Last week, I crossed party lines to vote for Obama in the Missouri primary. Last night, I noted that I’m increasingly likely to do the same in November.
This evolution is more painful than you might imagine … if you could only hear the cacophony in my head.
“How can you do this?,” my conservative conscience screams. “You thoroughly distrust government’s ability to be all things to all people. You have seen and read far too many examples of the failures of public policy to fix what ails us. You further believe two strong parties are better than one and for that reason, among others, you decided to fight for the GOP’s renewal. You have drafted letters to GOP leaders and supported organizations devoted to moderating the party’s meaner instincts. Are you now just tossing that out the window?”
“Calm down,” I tell my conservative conscience. “There’s more than ideology, more than party at stake here. When I committed resources to fight for the GOP’s renewal, I also pledged never to be a blind party loyalist. That means, sometimes, I will vote for candidates who defy party and ideology. To do otherwise would be to abdicate my conscience to the conscience of others. As much as I believe in the wisdom of crowds, I also know we can’t realize the crowd’s wisdom without the diverse and independent contributions of its members. If I simply ‘go along to get along,’ I don’t serve the crowd, I fail it.”
After that exchange, my conservative conscience is quiet, but it doesn’t rest for long. Instead, it circles and glares at me and then strikes again … repeatedly.
Accordingly – if it’s helpful to other conservatives who are waging similar debates in their minds; or if it’s insightful for progressives who are perplexed by the growing number of Republicans crossing party lines to vote for the Senator from Illinois; or if it’s simply, solely cathartic for me – I’m now in the proces of writing and will publish here, over the next several days, a multi-part series on my growing fealty for Obama and the rationalization process it has sparked.
As always, reader comments are welcomed. Challenge me. Rebuke me. Never let me off the hook. Make me work for what I am starting to believe.