One Without the Other?

I'm beginning to find myself in an unusual position.  I'm starting to come around to the idea of voting for Obama (as opposed to voting third party or just voting against McCain/Palin).  I don't believe for one second those ads that suggest he's going to cut taxes because I just don't believe anyone will be able to cut taxes right now--there is just too much to pay for.  But I think a lot of his positions have become more clear recently.  More importantly, I think he will have an ability to pick advisors who can give him sound, solid advice, and I think he might actually be humble enough to follow it.  I'm not sure it matters how "smart" our President is; I think it matters how smart the advisors and Cabinet are.  To be sure, I still disagree with some of his platform, but I think he is sober (I don't mean in the sense of "not drunk"  I mean in the sense of "not radical.") and has some essential integrity.  I used to think the Obama thing was just a cult of personality, and it still definitely has those overtones.  I also recognize that he's a politician, and he's said some things to pander that he pretty clearly doesn't believe, but they all do that. 

And he hasn't been guilty of most of the things that so irritate me from Democrats.  He has not suggested, and I don't even get the feeling that he's ever thought, some of the grotesquely sexist things about Sarah Palin that Democrats have said.  I am of the opinion, from having watched him quite a lot, lo! these many years of campaigning, that he is not what is usually meant by "elitist," i.e., I do not believe that he thinks his education makes him a better person than other people, even though very many Democrats are elitist and do openly think this, even going so far as to accuse conservatives and Republicans of not reading books or whatever.  I think, frankly, Obama is smarter than most of his fan base, because he's smart enough to know better than that.  I've also been impressed by his repeated efforts to turn the campaign away from the stupid shit nobody except the press cares about, like flag pins and Bill Ayers, and to turn it back to issues.

So, I feel OK with voting for Obama.  I did read some opinion column somewhere that suggested that Obama was probably running this time more to prepare for 2012 then because he really wanted to be president right now, and I think that's why in the beginning, some of his policy ideas were very vague.

But I don't want to vote for the rest of the Democratic party.  I dislike Biden and find him hypocritical; actually, I find Democrats who like him somewhat hypocritical, because he frequently mangles what he's trying to say just as badly as Bush does, only Democrats seem to think it's cute when Biden does it or something.  And Biden has never given us the entirely useful word "misunderestimated."  He did vote for the Defense of Marriage Act, though, the bastard, even though he criticizes McCain/Palin for wanting to inflict their religious beliefs on the country.  Oh, and what exactly was the Defense of Marriage Act, then, Joe?  Hmm?

I don't want to vote for the Democrats in Congress who have sat around doing nothing for these past couple of years, all the while blaming every failure on the Republicans.  I know the blame game is part of Washington partisan politics, but I also think they should have the balls to rise above it once in a while, particularly when the country is in real crisis. 

I don't want to vote for the obviously Democrat-leaning people at Slate and Salon and similar publications that are becoming more and more insulting toward those who do not agree with them.  I don't want to vote in a party that boasts so many members who are such incredible assholes.

But how do you vote for Obama but not the rest of it?  If I vote for Obama, am I seriously going to have to listen to these people for the next 2 years, by which time they may have pissed enough people off that they lose seats in a midterm election.  I mean, let's face it, Obama is winning in large part because a) the Bush years have been disastrous and b) Palin is disastrous.  Neither of those things guarantees the Democrats much of anything, except for probably this election.

It's quite a dilemma.  How do you get a man you think will be a competent president without also getting the assholes who adore him?