Shystee endorses John Edwards. Why?

Because I hate shit sandwiches. Having to choose the lesser of two evils, even in an effing primary, does not sound very Democratic to me.

I thought this year I would break my longstanding tradition of “protest votes” [I call it voting my conscience] so I switched from the Green Party to Democratic so I could vote in the CA primary. Then, just a couple of days later, John Edwards “suspended” his campaign. Thanks, dude!

The realization started building, and then I read something Lambert wrote: the fucking corporate media decided the election. By the time I am allowed to make my selection, in this our land of freedom and choice, the choices have been made for me.

The Progressive Blogosphere largely sat this out in the last year, reserving judgement (some more reserved than others) until the judgement was already made by the corporate media we are supposed to counterbalance. MoveOn.org did the same, forcing me to choose one of two choices I did not want to make.

Rather than pushing the candidates to embrace progressive values and policies, bloggers and MoveOn are now stuck with reinforcing one or the other bad option.

Not me. My vote for Edwards may be “wasted”, I won’t get the vicarious thrill of victory but that’s OK.

Politics for me is not about identification with leadership figures. It’s about policies that will make government work for the citizens. It’s about standing up to the power of corporations to destroy the earth and people’s health. John Edwards may have a fancy haircut and a giant house, but at least he talked about the dangers of unfettered corporate greed.

The best I can hope for is that Edwards might get a couple delegates out of it who can force Hillbama to be more progressive. Otherwise, maybe the number of people who still voted for Edwards in the face of people yelling “you MUST choose one of the shit sandwiches!” will send a message to the eventual Candidate. It might strengthen Edwards’ bargaining position for a cabinet spot.

Either that or Hillbama will just take the corporate cash and ignore Edwards anyway. My conscience will still be clear… until November.