I've been in a virtual fugue state this whole week.

Editorials, op-eds, and the blogosphere have argued everything from whether the Wright controversy has finished off Barack Obama, (as fervently hoped for by Hillary and her supporters), or whether his landmark speech on race took a moment of crises in the campaign and turned it into a moment of triumph, (which could very well be the case, but it is too early to tell); to whether a vote for Hillary is a symbolic vote for all womankind (or at least the so-called "shoulder pad feminists" who've broken many glass ceilings but not that one) or a vote for Obama is a symbolic vote for racial unity; to whether, yet again, this election truly is about the economy, stupid.

You get the idea.

And in all this opinionating swirling around and around, where it goes nobody knows...there is one thing that I have never seen mentioned, anywhere.

It is, after all, the point.  The ONLY point.

You see, this nomination vote, and this election are not about philosophical abstracts or political maneuvering or pundits punting.

No.

What this election is about, is life and death.

It's that simple.

If the Democrats do not win the White House in November, we will be dooming who knows how many American men and women to death in Iraq over the next four years, minimum, while President John McCain revs up Bush's War and ratchets up the hawk-talk worldwide.

This does not mean to imply that no one will die if a Democrat wins, by any means.  One thing anti-war activists are often naive about is the messy consequences of ending a war.  When an army is pulling out, they are more vulnerable to attack, for one thing.

However, if a president, consulting closely with military advisors, is, as Obama stated it first, "as careful getting out as we were careless getting in," then there will be a limit to the casualties.

If we stay in Iraq, there will be no limit.

Of course the troop escalation worked, in that it tamped down violence, as did the alliances between Sunni tribal leaders and the Americans, and al Sadr's cease-fire--all these things have helped tone down the violence. 

But that, contrary to popular opinion, is not the point, either.

What American troops are doing in Iraq with the troop escalation was described by one columnist I read, as applying a tourniquet to a grave wound.  You can stop the bleeding as long as the tourniquet is in place.  But eventually, you are going to HAVE to perform surgery or otherwise stitch up or treat the wound.  If you don't, then as soon as you loosen the tourniquet, the bleeding will start again.

The Bush/McCain administration believes that the tourniquet IS the war.  Period.

And so far, the merry little media is happy to go along with that viewpoint, from what I've seen on broadcast TV anyway.  Print media is a bit more nuanced, but many people just get their news from the boob tube.

While the military is working heroically to provide the tourniquet, this administration and their puppet-government in Baghdad have done nothing, made no progress, in treating the original wound. 

The Iraqi government is actually running a SURPLUS of from between 35 to 65 BILLION dollars, in foreign accounts.  They're supposed to be spending it on rebuilding their country, but why bother?  We're happy to do it for them, even if it bankrupts our own country. 

The big-deal Sunni alliance going on right now, to the tune of 100,000 former insurgents we are paying $300 apiece, a month, not counting arms and so on--are being supported entirely by the U.S. military.  Baghdad is supposed to put them on the Iraqi payroll but they refuse, and why not?  We're happy to do it for them.

So now, if we DO pull out...what will become of all those former insurgents, who will then be unemployed?

Could that have something to do with Bush and Co. wanting to keep us there?

We're supposed to be convincing Baghdad to step up on these and other matters, but they have absolutely no incentive to do so as long as we're there, employing their people, rebuilding their infrastructure, protecting their capitol, and providing bodyguard service for all sects so they can't kill one another, and pouring more billions into their coffers as they skim the cream off the top, in the form of graft, corruption, and bribes.

And according to a recent USA Today survey, most Americans believe that we SHOULD stay, at least until the country is "stabilized," whatever THAT means.

They believe this because it's not THEIR kid, or their spouse, or their mommy or daddy, who will have to do the staying and stabilizing.

This whole country--99 percent of us anyway--don't even have to think about this war.  And they don't.  Movies about the war are tanking at the box office.  TV news coverage has plummeted to LESS THAN 3 PERCENT. 

And when I post a blog about the war, my readership virtually disappears.

Way more interesting to argue politics as an intellectual exercise, or indulge in celebrity gossip.

The war's depressing and anyway, what can we do about it?

WE CAN VOTE.

Because the truth, as many other articles have pointed out, is that the U.S. military can't keep doing this indefinitely at these levels. 

The military is stretched so dangerously thin that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff want to begin serious drawdowns.  These constant redeployments, stop-loss, and other dirty-trick ways of forcing the same troops to fight a Groundhog Day war over and over again is causing such a hemorhage of junior officers, noncommissioned officers, and experienced troops to leave that we can't fill the gap even when we let in high school drop-outs and criminals.

They are deeply worried about Petraeus's upcoming so-called "pause" that will stop the drawdowns and force units to remain in-country who are due to return.  Fallon knew that; he fought for it, and he got fired for it.  Oh, excuse me.  I mean, he RETIRED--and joined the graveyard littered with the bones of any high-ranking officer who DARES speak truth to power in a Bush administration.

So, here we are, languishing.  This is the fifth anniversary of the war and there will be a sixth one, because Bush and his pets are going to do everything in their power to bring out the magicians with their smoke and mirrors and repetitive chants and lull the American people and its media into thinking that the tourniquet IS the war, and it HAS stopped the bleeding, so victory is at hand!

Which brings me back to The Point.

As a Marine mom, whose sons and nephews have been fighting this war non-stop since it began, with six combat deployments between them, whose nephew is there now, whose son and nephew are at risk of being snatched back up and sent again even though they are now out of the military (those dirty tricks again)--I am begging anyone who reads my words who has not yet voted for a nominee:

TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY, I BEG OF YOU TO CHOOSE A CANDIDATE WHOM YOU THINK STANDS THE BEST CHANCE OF WINNING THIS ELECTION IN NOVEMBER.

It is not about a "symbolic vote" for anybody for any reason!  Can't you see that?  We can't AFFORD that kind of sentimentality right now, on either side!

If you vote for someone because she is a woman or because he was a P.O.W. or because he is black, and you are not thinking ahead to November, and to four more years of war, then please, allow me to do that thinking for you.

Our men and women in uniform are being used and abused like so much cannon fodder.  Their lives have become nothing but fighting war and training to fight war, for five years.  (Actually, six, counting Afghanistan.)  Many of them enlisted after 9-11 because they were patriots who wanted to serve their country and fight terrorists. 

They wanted, as my son put it, "to be one of the protectors, not one of the ones needing protecting."

And for that idealism they've been used as campaign photo-op backdrops, sent off to war again and again until they turn up dead, wounded, stressed-out, exhausted, or worse; and their families have suffered terribly for it.  I read of one army captain who was not present for his four-year old child's birth because he was deployed, and who has barely seen the child during that time.  He has been gone three out of the past four years on combat deployments.

Good officers who love the military and planned a career in it are being forced to leave because of the stresses of constant deployments on their families, and because after four or five or six deployments, they've had enough of war.

They serve at the pleasure of their commander-in-chief.  They serve him, and they serve us, but who serves THEM?

In a major speech on the war this week, Barack Obama said this:

"We also know that there is another face of America that we have seen these last five years...Our soldiers have gone abroad with a greater sense of common purpose than their leaders in Washington.  They have learned the lessons of the 21st century's wars.  And they have shown a sense of service and selflessness that represents the very best of the American character.

"This must be the election when we stand up and say that we will serve them as well as they have served us."

Those of us out here, the 99% NOT fighting this war, have one perfect golden moment in history to step up and serve our armed forces who have given everything they've got to serve us.

The point is not whether we place a sentimental vote for a candidate who represents some sort of symbolic gesture or makes us feel good about our gender or our race or whatever.

NOT IF THAT CANDIDATE CAN'T BEAT JOHN McCAIN.

You all know how I feel on this.  In spite of the past few rough weeks, I still think Barack Obama has the better chance to win in November.  Most Democrats I have come to know online happen to live in areas where being a Democrat is not that unique, but if you come from an area as conservative as I do, or from any of the red states that Obama won in the primaries already, you should know that the depth of Hillary hatred runs deeper than good people can begin to imagine.

I don't know why this is.  I never have, frankly.  I've supported her and apologized for her for many years, and yes, I do think she could be a good president.

But as one Republican said to me, "I wouldn't mind an Obama presidency all that much, and I'm not crazy about John McCain.  But if Hillary runs, I will vote AGAINST her, and you will see a re-energizing of the Republican party that NONE of us could have imagined a few months ago."

In fact, in the state of Texas, Hillary won the popular vote by 100,000.  According to exit polls, 119,000 voters in the Democratic primary were Republican true believers who heeded their hero Rush's call, and voted for Hillary in order to give her a major primary win that could give her the nomination, because they're CERTAIN they can beat her.  And they are very worried that they cannot beat an Obama candidacy.

This is fact, according to exit polls and research done by the Boston Globe.

Hillary lovers discount all this, but it's out there, and it's very real.

I have believed for the past four years that if Hillary ran as our candidate, we would have another one-point heartbreaker like we have had the past two elections, and I can't take it again, not this time, not now, not with my family at war.

If you have yet to cast your vote, you may be undecided.  You may be leaning one way or another for sentimental reasons.  You may disagree vehemently with me, and that is fine.

But when you cast your vote, please God let it be because you honestly believe your candidate can beat McCain in the fall, period.

No other reason.

We have to win this election. 

It is a life and death matter. 

So far, almost 4,000 men and women have died in Bush's War.  (For every death, there are at least FIFTEEN injuries.  You do the math.)  If John McCain is elected, we can project ahead four more years and see, conservatively, at least 2,500 more dead soldiers and Marines--probably more.  That's not counting the maimed and the brain-dead and the emotionally crippled.

This is the most critical vote we as Democrats will ever cast.  We cannot cast that vote for anything less than dead seriousness.

If it were YOUR child whose life was at stake...who would you trust to take the White House in November and end this war?

Cast your vote for that person, for that reason, and no other. 

THAT is the point.