Who will save your soul?

Anastasia sent me this link today, and being a sucker for every online poll or personality test that exists, I immediately went to check it out.

President Match

You go through several pages and rate where you stand on various issues, and at the end you get a ranking (with percentages) of which candidate most closely matches your opinions. My list:

Kucinich - 100%
Sharpton - 96%
Kerry - 87%
Dean - 84%
Clark - 83%
Edwards - 76%
Lieberman - 69%
Bush - 1%

My observations...

1) HOLY CRAP! I'm a Democrat!
2) I can't believe I'm actually 1% Evil.
3) I know something about ALL of these issues. (Pats self on back)
4) Kucinich/Sharpton '04! WHOOO!!!

Seriously though, I found it most interesting that I'm more closely aligned with Kerry than with Dean. It actually flies in the face of the emerging "wisdom" that Kerry is somehow more "electable" (how I loathe that meme) and supports the contention that Dean really is the more centrist candidate. I fear that if Kerry does get the nomination, he is far more vulnerable as being painted with the "liberal" brush than Dean. Hell, the Rove machine only has to tell the media to run with this story to portray him as a pot-smoking hippie. It's all downhill from there.

About this electable thing... it's all that I'm hearing these days and I'm sick to DEATH of it. "Oh, I like Dean, he's got great ideas and has given the Dems back their spine, but Kerry is more electable." I disagree... and here's why.

1) If everyone votes for the person that they like, that they really want, that they match most closely with - not just on political positions (see above) - but the whole package... electability will take care of itself. Because at that point, you've got a candidate who truly has the support of the base, who has gotten voters excited, and who widely represents what the party stands for. A good, solid, socially liberal and fiscally conservative Democrat could garner the support of the left (including voters who bailed and voted for Nader last time around) as well as those who tend toward the center-right. And honestly, folks - even though it may not seem that way sometimes, that range covers a majority in this country, and more importantly for the election, the voting majority.

2) "Electability" is a fickle mistress. Think back to 2000. Was there anyone theoretically more electable than Gore? He won, yes... but not decisively enough to keep the evildoers from stealing the election. His support was fairly lukewarm, for a number of reasons... a not insignificant one being that, as Molly Ivins would say, he lacked Elvis. Kerry? Lacks Elvis bigtime. What is electable today is poison tomorrow. Chasing it is like trying to find the end of that rainbow... looks like it's easy, but it's always moving...

3) There is no doubt in my mind that this year's Presidential election is going to be brutal. Bush's handlers will bring out every dirty trick, every smear possible against whichever candidate the Democrats choose - it's what Rove was programmed for. Against that, we need to have a fighter, someone with fire, someone who will take a stand. Kerry, as terrific of a person as he might be is not - has never been - that man. He has rubber-stamped nearly every Bush travesty... from his shameful (and unconstitutional) vote to give Congressional power to declare war to the Executive branch to his votes FOR the Patriot Act, FOR "No Child Left Behind", FOR tax cuts (at a time when our debt is spiralling out of control). This is a man who, in response to a Democrat's outrage at Bush's theft of the presidency in 2000, said "Stop crying in your teacups. It isn’t going to change. Get over it."

I'm not over it. I will never Get. Over. It. And neither will a lot of people. How many dead, now, in Iraq? Ours? And theirs?

Andrew Sullivan, after the New Hampshire primary, stated very clearly what our choice this primary season comes down to:

"Dean did a little worse than the exit polls suggested. But his concession speech was easily the best of the night. It was authentic, uplifting, and red meat to the Democrats. It actually rang true to me as Dean's real view of the world. It isn't one I entirely share, to say the least, but it is genuine, represents a lot of people in this country and deserves a hearing. He seemed more affable than recently as well. He smiled more. He spoke more calmly but not ineffectively. He's real. Kerry is so fake, in contrast, I cannot believe that Democratic primary voters will continue to support him in such numbers. Dean gave arguments. Kerry spoke in packaged Shrumisms. Dean has a vision. Kerry has ambition. If I were a Democrat, I'd vote for Dean over Kerry in a heartbeat. To my mind, this is a battle between the Democratic party's soul and its fear."

All of this is why I am for the eminently electable Howard Dean, either until he gets the nomination and becomes the 44th President of the United States, or until he decides his run is over. I will fight like hell for him until one of those things happens. And if, sadly, we Democrats ignore our soul and give in to our fear, I will swallow it all, and fall in line. If that happens, hopefully we won't all be sporting these cheery bumper stickers:

Dated Dean. Married Kerry. Woke up with Bush.