I always thought this was an interesting topic.  I firmly remember standing in a dorm room down the hall fall of 2003 as the country was gearing up for the state primary races and caucuses from 2004 and me and this other dude who was a supreme know-it-all (and I really want to use another derogatory word to describe him) started arguing as to why we should support our then current president.  He fell back on the fact that he was political science major to my accounting major and that he knew better and poli-sci states that you shouldn’t change regimes in the midst of the war. 

Clearly we had already launched the Iraq War earlier that year.  Although as far as this regime leader was concerned it was “mission accomplished,” and it’s been how many days Keith Olbermann since the former president declared “mission accomplished”?  That argument just wasn’t persuasive enough for me.  Naturally at 19, I was arguing the same liberal socio-political philosophy that I still tend to spout on this blog, and I was totally opposed to this idea of re-electing that moron. 

So, out of the pack in 2004 emerged John Kerry as the Democratic front-runner. 

I don’t remember as much about the campaign season except the “swift-boating” that happened in the fall of the season effectively nailing the coffin in which John Kerry by all retrospective accounts was already lying-in state.  Amazingly, statistician have that the African American vote increased 3% in favor of Bush for 2004.  If my memory is correct a low 88% of African Americans voted for Kerry, with usual numbers topping the 90% percent mark in the African American populace in favor of the Democratic candidate. 

Of course this was all due to the Dick Cheney and Karl Rove Of Many Chins machine that effectively framed conservatism as “moral” and of course black folks can get conservative as hell when we want to, so its not a new phenomena when black pastors and congregants were questioning whether or not to support Obama and Biden versus McCain and Palin on the grounds of abortion and gay marriage solely.   This was the same wedge that drove some blacks to endorse Bush in 2004. 

I’m sorry.  I just couldn’t vote for the guy because he lied. 

Well Uppity, all politicians lie—what’s the difference? 

The difference is that Bush lied and didn’t care.  He showed no remorse.  The entire eight years that man didn’t apologize for one blessed mistake.  The heightened terro rhetoric with regards to “smoke ‘em out” and “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and his famous “axis of evil” just heaped my anger toward the GOP and conservative ideology.  I still wouldn’t have voted for him under any circumstances, but lets just say the war in Iraq was definitely and in and out situation, maybe I could see some of us-folk supporting that, but clearly we’re still there. 

Not to mention that even at the time, I was concerned about our image abroad.  I thought we had just asked for more 9/11 type attacks to come on the basis that we scoffed international law through the UN meeting of February 2003 resulting in then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s resignation, and not the other way around.  Even to date, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, along with the minions in their cult by way of FoxNews hosts, have nearly single-handedly shaped American thought to believe that because of Left-wing thought that we are less safe now and that this semi-isolationist approach, building up of the military and the pre-emptive strike mentality will keep us safe. 

Seriously this sounds like some Cold War crap. 

I don’t wanna go back to living in fear of being constantly bombed.  I mean, honestly, the big joke back then is still true.  We invaded a country that allegedly had nuclear (noo-clee-urr) weapons combined with anti-American sentiment and there are other countries, such as North Korea that knowingly have them and we do nothing.  Let the record show, this had NOTHING to do with security in the U.S. or preventing any other attacks on U.S. soil.  As far as I’m concerned, this was all about the personal self interest of Cheney and Bush combined.  Because of their business dealings with Haliburton and Bush being associated with big oil companies, this was nothing more than a ploy to have strategic position over infrastructure in the long term in order to attempt to control the flow of oil in and out of that country. 

But that’s just my conspiracy theory for the day. 

Given all of that blacks still increased their numbers when it came to voting in favor of W. 

I had a friend tell me he voted for Bush on the basis that Kerry was too rich.  And I paused for a second because this was a new argument.  During the campaign season, Kerry was estimated at a net worth of slightly over $1,000,000,000.00  Yes, I wanted to write out the number of zeroes so you all know just how much one billion dollars looks like.  This is not to feel sorry for Bush and his couple of hundred million dollars, but still the gap between Kerry, well Kerry and his wife’s family fortune with that of hell, just my parents—or even the combined income of some DINKS who live on the Gold Coast of maybe $300k is just staggering.  Maybe Kerry and the DINKS may be in the same “tax bracket” per se, but he most certainly doesn’t represent the economic interests of my family members who don’t own any stock, who are mere working class citizens who work 9 to 5s and pay their mortgages, car notes, utilities and what not going on mini vacations here and there. 

I mean, sorry, no one in my family has gone windsailing before. 

But apparently John Kerry has found the time to do so. 

For as long as my memory has served me, and based on some things I’ve read and heard from news analysts, coming out of the Reagan/Bush (I) era, aside from Clinton being the anomaly, voting between and 1994 and 2006 was more voting against the GOP as opposed to voting for the Democratic party particularly with mid-term no presidential elections. 

Regardless of Kerry’s downfalls, in my opinion, Bush had less going for him than even that.  Sorry y’all no way in hell I could vote Republican at the presidential level.  I mean, I’ve made it my practice in this blog to embolden the proper nouns when it came to people, but Bush was such a sorry president that I just couldn’t even give him the credit.  My same friend who voted for Bush, who was a staunch Obama supporter and is brilliant by all accounts, all down for social justice (of course, why else are we friends) said he walked out of the movie “W.” the Oliver Stone film with Josh Brolin because he refused to believe that our 43^rd president was that out of it. 

Honestly, I’m really not convinced that that was far from the mark.  Okay, it was Oliver Stone so I’m conceding that some of it was cinematic hyperbole, but still.  Based on how George W. acted in press conferences and the blunders that have Gerald Ford’s missteps paling in comparison, I’m not convinced that that movie was that far from the mark.  I mean George Bush was by far the epitome of joe six-pack!  Honestly, if he hadn’t been born into the riches of his daddy, Bush woulda been some plant worker, at best, probably trying to find a job like half the damn country right now.  Trying to take care of older and ailing parents and dealing with twin girls one of which would probably have been “knocked up” by now.

He needs a dose of reality.

Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2004? If so why.  If you didn’t vote for him, was Kerry a vote against Bush, or one in favor of Kerry?  What would your argument be to persuade another to vote the same way you voted.