Backatcha
Unswayed and Unrepentant

3/2/2004

I sent the following letter in an email reply to Mr. Michael Dukes in response to his reply to my open letter.

Mr. Dukes,
I am sorry that you feel that I was somehow disrespectful to you in my open letter article. That was certainly not my intention. I do understand that you had to be succinct for the USA Today. Also, I respect that you are entitled to your opinion. I will not refute you on any of your concerns regarding Mr. Dean’s candidacy. I made my points in my article, and you made yours in your response.

I still disagree with you on several points, but you can always come visit me in the message boards if you want to hash those out. I do take umbrage with one point, however. I see nothing wrong with responding to your letter in an open forum. After all, your letter was also aired in an open forum and a NATIONAL one at that (The USA Today), and therefore (in my opinion) implicitly invited rebuttal in kind.

You say that had you not been alerted to my rebuttal, you might never have known of it’s existence, and would not have had the opportunity to reply. To that I respond, suppose Howard Dean does not read the USA Today. I can’t say that I would blame him if he chose not to. Colorful charts and succinct critiques of an entire campaign are hardly a substitute for substantive analysis and in depth reporting.

Be aware that your reply to me HAS found an audience. It is currently in the letters section on the Toronto In Focus site. That was not my decision, but it is a decision I whole-heartedly support.

I am copying this letter to the webmaster as well. Perhaps it too will find a place in the archives near yours.

Best wishes,
Joe Humbleo

Since that time, Howard Dean has dropped out of the race. He is, however, still on the ballot in Ohio. I intend to vote for him today. I realize that my vote for him will not help garner him the nomination. It will, however, potentially help him to garner delegates, although it probably won’t even do that.

The thing is, my reasons for supporting his candidacy are all still in play. My vote would do nothing for Kerry, and I see no reason to support Edwards over Kerry or vice versa. However, my Dean vote may just demonstrate my disappointment with the way our system allows the vote to be manipulated. After all, this is just a primary vote in a decision which has mostly already been made by other states than Ohio. I certainly wouldn’t advocate “wasting” a vote in the general election, but tomorrow is my chance to let Iowa know that I think they got it wrong.