It's Debate-tastic!

I'm sitting here right now, watching the Democratic debate and I noticed something quite odd and frankly really disturbing.

So we have these three "front runners," right? Hillary, Barack and John. Let me say this before going any further: I can't tell you how much I want to have a woman or a minority running our country. I think it's absolutely embarrassing that the only people who have held the position of President in this country have been white males. Truly it is.

That being said, I also believe steadfastly that the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman is no reason to vote for her. The same goes for Barack Obama being African-American. If I end up not voting for either of these candidates in the primary, I will honestly feel a little guilty for not having voted for the woman or the black man. But I can't let that sway my vote away from someone who I believe will best represent my beliefs and who will best serve to reverse the atrocious policies that this current abomination of an administration has set upon the suffering people of this country.

But I digress - see, I do this whole digression thing a lot.

Anyway, so what I find so disturbing about this debate I'm currently watching is that the aforementioned front runners are the ones that don't sound real to me. I'm sitting here listening to Obama - a man I saw be so down to earth on The Daily Show - sound so incredibly like a "politician" that I'm starting not to believe anything he says. I'm listening to Hillary Clinton give extremely robotic, very rehearsed-sounding answers that just don't ring true at all. I'm watching John Edwards push his compassionate Southern persona so hard that I'm really starting to wonder if that persona is actually him.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden is standing on the other side of the stage from Edwards, Obama & Clinton (with Chris Dodd thrown in between Obama and Edwards in an ever-so-thinly-veiled attempt to say, "Hey, we care about these other guys!") sounding LIKE A REAL FUCKING PERSON. Bill Richardson is talking about how we treat teachers like crap and underpay them and he actually sounds passionate about something that he is making me believe that he FUCKING BELIEVES IN. Right now, Chris Dodd is speaking about Musharraf, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he's almost getting angry, he's raising his voice, and that makes me thrilled because he actually seems like he FUCKING CARES ABOUT SOMETHING.

Now, I know that this isn't all that matters when choosing our President. Dennis Kucinich, as much as I believe in so much of what he believes in, has done very little in his political career to make me confident in his ability to actually get enough done as President.

The point is this - I can't believe that the state of politics in this country is such that the leading Democratic candidates - I'm not even going to broach the subject of republicans, 'cause I could go off about that for hours - are the only ones on this stage right now that I don't think are being straight with me. (I have to say, John Edwards actually showed some life a minute ago, and I have always thought that, of the three front runners, Edwards is definitely the most real.) It just makes very little sense to me, and even more so, it makes me really sad. I want my President to be passionate about issues. I want these candidates to get fired up and pissed about how badly Bush and his cronies have fucked up this country. I want them to make jokes and act like a REAL FUCKING PERSON. Don't we want a real goddamn human being running our country?!?

Ugh. Okay, I'm gonna stop right now, because I'm obviously getting worked up. And I'm not even saying that I'm not going to vote for Obama or Edwards - I'm sorry, I'm not voting for Clinton. I just don't think she's going to do even marginally enough to change this country, and I think she's by far the most vulnerable against republicans. I'm just saying that I wish that the world wasn't this way.

But then again, there are a lot of things in this world that I would change if I could. And maybe this is a minor one. But I just got fired up about it and had to write.