I Voted with Gritted Teeth

Yesterday was "Super Tuesday," the day on which a large number of states and territories (14, to be exact) held their presidential primary elections or caucuses. On the way home from work I stopped at my local polling place and cast my ballot. I'll tell you who I voted for later, but first I'd like to say a few words about this election season.

This is the first presidential election since I came of voting age that I am without a candidate I can completely support, unless it's ...

I first voted in a presidential election in 1972, and the first vote I cast was for Richard Nixon. I voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election up to and including the first candidacy of George W. Bush. After that, I have voted consistently for the Democratic candidate.

Frankly, the GOP scares me. There is no one running on the Republican side that I believe is qualified - by education, ability, or temperament - to be president. Donald Trump is an utterly unqualified megalomaniac and probably a sociopath, Ted Cruz is Trump Lite and a scary religious bigot, Ben Carson is a well-meaning nonentity, entirely out of his depth, and the other candidates are less overtly dangerous but still pander to the worst elements of the electorate. None of them appears ever to have read, much less to understand, the Constitution.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is not the Screaming She-Demon from Hell that the GOP thunders about, but I question her judgment because of her use of a private home e-mail server for the conduct of national diplomacy while she was Secretary of State. The issue of classified material on that server is, in my opinion, an overblown smokescreen that is of less importance than her use of the server itself. There is no direct and reasonable comparison to be made between the cases of Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus, as much as the GOP would like to make it so. I can go into that in more detail another time if anyone is interested enough*. I think she is as much of a political opportunist as Trump or Cruz, but with a veneer of humanity.

Bernie Sanders is the only true and authentic person running for president. He cares about Real People and is consistent in his beliefs and actions. While I support most of his positions, particularly on education and health care, I don't think we can afford everything he'd like to do, and the country as a whole is probably not ready to go quite as far as he is. If he's elected, and you thought the GOP was reflexively opposed to anything President Obama ever said or did, you've got quite a show coming.

I cast my primary vote for Bernie Sanders as the least bad option in a year full of abysmal candidates.

Sue me.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* And having spent my entire professional life in the intelligence community, dealing with highly-classified material and the rules for its creation, handling, storage, and transmission, I think I can speak with some authority on the subject. In this, I know I will be at philosophical odds with many of my fellow intelligence and military veterans, but that's the way it is when you have Constitutionally-protected freedom of speech.