List Day: 10 Facets of My Voting Bloc

1. I am solidly upper middle class in a double-income no-kids household. I have no debts, other than a small mortgage that will be paid off in the next five years.


2. I have two bachelor's and a master's degree (unless they took it away because I never use it).


3. I work as a government contractor in software engineering. While my immediate job is dependent on government spending, my career as a whole is not.


4. I like to believe I make decisions grounded in science and fact rather than emotion.


5. I have historically voted for Democratic Presidential candidates but do not vote blindly along party lines. I think John McCain probably would have been just fine as President.


6. I am not a fan of big government and am aware of how much waste it entails. However, I also recognize that our country is too large and diverse (geographically, demographically, and population-wise) to operate successfully anymore with a much smaller government.


7. I have no problem paying higher taxes to support infrastructure and social services, even if I don't directly benefit from these services.


8. I am a moral, if not religious, person but believe that a country's systems should not be used to enforce morality. I believe that allowing morality or religion to influence laws is dangerous -- it's a good idea right up to the point where it isn't anymore, and that point is hard to define.


9. I recognize that rural white voters have legitimate concerns (that may seem outdated or incorrect to me) simply because of the environment they live in and their lack of exposure to the normalcy of contrasting ideas.


10. I think our political system has been broken by the effect of private money as well as the immediacy and manufactured outrage of the 24-hour news cycle. However, I don't think there is a better option so we might as well fix the system from within.