Thursday, March 29, 2007

My Politics

For a while, I avoided politics on my blog. Recently, I've decided to wade in. I want to be very clear where I stand. Sites like The Dead Pelican are most useful when you know where the author stands. Full disclosure of crucial details, like Jeff Crouere's (of Bayou Buzz) unsuccessful campaign against Mitch Landrieu and Silas Lee's work for the Nagin administration, should be out there.

I'm a registered Independent. I lean to the right on some things, while others I'm on the left. I balance out in the middle. I'm sure about this because all of my liberal friends think I'm a buddies with Pat Robertson and all of my conservative friends think I'm an America-hatin' commie in league with Hugo Chavez. When you're a moderate, it's really scary A: how wide the idealogical gap is and B: how neither side really comprehends A.

I have never worked for any politician.

I have attended exactly 1 political rally: Wesley Clark's rally at the Lakefront Airport.

I have donated money to only one politician: $50 to Rob Couhig's mayoral campaign. I 'm ashamed to admit it, but I'm going to be honest. I was suckered in by the Times-Picayune profile of him, his willingness to take tough stands that he knew would alienate some voters, and his zeal in kicking Nagin in the teeth during the debates. Damn do I wish I had that 50 bucks back.

UPDATE- In an effort to be as open as possible and not in any way get into a situation like Bill O'Reilly. It's not as though I think I'm going to get in trouble. I'm just following the Nakedness principle.

Here's my voter registration card: (some parts obscured for my privacy)



Note the registration date and the party affiliation.

PS- I don't know what some of the numbers mean. If there's something I should censor, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

3 comments:

TravelingMermaid said...

I'm also a registered Independent. I've never liked the idea of "belonging" to a party...I like to think I can make up my own mind without input from the "party line".
I've never donated to a campaign. I've voted for Repub and Democrats. And I've not voted if I felt I didn't have a valid choice. My vote is always "for" someone, never "against". To me that's playing games.

Anonymous said...

I know exactly how you feel...except for that $50 to Couhig part, but then I knew about his "up by my state financed bootstraps" hypocrisy.

oyster said...

First, I can't thank you enough for attending the Clark event. I was one of the organizers, and while the location and weather (and advance notice!) weren't optimal that day, enough people came so that it seemed like a bonafide rally. Thank you thank you thank you.

Here's a me, the General and Gert link.


The Couhig support is totally understandable. During the campaign, he stood out-- he wasn't playing it safe, he was taking positions, many of which resonated with Conservatives and Moderates.

That's why his endorsement of Nagin was so disappointing. He was arguably Nagin's toughest critic, and yet he (and Watson and Boulet and other "enablers") fell in line and quite possibly delivered the election to Willy Wonka. I've excoriated him on my blog for this, but that's mainly because his voters were some of the best informed and most educated, yet they found some silly pretzel logic as to why Nagin should be reelected because Mitch Landrieu is... a Landrieu.

Anyway, hope to see you at the Geek Dinner tonight. My advance apologies if we've met before but I've forgotten.