I am a union organizer.  I consider it my job to fight corporate evil by organizing working people to value their work, fight for control over thier worklives and stand together in Solidarity.  I am dedicated to the organizing of all disempowered persons to the power of collective action.  

Much of my work involved finding strangers' doors, knocking on them, praying someone answers the door and then trying through conversation to engage them in a process.  I see unions, traditional and non-traditional, as the best answer out there for directly effecting the lives of the poor working class and their families.

to work towards goals we commonly believe in (even if the Obama campaign may not)

Many Obama supporters have said they support universal healthcare. Many Obama supporters have said they support affordable housing and economic sustainability. I am not so stupid that I don't see the common ground. I am a pragmatist. I don't want to see the Democrats divided.

However, I can't sit idly by and see the election stolen by a wolf in sheeps clothing.

country with every fiber of my being.
I care about the environment.
I care about poverty.
I care about global warming.
I care about worker's rights.
I care about a woman's right to chose.
I despair over the death and destruction we brought to the people of Iraq.
I despair over the death and destructions of our soldiers for this effin lie of a war. Those who are dead. And those who are all but dead at Walter Reed.
I have always cared about these things.
Substitute this war for any other war we fought in the last 30 years.

I will vote for a Democratic. Always have. Always will.
Republicans are death, hate and murder of everything that is good and right and just.
Therefore, any Democrat who says they will vote for McCain is a Republican p.o.s. and should be forced to wear a sign on their ass that says "I am an ignorant moran who hates my country."
I will call them this from this point forward.
I will most likely be banned because of this.
I no longer care.
McCain is a evil son a bitch who will take us to hell for another four years if he gets his way.
Not worthy to stand even in the presense of Barack or HIllary.

Sorry. Not exactly how I was supposed to do this.  

Why am I a Democrat?  I have been asked this question numerous times here because I have espoused views that run contrary to what may be the mainstream attitudes on this site.  Generally, these questions have been posed in an accusatory manner so I have ignored them.  Since yours is not, I will be very happy to answer.

I guess my reason for being a Democrat could best be summarized by the words of Gene Taylor.  Gene Taylor represents SE Mississippi, a district that likely would have a Republican congressman if he were not in the seat.  Taylor is probably the closest thing we have today to an old fashioned boll weevil Democrat.  

Taylor had been asked on numerous occasions why he remained a Democrat when so many other Southern Democrats crossed party lines.  He said the he believed the Democratic party still best represented the interests of working people.

My bottom line is Taylor's bottom line.  I do value and respect the interests of capital, but I believe Republican policies too often show a clear preference for the value of capital over the value of labor.  Certainly, Republican values and policies have changed over the years, but on the issue of valuing capital over labor (or even over consumer/public interest and safety), the GOP has been remarkably consistent over time.

However, after spending months on the left netroots, I realize that, despite whatever other principles we may share, too many people on these pages share views that are an anathema to me and I'm beginning to feel that the numbers holding these views in the Democratic party are much larger than I thought previously.  I don't know what to do about that.  I have identified as a Democrat for over 30 years and first voted for president in 1976.  I would have a very hard time switching to the Republican party, but it may be time for me to more appropriately consider myself an independent.  Perhaps I find myself feeling a little like those Libertarians who can't call themselves Republicans because of their profound disagreements with certain elements of the GOP who demand conformity to certain social "values."  

I believe in fiscal responsibility ala PayGo.

I am a Democrat because I want the government to spend my tax dollars to make things better for ordinary people in this country and in other countries.  We are the ones talking about health care, about education, poverty, veterans rights, social security, etc.

I am a Democrat because the Democratic Party is the only real major political party.  The Republican Party is organized crime on an international scale.

Lots more reasons but you get the drift.

However, this is the first time in my life that I've been so utterly discouraged by the prospect of such a wholly inadequate candidate, that I've seriously considered not voting in the general election. The Florida/Michigan issue just exacerbates that feeling. The only, only, only saving grace for Obama to me, should he be the nominee, is that McCain is worse, and our country is in such trouble that it will not survive even one term of him, that I would be forced to vote for Obama. It's tragic that so many of us will vote for Obama ONLY because he is the anti-McCain. It's certainly not a position that I expected to have in 2008.

I am a stay at home mom and student living in rural Wisconsin.  I have three daughters--10 year old twins and an 8 year old--and one son who is 5.  My husband and I were highschool sweethearts and have been married for almost 10 years.

I've told the story before, but to boil it down, I am a Democrat because of two people:  My abusive, mentally ill mother, and Bill Clinton.  

I am currently working on my Bachelor's degree in Human and Family Development with a concentration in Women's Studies.  My goal is to become a social worker and help women and children who were in a similar situation as I was growing up.  At the rate I'm going, I'll graduate from college sometime after my 5 year old does ;)

My husband and I bought an old house last year, built in 1880.  We are working on renovating it and making it as green as possible.  We hope to get some solar panels on the roof sometime before we die.

My main concerns (aside from getting out of this war) are the environment, healthcare, reproductive rights, and education.  

I am the daughter of a "bleeding heart liberal" Mother and a reactionary republican father.  I remember going door to door for McGovern with my Mother and my father being the campaign chair for a (losing) State Senatorial bid.

As a young adult, I am part of the disillusioned generation, the one directly behind the baby boomers, the ones that were best parodied by Michael J. Fox in his role in Family Ties.  We grew up in an oil crisis to a high unemployment rate and very little possibility for advancement because the boomers were in all the jobs (at least that is how we saw it).

I voted for RayGun, but then during the era of PaPa Bush, something happened.  As a fiscal conservative social liberal, I found out the Republican Party didn't want me any more.  I had the Quail on TeeVee spouting about "Family Values" and decrying a television show about a single mother (Murphy Brown).  As a single mother myself, I was appalled.  I had been taught that Republicans stay the fuck out of your personal life...live and let live....boy was I wrong.

I searched for a home.  I checked out the libertarians, but they are crazy.  I voted for Perot, I voted for Clinton, not necessarily in that order.  Over the years as I have reexamined the Democratic Party and myself, I have found that a lot of the negative I was hearing was not real.

Now I am a Democrat that votes reliably Democratic.

He did seem to understand that he had messed up.  I thought his appearances on commercials of local TV affiliates encouraging people to tune in for reruns of Murphy Brown were an amusing attempt to poke fun at himself.

However, I think the view that single parent families are an often "necessary evil" rather than
just another equal alternative is fairly mainstream.  I had been divorced myself and became a single parent so I understand how such a status often is unavoidable.  My own view, though, is that retaining just a morsel of guilt about the whole thing isn't so bad.

I am a Democrat because I know what it's like to be African-American and poor in the United States.

I'm 43, married, two kids and I am a journalist.  For anyone who saw the film The Slums of Beverly Hills, you'll understand my plight.

My mother and grandparents believed in me and this country when it didn't believe in us.  My mother moved us to the 'burbs for a highly rated school system even though we could not afford it.

There were plenty of nights without electricity, heat and bare cupboards, but I got a hell of an education by public school standards and eventually earned my bachelors degree.

I realize that during the course of my life that I benefited from a number of social programs that were enacted by Democrats - affirmative action, welfare, food stamps.  Do any of you know how embarrassing it is to walk into a grocery store in a suburb with food stamps?  I prayed that none of my friends would see me.

In a nutshell that is why I am a Democrat, but I am also a pragmatic about my party affliation.  I refuse to deny that the Dems have had problems in the past.  In my view it took far too long for them to go from the mantra of "giving a handout" to "giving a hand up."

In all sincerity, my life experience has taught me one thing - if I can make it and be successful then everyone who is given the opportunity can do the same. I try to give back by mentoring.  I understand the need for social programs to help the poor, but having seen friends and family members abuse the welfare system, I look at it cautiously

I am a Democrat because I belive:

In the U.S. Constitution
A woman's right to choose
Planning for the future
Energy independence
Social justice
And a pragmatic NEW application of affirmative action policies.

I am an Independent.  While I grew up Democrat I became disillusioned with the tenor of the hype and what I saw as assumed superiority of the party, the vilification of the "other side" of America, and the expenditure of enormous effort in pursuing points that do not achieve the greater good.

All of my youthful ideals I still hold fast:

o  Save the biosphere

o  Feed the world

o  Stop the "tyranny of evil men"

o  Improve the lives of all

My views of how to achieve these things is not what it was when I was young.  Redistributing exsting wealth is a terminal game - that wealth was created by work, by the sweat of hands and by intrinsic factors of the Free Enterprise capitalist system that this country has nurtured.  Simply spreading that wealth more thinly is a fool's errand.  Creating more wealth in the world and therefore the ability to pay for the food, the ships, the medicines - the very capability necesary to address the problems of the world is a goal I support.  With the capabilities in hand we can actually address the problems of the world with a realistic hope of success.

I am a Pragmatist.  As a career I had wandered into Information Security many years ago, and have found myself often arguing for imperfect solutions - because they are possible and can be implemented in the real world, not in a non-existent ideal world we would like to believe into existence.  The goal of moving the ball forward in a positive direction is more important to me than struggling for an immediate touchdown that will almost without doubt fail.  DADT is a good example - less than the solution to the problem, more than an impotent protest of existing injustices.

I am an American.  Having lived - in separated chunks - half my life in Canada, and having travelled some of the world, I have come to understand what an incredible place this is.  Warts and all.  An iterative line that has evolved from this experience is "the more time I spend outside the US, the more American I become".

-chris