis-registration really mattered; I made no effort to vote in the 2000 or 2004 primaries and voted in those year’s presidential elections, both times for a losing candidate, through absentee ballot.

Soon after registering to vote in New York in 1999, I moved to Massachusetts for college. I didn’t know it then, but I’d spend most of the next eight years in the Bay State, long enough to convince myself I’ve earned the right to root for the Celtics, Sox, and Patriots, even against any NY’ers complaints. But it wasn’t until the 2006 mid-term election that I registered to vote in MA, this time as a Democrat. That decision came only after hearing that a very weak Republican gubernatorial candidate was running a very, very nasty advertisement against a very impressive Democratic candidate. The Democrat, Deval Patrick, won “in a romp,” though my vote wasn’t enough to earn Boston undergrads the mid-term election consolation prize to end all consolation prizes … booze in grocery stores. (Big liquor-stores helped defeat “Question 1.”)

Befitting my registration history, I left Massachusetts less than a year after registering to vote there. Today, I reside in the seacoast region of New Hampshire. This coming Tuesday, I’ll vote in my first presidential primary. I’m told that the whole damn election rides on my Democratic vote. Today, for example, President Bill Clinton informed me that if I vote for his wife and so too do many other Democrats and independents, she will be the next President. In his talk at the University of New Hampshire, the former President worked hard to distinguish Senator Clinton from… some other Democrat, who talks about change, but doesn’t have a record as an agent of change, which his wife does. He cited her work for abused children, Arkansas schools, health care, and, more recently, the environment as evidence. According to her husband, Senator Clinton would also make a good President, because she

• Has the respect of Republicans, while…
• Also surviving Republican “reverse-plastic surgery,” which made both Clintons “look as ugly” as it could.

I left President Clinton’s talk fairly convinced that I’d vote for Senator Clinton. Unfortunately for the Clintons, I’m easily swayed and, after hearing, in Portsmouth, John Edwards rail on corporations and big business, from Exxon-Mobil to the pharmaceutical companies to the New York Yankees, I hastily signed up as a volunteer for his campaign.

But is that what I want? A friend of mine, a Democrat extraordinaire, already expressed skepticism to me about Edwards’ anti-business platform, as well as his $. Another friend agreed with Edward’s wife that “We can’t make John black, we can’t make him a woman.” Mrs. Edwards meant that as a critique of the media; my friend meant it as justification enough to put a vote elsewhere, all things being equal … as they more or less are.

So what’s a primary rookie to do? These three candidates have nearly identical views on most important issues and the devil’s hardly in the details. Tonight, Edwards admitted that his health care plan is nearly identical to Clinton’s; these two candidates plans are, apparently, slightly more “universal” (if there can be such a thing) than Obama’s, though, the difference in universality – again, if there can be such a thing – is marginal. All of them say they’ll get us out of Iraq; perhaps they differ on the time-line for that withdrawal, but 6 months, 1 year, 4 years… I don’t have a whole lot of faith that any of these candidates can adequately predict exactly how something like a war, even a withdrawal, will pan out. The three of them have comparable views on immigration, supporting intermittent fencing of the American-Mexican border and English lessons for the ~12 million undocumented immigrants now living in America. (I can’t stand that latter requirement.) And all of them will try to save the polar bears, as one elementary schooler asked of Edwards.

So what am I voting for? To be honest, it’s come to this – picking through their pre-DC record. What I’m impressed by is Clinton’s advocacy for children and early-education. These are issues that concern me, especially since I’ve been in school forever and, for 5-6 years, I worked at day care centers. Then again, she did serve on Wal-Mart’s board…

What Obama has going for him…and what impresses me more than Clinton’s advocacy… is his early work for civil rights and his efforts to intervene between Illinois police and their interrogation tactics. These are major issues and major efforts and, I think, are evidence enough that there are other “agents of change” in this election besides Senator Clinton. Though all the candidates are against torture, which, I think, is a good thing, I find Senator Obama to be the most reasonable and sane of the candidates on foreign policy.

“I would [be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of my administration ... with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea]. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.”

Senator Clinton, on the other hand, has said that she would not meet with the leaders of these nations. Obama, of course, is the only candidate of these three to oppose the war against Iraq from the get-go, saying he isn’t opposed to all wars, just “dumb wars.”

So, right now, I’m thinking that my one NH vote goes to Barack Obama. Unless someone can convince me otherwise.