Life in the Third Layer

Tonight a small group of mostly Democrats gathered in a room at the local community college to watch President Obama give the State of the Union Address. The event was sponsored by both Democrat and Republican student organizations. We gathered about half an hour early and talked about what we wanted to hear him say, and we were happy afterward that he covered our concerns. I was particularly pleased, since his speech proved that he has been reading my e-mails.

During the discussion before the speech, one member stood and declared himself to be a Republican. We see a lot of these in southwest Virginia, so we were not frightened. He did not have an issue that he wanted to see President Obama address in the speech, but he did have an idea to present. He pointed out that we were all Democrats except himself, and he asked us to crash the Republican primary and vote for Ron Paul so that the Republicans would go to the convention with a split vote. He had some rationale for this being a good thing, based on his assertion that he would never vote for Romney or Gingrich, and somehow a split ticket would make the Republicans give him a better option — presumably Ron Paul.

Virginia has an open primary, and on March 6 Republicans here will choose between two candidates, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Perry, Santorum, Gingrich, and Huntsman failed to qualify for the ballot, sued the Virginia State Board of Elections and the Virginia GOP for an exception to the rules, and lost.

I am a Virginia Democrat who knows from working at the polls that when we have a primary it is standard practice for Republicans to cast spoiler votes in our primary, I know it is possible for us to do this dastardly deed as much as it is for Republicans to do it to us. That is, it would be possible for us if:

• we thought governing was a game that you should game
• we had no ethics, and
• we didn’t mind being on the phonebanking lists for the next 10 years as Republicans.

I’m not saying that no Democrat ever voted in a Republican primary, but I am not aware of any Democrat ever doing that. Certainly we do not do organized get-out-the-vote party crashing. We could not, because we are, well, Democrats.

Most particularly we should not even consider voting in this Republican primary to advantage Ron Paul, a racist sexist isolationist snapping turtle who throughout his career has bitten the hand — that would be the government hand — that feeds him. And if a Republican wants Ron Paul to win, he should be out campaigning for Ron Paul, not trying to finesse an unethical spoiler vote in the primary from outside his own party.

Making a long story short, I am voting for Michael Osborne. If you want to know why, read on.

In the 5th District House of Delegates race in Virginia, we have two candidates:

• Republican Israel O’Quinn, community and government relations director for Food City’s parent company, K-VA-T Food Stores
• Independent Michael Osborne, a former pastor educated at Graham Bible College and Liberty University who owns Our Father’s House Christian Bookstore and regards his major disagreement points with Democrats “the moral issues.”

I have read the newspaper interviews, but I have not heard Israel O’Quinn speak. If you haven’t noticed, Republicans aren’t making house calls. They are speaking to their own choirs and not very available to the public. I have bumped into Michael Osborne twice without even trying.

The first time that I met Osborne, who likes to be called “Oz,” was at a candidate forum at Virginia Highlands Community College. He did not talk about the issues, just about being a minister and a Christian, and I think he mentioned coal. Then someone asked him about Cap and Trade, and he stated that he was against it. I asked him if he knew of any places in the United States or elsewhere that Cap and Trade was being used, and he did not. I told him there were such places and suggested that he do a Google search and inform himself on the issue. Then I put Oz in my book as a social conservative who did not have any knowledge of other issues and decided I wouldn’t vote for anyone in the 5th District race for Virginia House of Delegates.

Tonight I got to talk with Oz again when he attended the Washington County Democrats potluck at Abingdon High School. I saw him come into the room, and he came directly to me and told me he had done as I suggested and informed himself on Cap and Trade. We talked about Cap and Trade for a few minutes, then about energy in general, and about the future of energy, the Keystone XL pipeline, and associated ideas, like national energy independence. He was still not incredibly well-informed on a wide range of the energy issues, but to be fair these are national issues and not state issues. More to the point, he had remembered my question, he had learned about Cap and Trade, and he was talking with me about it.

Personally, I think Oz would make a better Democrat than he would a Republican, since I have not met a Republican in the past 15 years who was interested, willing to learn something, or willing to discuss an issue with someone who disagreed.

His opponent Israel O’Quinn is a Republican with a possible personal interest in privatizing the ABC stores in Virginia, which is an economic mistake at least equal to the car tax fiasco. He will be a rubber stamp for the regressive administration now in Richmond, otherwise he would not be their pick or have their solid — and impressively well-funded — backing. There is a chance that with Oz we will have a delegate who informs himself on the issues, thinks about what is best for southwest Virginia, and listens to his constituents and not just to his political and corporate sponsors.