Still tied? I finally decided to vote for Obama.

(This was originally posted on Tuesday, February 5th - Super Tuesday)

I didn't decide who to vote for until last night.

Oh, it was on my mind, but like many Democrats, I'm just hoping that the Democrats win, and that we can kick out the dirty thieving, lying, give-our-country-to-big-business sleazy opportunists that have been in control for the past 8 years and oh, excuse me ... was I going off on a rant?

Seriously, I haven't had much to do with politics in the past few years because if I did, I'd have to go on antidepressants.

I'm female.  I'm actually kind of middle-aged now (over 45) although I hear that we count age in something like dog-years here in California so I should still feel young.  But I have been in the silicon valley since 1980, have watched women in business for the last 27 years, and I am familiar with their strides and their struggles.

I realize that by some weird ruling-stick, that because I have ovaries I should automatically "be for Hillary."  But I don't see it that way.  Because of feminism, I can vote for whomever I damn well please, thank you.  I don't have to "hang with the women" because we're all disenfranchised together, thank you.  We're past that.

Hillary's generation was the "clear the path," "show that it can happen" generation for all the young women to come. They worked their butts off, were uber-serious, learned to play when it was still a "men's" game, and yes, yes, gosh, they did work hard and we owe them thanks.  But now it's 2008, and those women, with their turgid histories, somewhat dated skill sets, and decades of accumulated hurts (In Hillary's case) MIGHT NOT be exactly what we need this year in a president.

Let me tell you what I mean:

Before I do that,  here is a very good Daily Kos writeup on why he voted for Hillary.  Great reasoning. I think he's right.  She'd probably do an excellent job.   If she wins, I'll send money.

But when I really started to vote, I thought of the following:

I remember when Clinton was elected and the slimy little degenerate Newt Gingrich and his ilk stood up, spat in the face of the entire concept of civilized government, and began his "imp from hell" imitation as he strutted around and told the President of the United States (and presumably all that elected him) a resounding "F You."  Do you remember that?  I was aghast.

In retrospect, it feels as though Newt's Stand (aka "Contract on America") was the start of this last 15-plus years of personalized hatred in politics.

No, I don't really know why Newt and his folks hated Clinton so much from the start (seriously, I have a life and IMHO politicians are squid.)  But Hillary certainly bears the scars from her perception that they were all "out to get her" and you know what?  They were.  They still are, and at some level it affects her and her husband and what they do.

And I'm tired.

At this point, I feel like the mom on the schoolyard who wants to send BOTH fighting parties home.  Bill has been out this past week, shooting his mouth off (a harbinger of what's to come?), and ... I'm tired of what American politics has been.

I want to vote for what American politics can be.

In the last fifteen years, I have watched my beloved country squander its most valuable resources: the ability to work together and to reach for dreams, together, with a sense of us as a moral member of the world.  I have watched cynical self-interested politicians incite Americans to hate one another -- while they were stealing our money and wrecking our national resources.  I watched our wacked-out president take the overwhelming worldwide support that we had after 9/11 and turn it into probably the greatest levels of hatred against our country that I've ever heard of.  And it has made me sad.

In 2006, I wrote a blog post that listed my personal goals for our country. They were:

Stop the severely anti-American practice of inciting Americans to hate one another.

Stop the fearmongering and the removal of civil rights and the nasty, sleazy dark-room government stuff that would make Nixon turn in his grave.

Start being a country that people respect and look up to (again).

Start working with the rest of the world on important things like stopping hatred and the breeding of terrorism, feeding and educating people, stopping genocide, and making sure that we don't wreck the environment so much that our grandchildren are poisoned to death.

It's 2006, for heaven's sake, and we seem no closer to global peace and harmony, or even a freaking prime directive.  The best thing that we have going for us is increased communication through technology and the internet.  That's a net plus.  How can we leverage that to help fix the rest?

For right here and right now, and for the things that really matter to me - the core stuff - I am voting for Obama because I hope that he can bring us back together as a country.

And so are a lot of other people.