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Interlude...

It's a slow news day.

Ed Shultz is complaining about a congressman's excessive golf, and Limbaugh seems preoccupied with the same 3 talking points that were old two years ago. Seems political talk on both sides is taking the day off. So I'm using the space to just shed light on what I'm doing here.

As I hope my readers understand, a lot of what I do with this blog is to create honest dialogue between voters regardless of where you might sit on that left/right line. I want people to stop defending their political party and start thinking about the issues that face them and the people who claim to represent them in making decisions to face them.

I tend to vote Democrat. But even if I agree with the Democratic platform, I am more than just a party member. My life is more complex than that. There are things about my world view that don't align with social idealism or worker politics that often permeate the Democratic agenda. It is unfair to me and my family to just vote Democrat because there's a donkey sticker next to one guy and an elephant next to his opponent.

More importantly, even if I agree with everything my party is doing, the person who has decided to represent that party may not be someone I can trust or may have a method of representing my party that I don't approve of. Just listen to Sharon Angle talk and watch many Republicans recoil in horror and you can see how this plays out. It isn't always so clear, but I have to consider the man or woman who claims to represent my party, not just the party endorsement. I may agree with my party, but not with the person they have chosen.

So what I do here is challenge some of the assumptions and talking points of political pundits. I try to go a little deeper than just the political slant and get to the issue underneath. I want us to take a journey together that doesn't stop with just the typical Republican or Democratic slant, but acknowledges the challenges, forces, and weaknesses present that might be governing policy decisions and shaping the view of our political representatives.

Like the pundits, I'm takin the day off. But what I'd like to leave you with is a call to ask questions and listen. As voting comes up in 2010, get critical. Ask the hard questions and engage your opponents. By the time we vote, let's make sure we know the issues, we know what we want done, and we know exactly why are voting and for whom.

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