It's Hard to be a Voter

The actions of our erstwhile leaders from both parties probably have many voters asking, as Ron did recently, why the hell do I bother? Following this week's publication of a Wall Street Journal piece on the increasing frustration of Democrats, Nora Ephron was moved to heave a sigh over at HuffPo and ask, It's Hard to be a Democrat, Isn't it? She takes a distinctly single woman perspective in drawing a rather apt analogy.

But it's hard. It's especially hard to remember that the real enemies are the Republicans, when the Democrats tend to break your heart and the Republicans are just the boys you'd never go out with anyway.

Yes. Yes it is. But trust me, it's not much easier to be a Republican either from what I've been observing. Ephron is upset (along with many on the Left, obviously) with a series of what they see as concessions on the part of the Democrats in their new majority position in Congress. These include passing Mukasey through to be the new AG, sanctioning extensions and expansions to wiretapping and the associated immunity for some telecoms and a host of other sins.

Welcome to my world. I don't agree with the Democrats on many things, but the one area I thought they could back me on was getting us the hell out of Iraq. No sooner had I begun thinking I might hitch my wagon to them for '08 than every single front runner said they couldn't say for sure if they could even get the troops out by 2013. Thanks guys.... (and gal). Thanks for nothing.

As I alluded to earlier, though, it's hard to be of good cheer if you're a Republican either. The GOP is feeding pork into the entitlement machine as fast, if not faster, than the Democrats. They bailed out on the immigration debate far short of what the most of the hard Right wanted. And no matter which key issues you embrace, with 75% of the country saying they are ready and eager for change and fully half saying they are either registered Democratic or "Democratic leaning" it's lean times in the GOP for the optimism mill.

Ron is ready to hold his nose and vote for Hillary as an anti-Rudy vote. At this point, I still can't say I'm ready to pull the trigger for any of them, no matter the cost. If Governor Bill Richards was somehow on the ballot, or even maybe Ron Paul, I might be able to get faux-excited enough to want to vote. The way things are going now I can see myself doing a write-in for my basset hound.