I’m a Democrat. I’ve voted Democratic, for the most part, for candidates for local, state and national elections for almost fifty years. Sometimes it’s with a little misgiving, as in the McGovern campaign, where he only carried one state and DC against the likes of Nixon. And sometimes it was with enormous enthusiasm as with the Kennedy campaigns.

It’s been sad beyond words at times, especially when RFK was assassinated. And it’s not been without disappointment, either with failed elections like Al Gore and John Kerry, a failed campaign like Teddy Kennedy, or a failed presidency like Jimmy Carter. But I’ve never made to feel that I didn’t belong in my Party.

Unfortunately, one campaign’s advocates, and particularly those who are using the blogosphere to state their views, have finally gotten to me, the way no Republican ever has; not the CREEP supporting Nixon camp nor the Christian zealots that helped force Bush-II down our throats.

I’m going to say this once: it’s not per se bigotry or racism to honestly believe that some other candidate would be the better standard bearer for the Democratic Party and would be the better person to lead the country.

It’s not pandering or disloyalty to question the qualifications and motivation of any candidate and to examine their background, education, sources of income and support, voting record, and associations. To raise questions or concerns about a candidate is not grounds for any member of the Party to be disinvited to participate, encouraged to leave, or to have their motives, judgment, or sanity impugned.

The invective I see hurled at large numbers of members of the Party in good standing is perhaps unprecedented especially when amplified by the great megaphone of the Internet. Many of us have been around longer than those who are the loudest. When members of our Party say they would prefer that the right of participation in the electoral process be protected and cherished, it would be well to understand the motives of members who have seen not one but two successive Presidential elections stolen by chicanery and outright thievery because we didn’t have a theft-proof majority.

Make no mistake about it, friends, the right to vote is under assault by those who would establish a “permanent majority” so as to make constitutional checks against tyranny, oppression, and partisanship a nullity. To join in the same tactics of those who would strip the rights of the elderly, the poor, the non-white population who are otherwise as equally qualified as are each and every one of you, is to join in a reprehensible campaign to place the government in the hands, not of those who consent to be governed, but of those who can afford to pay for their privileges and advantages.

Many of you who have cried, “But the rules… “, have probably not read them. You might want to since they provide for hearing, compromise, fair treatment, and for seating all or part of delegations in precisely the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Certainly, the voters in Florida and Michigan, and those who voted in non-binding primary states have some expectation of having their views represented and should not be punished for actions taken by others including the other Party.

Frankly, extending the franchise generally, even within the Party, would only strengthen our ability to succeed in elections where broad appeal to the sentiment of the voters is the key to success. To say that someone’s opinion shouldn’t count merely because it is different than yours is the antithesis of what we should hold dearest. Alienation of significant numbers of those who identify with the Democratic Party is only a plan to return to the sidelines of governance where “State Secrets” and “Unitary Executive” trump “Congressional Oversight” nearly every time.

If you want to continue for four more years of frustration and inaction against an entrenched and highly partisan administration all you need do is discount and disown a significant body of the party in a way that is designed to have that segment read out of the Party so that they will sit on their hands in the general election or vote for the other candidate. Nobody has a lock on truth in an election. If you cannot reach across differences in the Party and embrace your fellow Democrats, you have no hope of reaching across differences beyond our Party in attempting to govern this country, no matter what the campaign slogans may say.

Divide us at your peril.

Fifty Years a Democrat