I'm a Gay GOP Voter for Huckabee in CA's Primary
(Gay GOP Activist Chris Bowman, and yours truly.)My business at the department of elections was simple, as a registered Green Party voter: Change my party affiliation to Republican.
Since California is a key battleground state in the Super Duper Tuesday February 5 primaries, playing a key role in selecting the major parties' presidential candidates like it hasn't since the 1970s, I want to use my vote to mess with the GOP.
Instead of sitting out the California primary as a Green voter, my intention is to vote for the worst Republican candidate possible this year.
Why, you ask, when the GOP is so far from my leftist views and represents nothing of value to me? To further hasten the collapse and ruin of the GOP policies and the intolerant hard-right Christian leadership that has aided and abetted Bush for the past seven disastrous years.
My vote on February 5 will play a small part in saddling the Republicans with their worst candidate, giving me tremendous satisfaction.
If the California primary were held today, I'd cast my ballot for Mike Huckabee. An evangelical who once preached for quarantining people with AIDS and opposes gay equality, lacks foreign policy expertise and experience, and appeals to hardcore Christian voters? Yeah, he is the most dangerous GOP candidate today.
My second choice would be Mitt Romney, with the third choice being Rudy Giuliani. They have their frightening faults to be sure, but neither scares me like Huckabee does.
However, things will certainly change between now and February 5, with the Romney and Giuliani campaigns potentially moving to overtake Huckabee as the most terrible GOP contender, and if that happens, I would cast my ballot accordingly.
Now back to the SF elections department. I filled out a new registration form and went to the front desk to turn it in, and who should be at the counter but Chris Bowman, the vice president of the local GOP committee who is openly gay and is active with the Log Cabin organization. He asked what I was up to and got a hearty laugh from hearing my voting plans.
Not wanting him to get the wrong impression of my one-time GOP registration, I assured Bowman that I would register again as a Green as soon as the February primary was over.
I turned in my registration form, had it stamped by the election worker, asked for it back, then had the worker snap a photo of me holding the form, standing next to Bowman. Just for posterity's sake.
Like my Obama-supporting friends, I'm ready for the California primary in a few weeks, and contributing further setbacks for the GOP.
9 comments:
Oh, wow, Michael. First off, hi... long time no see, don't know if you remember an old queer journalist and activist from Baltimore... Anyway, I recently registered GOP (usually Independent) in Maryland to cast a vote for ol' Huck. Same reasoning. Small world; great minds... I wasn't going to talk about it -- this is an action being taken because those poor misguided souls must be stopped -- but when I read that you were doing the same thing in California, I had to tell you and share a giggle.
Good luck to you as we work Republican nerves, and hopefully, help to save a crumbling nation going in the wrong direction. Hope you're well; I'm so glad to see you still stirring the pot.
Hugs,
Natalie Davis
http://nottingtonvillage.wordpress.com
If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination and your boy Huckabee wins the GOP nod, Bloomberg is almost certainly entering the race because there will be enough "space" in the middle for him to run. Then, mother of all disasters, Bloomberg and Hillary split the "blue state" vote and your choice, Mike Huckabee saunters into the White House in January of '09.
How would that make you feel?
No worse than I feel today. And no worse than I felt yesterday. Or seven years ago. Or during the entire nightmare of the Clinton years. Or the day I quit the Dems because they were actually principle-free GOP wannabes (DINOs) who had NO connection to true progressive values. Or the day I realized that by virtue of my being queer, I would never be an equal citizen in the country of my birth and thus HAD NO COUNTRY.
And why do I care about your political parties or system? I'm a progressive, so on principle I can never vote for a Clinton or an Edwards or an Obama (or Gore or Kerry, et al). The only person running I could support with integrity would be Dennis Kucinich.
A candidate who does not openly stand for equality for all citizens is not qualified for public service and can NEVER receive my vote. Period.
Karma? Tell me something good that's happened to me. Trust me, I've lived a life of NOTHING but bad karma; you do not frighten me. I have been punished and punished and punished, and if karma opts to punish me more... well, that's the same old thing as every other day.
Juat to be safe, go with Alan Keyes since he is way too crazy to get elected, Huckabee might somehow get in.
Hi Natalie,
Yes, dear, I remember you quite well from when you wrote for one of Balto's gay rags. Thanks for writing and telling about how you're making trouble for the GOP. Feels good to know I'm not alone in my wild thinking. Take care and keep in touch, girlfriend!
You too, darlin'! And keep up the good work.
Kyle, that is RICH. Oh, if only I could foist the wayward Keyes on the Repubs... just as some GOPs plot to use primaries to try and elect the Dem they believe is easiest to defeat in the November general. (I've heard scads of Republicans say they'll vote for Hillary because of her high negative factor. That may or may not happen in large numbers if the GOP race heats up, but we'll see, perhaps, after Michigan's and Nevadaresults are revealed) The Huckabee tactic actually comes out of the old-school GOP playbook.
That's right. Vote for the Clintons in the fall, the fake couple who threw gays under the bus.
And here I thought another independent person like me.
I understand the strategy here, and there has been tons of speculation about whether this explains the "soft" approach toward Huckabee from the Democratic establishment (Matt Druge reported on this a month or so ago). I guess my fear is two-fold: 1) what if Huckabee actually wins? 2) I don't feel comfortable being used as this kind of strategic bait, not only for reason (1), but because it eliminates even the tiniest shred of hope I might have that there is some procedural fairness left in our system (naive perhaps, but still).
It wouldn't be a consideration if, as an Independent, I could participate in the Maryland primary and vote for the candidate of my choice. I cannot. I would have to stay at home. This way I get to participate and, hopefully, do some good using the GOP playbook. May work, may not. But I have no fear that Huck will win, noting (naturally) that I have been wrong before. Of course, I have survived (barely) nearly eight years of the Bush Brothers Banana Republic. In the unlikely event of a Huckabee presidency, I assume that hell is as survivable as the present one, though frankly I wouldn't want to survive it.
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