Massachusetts, please vote for Martha Coakley

What is up with Massachusetts? I get that the Democrats are often too lily-livered, that the Healthcare bill lacks the teeth we would want, that they did not go after the banks hard enough, that they did not spend enough money bailing out our economy, and that we continue to fight a losing war in Afghanistan for reasons Rudolph Giuliani can't even remember anymore (how many terrorist attacks happened under George W. Bush, Rudy?).

I have been away from the blogging both because I've been busy, but also because I've been tired of watching us all act like idiots. People on the right demonstrate an ideologically driven short-term memory, people in the center demonstrate an even greater short-term, fly-by-the-seat-of-one's-pants sensitivity, and people on the left have a short-term memory, lack-of-common-sense about how to fight on, unite, and compromise when necessary. After a couple of great months at the end of 2008, I returned to being sick of being a U.S. citizen, or being member of the human race really.

This sudden turn of events that are pro-Brown in Massachusetts made me even sicker. This weekend John McCain sent out a brief email soliciting support for Brown by saying "one of America's first colonies started in Massachusetts with a small group of citizens determined to lead and resolved to make a difference. Together they made history and overcame impossible odds when nobody thought they could. On Tuesday, we have an opportunity to do it all over again." Are we really going to let conservatives write the history of Massachusetts? I would like to remind Massachusetts readers that they made the mistake of sicking Mitt Romney on the world, but they were also home to some of the greatest liberal thinkers and actors in U.S. history. For all their scandal, the Kennedys served the U.S. faithfully, loyally, intelligently, and, yes, liberally for so long. Don't let Ted Kennedy's dreams of healthcare reform die with him. Don't forget that John F. Kennedy was a liberal who called Martin Luther King, Jr. in prison. Don't deny the radical visions of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Massachusetts first legalized gay marriage, proving that some states in the U.S. really could support equality for all. Instead of caving to the inchoate babble of the rest of the U.S., Massachusetts should show what the rest of the U.S. can learn from the legacy of Massachusetts liberalism.

Really, do you want to return power to the do-not-tax, but spend-in-debt-to-China, cowboy-diplomatic, socially asphyxiated Republicans who got us into two wars and a global financial meltdown? Our economic, military, and terrorism woes are the fault of Republicans, a party whose 2008 vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, didn't think Massachusetts was "real America." The Democrats' problem is that they have no ability to stand together and fight for what needs to be done to turn this country around, and so yes, we have a compromised healthcare reform bill. But some reform is better than nothing. Please, for the love of that "America" that fought for equality and justice for all, please vote for Martha Coakley.

And this is why I haven't been blogging in months. Listening to the political conversations in the U.S. makes me sound just as angry, sound-byte, simplistic, and trivial as everyone else. Please let 2010 be a better decade.