Why I am a Democrat (I guess)

First, I don't trust organized political parties.

And what kind of party could consider even briefly as a viable candidate for their nomination, Sarah Palin; patently unprepared, apparently a glib imbecile and unquestionably a craven quitter (trading governing Alaska for opining on Fox $pews). This is a party of Oz, the moneyed interests behind the curtain, dangling an earnest puppet in front to read their lines. The formula was perfected with Reagan, who though only a B list actor in Hollywood, could mimic Gary Cooper good enough for government work. Bush Sr. could not read his lines properly and went off script occasionally - note: real-life experience can ruin an otherwise perfectly good puppet. Dole is nobody's fool, though he did play one briefly on television during the campaign. W offered the masters again a perfect, natural puppet: seemingly earnest, incurious, compliant, while projecting the proper independent spirit. Though occasionally fumbling, he never deviated from the words given him by the cue cards, teleprompter, or earphone. No, that is a party of party-goers, socially comfortable people who can mock a purple heart earned while their candidate never left home, people who can question well-documented birth records while dismissing their candidate's "lost" service records, people who cling to trickle-down economic theories that have been long abandoned by their original proponents. Can't their little minds maintain even a foolish consistency? An unexamined life may still be worth living, but why not spend some of it thinking?

There's always independent, but groups have more influence than even the most wise and eloquent individual. Time to get with the program.