The best take I've seen on tomorrow's special election is below, quoted from an email (forwarded to me by theater critic Chris Rohmann) penned by Peter Vickery. I am not a Green Party member nor do I share every one of Vickery's priorities–for me the transcendent issues are civil liberties, the financial crisis and health care reform–but I certainly sympathize with Vickery's viewpoint here:
Tuesday's special election presents a challenge to Greens. At difficult times like these I turn for guidance to the words of Woody Allen, who wrote:
"One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
When I go into the booth at the North Amherst fire station after work on Tuesday, I intend to vote for despair and utter hopelessness. In other words, I'm voting for the Democrat.
In reality I didn't have to think too long and hard about it. Scott Brown is a global warming denialist who opposes marriage equality. To quote another great humorist, VP Joe Biden, let me say that again (after a dramatic pause, looking straight into the camera): Scott Brown is a global warming denialist who opposes marriage equality.
Slam dunk, as we Americans say.
I shall be casting my vote simply to keep Scott Brown out of the U.S. Senate. I would vote for Scott Brown's Democratic opponent even if it was Stewie Griffin, Family Guy's diminutive evil genius bent on world domination. … In real life, I will even go so far as to vote for Martha Coakley.
It isn't that the Democrat is a great candidate, it's that the Republican agenda has become, here in the Twilight of the Neocons, something far more intolerable than that of the old-school conservatives they crowded out. Be sure to vote for despair tomorrow.
