Across Party Lines

"In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day."

    - Jean Rostand (1894-1977), French biologist

A friend of mine sent me a link to a London Times op-ed by Sarah Baxter, a Brit who is also a citizen of the U.S. She supported the Labour Party while living in England, so it was quite natural for her to register as a Democrat when she moved to this country. November 2 will be her first time to vote in America and she says she's voting for Dubya, not Kerry, to lead the nation for the next four years:

"I will be one of the millions voting for Bush because I trust the president's judgment on the war on terror more than Kerry's. In this election, I am a single-issue voter. It is that simple. Even in the New York metropolis, there are more of us out there than he imagines...

My decision is based on a straightforward proposition: I do not want the global jihadists and women-hating fundamentalists to be celebrating Bush's defeat. They do not deserve to win, even if Bush deserves to lose, a position I am not quite willing to concede."

Ms. Baxter says her "vote for Bush involves a fair amount of gritting of teeth" because she is not a Republican and can generate little enthusiasm for most of the policies of the GOP. She cares not a whit that the rich may have to pay more taxes, is a pro-choice advocate on the issue of abortion, favors more federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, supports expanding free health care and is against the death penalty. Despite all this, she can't bring herself to vote Democratic because she doesn't believe Kerry will deal effectively with terrorism:

"I am determined my children will grow up in a world of increasing democracy where terrorists are captured, tyrants overthrown. When Bush said in last week's debate: 'We can be safe and secure if we go on the offense against terrorism and if we spread liberty around the world,' I felt he spoke with conviction. When Kerry said he was going to 'hunt and kill' the terrorists, I heard a politician's soundbite...

On foreign policy, Bush is the idealist and Kerry the conservative, afraid to disturb the status quo. I've never abandoned my belief in human rights and democracy...

At best, he [Bush] is advancing the cause of freedom and democracy. I was very moved by the long line of Afghans queueing to vote for the first time in their lives last weekend. Overwhelmingly, they were proud and happy to cast their ballots...

Kerry has nothing to say about Afghan democracy. His official campaign website still whines that the Afghan presidential elections are 'seriously threatened by the prospect of warlord intimidation' despite the fact that they have already taken place peacefully."

Ms. Baxter has a few other problems with Kerry too, but it's the foreign policy thing that is the deal breaker for her. Her strong opinions are not solely based on perceptions gained by listening to the debates either.

When she was a cub reporter in the late 1980s she was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. She had an opportunity to personally interact with Hamas leaders as she was doing research for a story about them. That experience provided her with new perspective:

"...I was disturbed that the Hamas leaders I met would never look me in the eye. To them, it was indecent even to glance at a member of the inferior sex. All their answers were directed at my boyfriend, who was taking pictures. But they were cooperative and eager for publicity.

We were taken upstairs in a mosque and, to my shock, were introduced to a dozen or more would-be suicide bombers in their mid-teens, who declared their fervent wish to martyr themselves for their cause.

At the time, there had been no suicide bombs in Israel. Some Hezbollah members in Lebanon had blown themselves up, but they were Shi'ite Muslims: Palestinian Sunnis were not supposed to go in for that sort of thing. Yet here I was, looking at a bunch of boys with kaffirs masking their faces, brandishing knives and practising karate in a place of worship. These weren't boy scouts in a church hall; they were being trained to become fanatical killers by their religious elders...

When mosques are raided by US forces, I am not surprised. I know mosques are used as terrorist bases. I expect most of the young men I talked to are now dead or sitting in an Israeli jail. They were triumphalist about the global spread of Islam and confident that it would one day dominate the planet. They hated the West, they wanted to kill Jews, and none of them had ever heard of George W. Bush."

Sarah Baxter may be an anomaly: that lone Democrat who believes that the war on terrorism trumps all other issues and cannot vote for her party's candidate because she fears he won't take an aggressive stance against our enemies. She may be the exception, though I think she's not. I believe there are many others just like her, and they will make a huge difference come November 2. 

I hope you'll take the time to read her entire story, even if you don't think you can agree with her.