Today I did something that probably would have disappointed my father if he were still alive: I voted in the Republican primary.
My father was a yellow dog Democrat. Oh, there were a few Democrats he wouldn’t vote for — such as Tip O’Neill, whom he considered corrupt — but he would never have voted for a Republican. In his declining years, he hated George W. Bush most of all. Whenever I took him to the VA hospital, he always insisted I position his wheelchair in the waiting room so he wouldn’t have to see Bush’s portrait on the wall. I was glad he lived to see Bush depart the Whitehouse.
Of course, as regular readers could probably guess, I voted for Ron Paul. His positions on several issues differ from mine in some important ways, but he comes a lot closer to my views than anyone else in the Republican party, and I long ago lost all respect for the current occupant of the Whitehouse. Paul hasn’t got a chance in hell of winning, but I hope he’ll have more influence after this. More importantly, I hope his libertarian ideas of freedom will become more popular, and that future candidates will make more of an effort to win the votes of people who hold libertarian values.
I also just like messing with Republicans.
I don’t know if I could explain my vote in a way my dad would have understood. But I do know that the reason my dad hated George Bush so much is because he got our country into these painful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Barack Obama has turned out to be every bit the warmonger Bush was. I don’t think my dad would agree with many of Ron Paul’s other policies, but I’d like to think he’d be okay with me voting for the only candidate of either party who wants to end the wars.
Even if he is a Republican.
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