Burning Bridges

With some minor editorial and grammatical tweaking, my Twitter rant from earlier today: 


I am not a Republican. I used to be a liberal Democrat. Then I underwent a conversion. And, over time, became a "fiscal conservative/social...moderate w libertarian leanings". (See my Twitter bio.)


I neither like nor trust the parties. I think the RNC regularly finds ways to shoot itself in the foot. I think it has a rigged primary system and some weird Stockholm Syndrome thing going with the DNC and progressive, big government policies. I think it is often completely deaf, dumb and blind as to what "the base" wants. I will therefore never truly consider myself a Republican


That said, I have found myself, since late 2004, voting primarily for Republican candidates. And I anticipate this will continue on through November of this year. My Number One goal is to vote the current President out of office. Not just because he is a Democrat. Because I believe his ideas and policies are consistently wrong-headed and harmful to our country and because I believe he is a terrible leader. 


I would love to roll into November backing a strong GOP candidate whose political philosophy and policies align most closely with mine. But most important at this juncture is that he be able to mount a successful challenge to the incumbent. I've said all along who I expected the nominee to be. Not because he was my first choice but because that was my read on how things would break. I waited and watched and hoped to see a proven and ideologically more suitable candidate step up and show he was up to the challenge. I haven't seen that happen. 


So...I am where I am with this. I don't at all begrudge others their prerogative to pull for their guy and won't try to tell them not to. But I see a lot of fur flying and a lot of broad brushes and ugly labels being applied willy-nilly. 


I get the frustration and even some of the anger. But folks might want to be a bit more mindful of the bridges they're burning. Because when push comes to shove, about 95% of us* would like to see Obama sent packing come November. And that's going to require collaboration rather than demolition. #JustSayin

*"us" being the people I follow and interact with most on Twitter