I Must Be Missing Something

CNN helpfully reminds us that there are "lifelong" Democrats out there who are joining the Tea Party movement.

Ann Ducket attended the Tea Party rally in Grand Junction, Colorado, on Wednesday.

A lawyer and lifelong Democrat, Ducket made her political leanings clear: She said she was a campus community organizer for Democratic Sen. George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, voted for Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, and previously ran for elective office in Colorado as a Democrat.

"I was a card-carrying member of the ACLU, and I probably did inhale in college," Ducket said.

Ducket, who is now an independent and did not vote for Obama, said the president has "carried things to an extreme."

"I think we've gone too far on the side of government doing too much," Ducket said. "The Democratic Party is wanting to take care of everyone, instead of helping everybody stand on their own two feet."

McGovern, Carter, Gore, ran as a Dem...but didn't vote for Obama in 2008.  Maybe I'm missing something profound here, but if you've been checking the D box for a good 30 plus years and then George W. Bush shows up and completely wrecks the country on top of that, what in your right mind would cause you to not vote for Obama?

You voted for McGovern because he wanted out of an unjust, costly, bloody Vietnam.  You know that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are dying, and you knew this was a war that didn't have to happen.  You see Bush sink trillions into this quagmire and you see our smart bombs kill thousands of civilians.  You see Dubya and McCain, and Iraq and Afghanistan, and you see in 2008 your choices.  You vote...against Obama.

You voted for Jimmy Carter because he made the hard choices for getting the US economy back on track after inflation, which later got blown all to hell again after Reagan's tax cuts.  You see Bush's 43's tax cuts and Medicare craziness, and his plan to privatize Social Security and the 2007-2008 financial meltdown that we'll be paying for basically for the rest of our lives.  You vote...against Obama.

You voted for Al Gore, ostensibly because you KNEW George W. Bush was going to find a way to screw up the country.  You trusted Clinton and while he made mistakes, the country was doing well.  We had a surplus working.  Gore lost in 2000 to Bush...that's a pretty nasty wound there for any Dem to have lived through, I know.  In 2008 you see Bush and McCain, and the profligate spending that destroyed our country's economy.  You vote...against Obama.

And I'm just shaking my head.  Because on top of all this, you go to the Tea Parties and proclaim that the problem here over the last 35 years is one Barack Obama.

I'm searching for that profundity, that great insight into why you would arrive at this.  I'm not seeing the logic here at all.  And that deeply saddens me, because what I do see is the obvious difference between Obama and all 43 of his Presidential predecessors, and I'm really hoping that's not the reason we have "lifelong" Democrats voting against Obama.

But logically, there's just not much else left, is there?