Published: December 19, 2006 07:10 pm         

If You Ask Me by Guinn Sweet

Sorry, Granddaddy, but this Democrat is voting for McCain

By Guinn Sweet

sweettalk@mineralwellsindex.com

My quandary is drawing nigh to a close!

For weeks, yea months, I have pondered the problem of the need to vote, with no one for whom I wished to vote. Two people have stood out in the race for my constituency during those several months, neither of whom were really viable candidates.

The first one who caught my attention is a young man whom I taught in the seventh grade at Poolville Middle School, years ago. However, Jimmy Dobbs took himself out of the race by accepting the position of superintendent of the Poolville Independent School District earlier in the summer.

I had visions of trying to convince him that there were greater things in store for him in Washington, D.C. I had no qualms about his political abilities, nor his expertise in leadership. We have discussed at length, but lesser since he accepted his new job, our individual and joint ideas and desires regarding the Presidency of the United States; the realities of there being so little to choose from in reference to party leaders and primary election results.

Jimmy and I established that we were largely on the same page. I even came close last year to convincing him to vote for Kinky Friedman for governor of Texas. I called him recently and told him that he was up for a “write-in” vote from me, and if he would accept the office if elected for him to please return my telephone call. To date I have not heard from him, and I would certainly hate to drag his good name through the trash of campaigning without his permission.

I began looking for another candidate whom I could support when I found that my original choice would not be cooperative, lest he pass a lifelong position of great respect and admiration in favor of a short-term wallow in the mud.

I only accidentally became aware of the impending importance of Paris Hilton in this year’s political plot when I was surfing the Internet. I was not aware that she was important enough for Mr. McCain to bring to his platform, and I was not surprised that she was a proponent of Mr. Obama.

Nevertheless, her fairly lucid rebuttal of a few of Mr. McCain’s comments regarding her was an interesting energy policy whereby she proposed that the government could make investment in clean energy alternatives such as plug-in hybrids and fuels based in other than oil. It is surprising to hear that Congress is considering those very things.

I told myself that perhaps I should vote for Paris. I changed my mind when sanity returned and I realized that her Hoover-like “every woman should have four pets” list included a mink in every closet, a jaguar in every garage, a tiger in every bed and a jackass to pay all the bills. Slightly more dramatic than a “chicken in every pot,” don’t you think?

The final decision has now been made in favor of Mr. McCain, Republican (ugh!) nominee for the presidential race this fall. The thing that pushed me over into this strange land was the interview, seen on television and repeated on the Internet, of the two major candidates and their responses to Kenneth Savage, pastor of the Saddleback Baptist Church in California and interviewer of the two candidates in separate forums

Mr. McCain has not said, during the past years in Congress, much about his religious leanings. It was interesting that he said his greatest moral error was allowing his first marriage to fail. Mr. Obama’s greatest moral problem was a temporary experiment with drugs.

They both professed belief in Christianity and Mr. McCain revealed that he was a Baptist. Well, you know that struck a chord with me. Maybe it is his years; he will be the oldest man elected to the presidency if he prevails. It may be too old, but it puts him much nearer my generation in thought and practice, I would hope.

I know that my granddaddy, there in Heaven, may be frowning down on me for considering the vote for Mr. McCain, but I want him to know that the Democrat party for which he always voted has, during this election year, deviated from the path they once followed and I feel that I must, this time, deviate from the party.

I may go back for the next election, but I can’t, in all good faith and with satisfaction, vote for Barak Obama to be the next president of the United States. Sorry, Granddaddy! I’ll explain the whole thing when I get there.