Why I am a Yellow Dog Democrat

Yellow Dog Democrat History

I vote for the party, never for the candidate, because voting for a president isn't hiring someone for a job--it is affirming support for an ideology and programs to implement it. The politician at the top of the ticket is merely a symbol, an icon you click on to open the program. Career bureaucrats, sorted out by civil service exams and other non-political hiring procedures, do a fine job of running the country whomever we elect.

Neither major American political party is committed to anything close to the ideology and programs I favor--roughly, Eurosocialism. But however remote this is from either party, the Democratic Party comes closer and that's good enough for me. I vote for the party that is more likely to move the US even a smidge to the left--towards big government, high taxes, centralization, extensive regulation and cradle-to-grave social safety nets.

Last summer we got a puppy. I was hoping to get a yellow lab and name him "Democrat" but we got a chocolate who our son named "Ducati," after a motorcycle he liked. Like all labs his age, Ducati chews everything in sight and has absolutely no common sense, but I would happily vote for him if he were running on the Democratic ticket.