Winston Borden I have never met a perfect candidate. When I look in the mirror--I know why. The anger and bitterness in this election year is not so much a reflection on the candidates as it is on how we live our lives. Want a perfect candidate, then have the courage to run yourself. Don't vote? And blame who for the choices they make? Doesn't sound like a perfect strategy to me.
@Winston... I don't know of anyone looking for "perfection" in politics... just some basic common human decency and accountability... some honesty wouldn't hurt, either.
Politics has got to become a two-way street--- politicians and political parties have no right to expect votes they have not done anything to justify receiving.
What we need is a new political party like the real Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard.
Why would I turn over my one precious vote to any politician who repeatedly votes against the interests of working people and for big-business.
The top leadership of the MNDFL, including Brian Melendez, has been undermining Mark Dayton's campaign from day one. The MNDFL does not represent working people even though a few of its candidates do and the majority of its grassroots activists are working people who get the shaft every time they ask for help in solving their problems. Let the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association come along with big fat campaign contributions and now we have over 40,000 Minnesotans working in smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights under state or federal labor laws. This puts over 200,000 Minnesotans in poverty and without access to healthcare. Mark Dayton has agreed to push for affirmative action and the building of a state-owned, state-managed casino industry competing with the mobsters in the Indian Gaming Industry--- profits would be ear-marked for public education. These casino workers would be state employees. We see these casino managements who funded the DFL to the hilt now backing Republican Tom Emmer... let me ask you, Winston: How come no one is going to these casino managements telling them they shouldn't expect "perfection" from Mark Dayton when he is the one and only candidate for governor who has boldly stepped forward calling for enforcement of affirmative action as a way to break the back of institutionalized, systemic, structural and ideological racism in one of the states with a very large Native American Indian population yet not one single Native American Indian sits among the more than two-hundred state legislators and the DFL leadership of Brian Melendez had the unmitigated gall to wage a campaign to keep two Native American candidates off the ballot when the two racist bigots running on the DFL ticket--- Senator Mary Olson and Representative John Persell--- could have been "primaried out" very easily to make way for Nicole Beaulieu and Gregory Paquin.
Make no mistake, no one is talking about "perfection;" we are talking about peace, human rights and human dignity; ending unemployment by putting people to work solving the problems of the people.
It is not perfection to expect Democrats to bring forward a plan for a national public health care system that would put ten-million unemployed people to work providing the American people with free healthcare in the exact same way we provide everyone with a free public education. Ditto for a national public childcare system.
End these dirty wars to pay for it and put 15,000,000 unemployed people to work solving these problems of the people... make "Habitat for Humanity" a massive government public works project and put another 5,000,000 unemployed people to work instead of bombing people out of their homes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan... again, this is basic common sense combined with fundamental human decency we have a right to expect from all political parties and public officials... for the most part the Democratic Party is no better than the Republicans.
This is not about "perfection;" this is about politicians earning votes they are not otherwise entitled to.
The vote each and every worker is entitled to is not something that should be surrendered without receiving something in return that makes life better for everyone.
Think about this:
The Democrats had every opportunity to solve the unemployment problem by putting the unemployed and under-employed to work solving the pressing problems of the people... Barack Obama and his entourage of Wall Street appointments CHOSE to wage wars instead of solving the problems of the people--- thus making life worse all the way around for hundreds of millions of people... we have all become victims of these dirty wars yet not one single Democratic candidate for the U.S. House or U.S. Senate is asking the all important question even as they posture as "economic populists:"
How is Obama's war economy working for you?
Why isn't this most basic and fundamental question being asked on this Election Day?
This is not about "perfection;" this is about ending the killing and using our tax-dollars and our Nation's resources putting people to work solving the healthcare mess and providing relief to working class families who need childcare. This is about building and restoring hundreds of thousands of homes so people can live in basic human dignity with a roof over their heads at a time when Obama and the Democrats continue to allow Wall Street bankers to foreclose and evict.
Not once have I suggested we seek anything that amounts to political "perfection" yet you toss the "strawman" of "political perfection" at me.
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