The Reality of the Situation

Today, voters in four states, Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island go to the polls or stand in line for caucuses or both to hopefully decide who will be the Democratic nominee for President.

That much you know.

The recent divisiveness, poisonous atmosphere, the smear tactics, the fear-baiting, the gender-baiting, the race-baiting, the personal attacks, the behavior of supporters of all stripes leave me with a decidedly sour taste in my mouth. At this point, I am wishing for a decisive Obama victory if, for no other reason, we can move on and stop ripping ourselves, the party, and good intentions to shreds.

I can't help thinking that we are all being played as pawns in an elaborate chess game. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, but I am a believer in chaos theory. It is not difficult to believe that much of this drama was manufactured long ago, all the better to distract we pawns and the self-appointed leader of pawns, the media. So much of this back and forth bantering seems almost scripted, seems deliberately designed to thrive on conflict and stir us up into a frenzy. This is why I am trying desperately to keep my head level today and tonight as the returns from the polls arrive. I firmly believe that Obama and Clinton have spoken privately, secretly, and although I do not believe they have agreed upon a winner, I do believe they decided long ago what each campaign was willing to get from the bargain. I do believe they weighed the consequences and they are working off a rough, skeleton script that has been pre-determined for quite some time.

I never deceived myself that Obama was anything more than a politician. I may be young, relatively speaking, in years, but I am not naive. I know that money, power, and ego drive every politician. My support for Obama has not been that he is somehow the Second Coming, but that he is a new kind of politician, with new ideas, and a new perspective we need for these difficult times, particularly the times ahead. I feel as though I know that anyone willing to be in politics on such a level has to have some desire and willingness to toe the line between sincerity and hypocrisy, and it's all a matter of degree.

It could be said, after all is said and done, that I am glad I am not a politician. I do not have the stomach for it, and I do not have the heart for it either. I'd sooner be a minister than a politician, because few would have a reason to reduce my latest sermon to celestial choirs, empty, but eloquent rhetoric, and mere words. The implication would be that my purpose was for the greater good and my most effective shield would be the cloth and the cross. Yet, we have many former ministers who do cross the line, but I cannot help believing that all politicians are tainted, but it is all a matter of degree. I support Obama because I believe politics to be a necessary evil, and the degree of taint is equal to the longevity and experience at the chess board.

So no matter what happens, may it be known that I never drank anyone's kool aid. I never believed in any Messiah. I never was sexist, racist, or anything -ist, and though I chose to make sense out of humans and their increasingly disorderly ways, I never expected to find any solution, just more questions.