So, Super Tuesday is finally here. Thanks to the withdrawal of John Edwards, I have a few decisions to make today. First off, should I even bother to vote at all?

It wasn’t that long ago that I was a registered ‘no preference,’ meaning I was ineligible to vote in New York State primaries. I didn’t actually register as a Democrat until after the rat bastard Republicans wasted a lot of time and money impeaching Bill Clinton.

It takes a while for a change of party to kick in here, so the first Presidential primary I had a chance to vote in was 2004. I voted for Howard Dean and, well, true to form, he didn’t win. So, this’ll be my second crack at putting the curse on a candidate (technically, I suppose, I already cursed Edwards, so maybe I can bring down two people this primary season).

It’s worse, too, because, unlike the Republican primary, this one isn’t winner take all. If it was, I could safely vote for whoever the hell I wanted to (or not at all) ‘cuz Hillary is probably gonna win here. But for the primary, my vote actually represents some tiny fraction of a delegate (depending on how many people vote).

In New York, there are a total of 281 delegates for Democrats. 151 of them are allocated proportionally based on the results of the primary within each Congressional district, either 81 or 85 delegates (I’ve read both; I don’t know if anybody actually understands how the fuck this works, to be honest) are elected at the State Democratic Convention in May (presumably, whoever gets the most delegates in the primary will walk away with them), and 49 (or 45, again, depending on which number you believe) delegates are unpledged super delegates, who will vote whichever way the wind blows (probably most of them will go for Clinton, ‘cuz, well, she’s a bit of a player in the NYS Democratic Party).

That’s not confusing enough, of course, so in addition to selecting a presidential candidate, Democratic voters in each Congressional district can also vote for 5 or 6 delegates. We can choose delegates who are supporting the candidate we vote for, or we could, say, vote for Obama while voting for 5 delegates committed to Clinton. Why would we do that? I have no idea, but we could (we could even do it by mistake, and never know we did it). And, not every candidate has a full slate of delegates in every district. So then they pick the delegates some other way. Or something.

In each Congressional district, a candidate has to get 15 percent of the vote to receive any delegates. And, yes, there will still be six people on the ballot: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Kucinich, Richardson and Biden.

So, assuming I decide to vote, then what? I’m inclined to vote for Edwards anyway, but is that just throwing my vote away?

Do I vote for Obama? He was against Iraq as an Illinois State Senator, but once he was elected to the US Senate, he never saw a war appropriations bill he didn’t like. He also seems to have a propensity to duck the tough votes, and declared the Alito filibuster dead before he grudgingly voted against cloture. As Sue posted the other day, on the campaign trail, he touts a bill that started out requiring all nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of any size leak, no matter how small. This came about after a plant operator – Exelon Corp – was found to have not disclosed leaks at one of its nuclear power plants. But the reality is that Obama ‘compromised’ the bill to death until it became just a suggestion that maybe the plant owners would let people know about a leak, if they felt like it. Obama’s staff insists that this has nothing to do with the fact that, since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon have contributed at least $227,000 to Obama’s campaigns for the US Senate and for president, two top Exelon officials are among his largest fund-raisers, and another Obama donor is chairman of both Exelon and the Nuclear Energy Institute (the Nuke industry’s lobbying group). In fact, Exelon’s support for Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate, and Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon.

Obama’s health care plan leaves about 15 million people uninsured, and, according to Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T. (via Krugman):

“a plan…resembling the Obama plan, would cover 23 million of those currently uninsured, at a taxpayer cost of $102 billion per year. An otherwise identical plan with mandates would cover 45 million of the uninsured — essentially everyone — at a taxpayer cost of $124 billion. Over all, the Obama-type plan would cost $4,400 per newly insured person, the Clinton-type plan only $2,700.

In other words, as Krugman points out:

One plan achieves more or less universal coverage; the other, although it costs more than 80 percent as much, covers only about half of those currently uninsured.

Then, of course, there’s Obama’s rather maddening tendency to embrace the Republican frame on many issues (Social Security is in crisis, “Harry and Louise” mandated insurance, etc.) while invoking the name of St. Reagan (not that he agreed with Reagan, of course).

Perhaps the biggest problem I have with Obama is something that doesn’t really have much to do with him. It’s the whining ignorance of so many of his supporters (not all; probably not even most. The asshole minority always stands out, though). They hated Edwards, even as their candidate rushed to incorporate much of Edwards’ platform into his own campaign, and whine at every perceived slight to Obama, no matter how tiny or obscure.

But then there’s Hillary. Hillary, who gave a great speech against giving Bush the authority to use force against Iraq, and then voted to go ahead and give it to him anyway – and refuses to say, “hey, I was wrong.” Like Obama, she continues to vote to fund the occupation, and hasn’t exactly been leading the charge to get us the hell out of there. She didn’t stand up, as Chris Dodd did, and threaten to veto retroactive immunity for telecom companies (neither did Obama). Hillary voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran (a vote Obama conveniently missed), and is beholden to any number of huge corporate donors and lobbyists – including the insurance companies. Her healthcare plan, while it appears to cover everyone and has subsidies for low income families, is still not a single-payer system, and is still a boon to her friends in the insurance industry.

I would fully expect a President Hillary Clinton to do any number of things that I would totally disagree with (just as her husband did). But my biggest fear is that she’ll be goaded into bombing somebody, just to prove she’s as tough as a man. Maybe I’m a wimp, but I wouldn’t mind a little less ‘tough guy,’ and a little more ‘gentle woman.’

There’s a lot to dislike about Hillary. Her posturing, her political calculation, her inability to admit she was wrong (reminds you of somebody else, no?), just for starters. Plus, I’ve been told for almost 20 years now that I should despise her, and that’s sunk in a bit. I wonder, if she was a man – or even just anybody else – would I find her ‘bad’ characteristics as discomfiting?

How much of my unease with Hillary is that I don’t find her particularly likable? And, do I really want to base my vote on who is more likable (who I’d rather ‘have a beer with,’ so to speak)?

Then there’s the issue of – dare I say it – ‘electability.’ I can think of few things more frightening than President George W. Bush – but President John McCain is definitely one of ’em (President Cheney would be another). McCain is a crazy megalomaniac who wants endless war. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton – no matter what you may think of her personally – is absolutely despised by wingnuts and liberals alike. She may be the one person who can drive the wingers to the polls while keeping the ‘progressive purists’ at home – or voting for Nader – this year.

Not that Obama won’t engender a certain amount of hatred and bigotry. There are plenty of crackers, I’m sure, who will refuse to vote for ‘one of them.’ But I think the prospect of a smart woman – especially this particular smart woman – is a lot scarier to a lot more people than a slightly brown, ‘ethnically diverse’ man. Hell, everybody loves Tiger Woods, after all. Smart ambitious women, though…. They’re scary bitches. If you don’t believe me, ask Maureen Dowd.

There’s no debating the fact that the young folks are on the Obama bandwagon, and it’s nice to see the kids all excited about politics. And many of us, um, more mature folks are just plain sick of hearing the name Clinton, I think. Plus, all the celebrities and most of the Kennedys are pulling for Obama, too. Yep, it’s ‘cool’ to be an Obama supporter, and who doesn’t wanna be cool? I’m not sure why he’s cool. I guess it’s ‘cuz he’s different, and he’s gonna “change” everything (although, I can’t figure out how he’s different, to be honest. I find his rhetoric to be the same pablum I’ve heard a million times before). Frankly, I think he and Hillary are just about indistinguishable. If Hillary is Republican-lite, Obama is Hillary-lite.

So, anyhow, after lots of hand-wringing and angst, I’m still no closer to figuring out who the hell to vote for. It would have been so much easier had Edwards stuck around for another week. And it’ll be a lot easier come November, too, because either of these two would make a much better preznit than these idiot old white Republican men.

Today, though, I continue to be at a loss. If you’re in one of the 22 Super Tuesday states, I hope you’ve figured out what to do, and that you’re certain (if not happy) about your choice.

As for me, I might just have to sit this one out.