Excuse me if I don't jump on the bandwagon extolling Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno, for committing to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential nomination bid. Cardoza and Costa are superdelegates by virtue of being in Congress and being Democrats. But there isn't anything super about them finally supporting Obama.
Cardoza had committed to Sen. Hillary Clinton very early in the campaign. This was when she was supposedly a lock to get the nomination. Nothing gutsy about that move. Then Clinton faded and Cardoza began wringing his hands when it became evident that he had chosen the wrong candidate. Now after Obama has the nomination essentially won, Cardoza moves to what he now thinks is the winning camp. He should get no points for being a fair-weather superdelegate.
Costa's finger-in-the-air commitment to Obama is even worse. He sat on the sidelines all year as voters cast ballots in primary after primary. We didn't hear a peep out of this superdelegate. He couldn't figure out which Democrat was the best to lead the Democratic Party in the fall campaign. Now that the campaign is virtually over, Costa pops out of his bunker to say he's a big Obama supporter.
And there you have it -- the Valley's congressional leaders.
If Cardoza had stayed with Hillary, it would have shown he had character. In today's politics, most politicians ignore character by doing what is politically expedient.They simply ignore the Constitution and do what is politically expedient to get elected or re-elected, Any politician acting out of principle today, is considered to be a left or right-wing extremist. This country has no future when the politically ignorant and misinformed electorate, elect selfish and unprincipled people to public office. Sad to say, Washington is filled with unprincipled politicians who have little or no respect for the United States Constitution. As a World War Two veteran, I can honestly say, a lot of men died to preserve our freedom and our Republic. They did not die to give our unprincipled public officials the right to turn our Republic into a mediocre, second rate, socialist, welfare state. Nor did they die to have the federal government replace the rule of law with the "will and whims" of the democrat or republican parties.
The system is broken, what will it take to move toward change?
The Clintons? McCain? or Obama?
Or none of the obove?
One can only hope that Costas' reluctant support was to broker a better deal for his constituents, and to avoid political vendetta.
They are both career politicians. Why should we expect loyalty,principles and good character from them?
As an Obama supporter, I say "better late than never." I'm not sure why they picked this time, though. Was it to get their names in the news? Word is that a lot of super-delegates will be going to Obama after the last primary next week, so maybe they just didn't want to get lost in the crowd?