As I put some finishing touches on our New Year's Eve party, I try to anticipate the needs of my guests. What kind of finger food would they like? What kind of booze should I purchase? What sorts of games should we play? Etc., etc. At the same time, I'm also trying to anticipate some of my guest's reactions to my New Year's toast to Obama and the new administration. For you see dear readers, not all of my loved ones are " democraddicts". However, despite my loud, opinionated and internet-aggressive rants, they manage to love me anyway.

( And although your voting practices infuriate me, I do manage to love you too.)

Over the years, I have heard many critics of political party die-hards. " Why do you only vote on party lines? Why can't you just vote on the issues and not the candidate?" ( Blah, blah, blah). As many times as I've been asked those ( annoying) questions, those rare, brave nay-sayers have been forced into listening to my response. And you, dear readers, are about to hear it as well.

I am confident in being a democraddict, I subscribe to my political party full-heartedly. The reason? I am not conservative socially, religiously or economically. There have been moments in which I claim to be conservative about immigration, but my liberal friends and family talk me down from that tree on a regular basis. In fact, the only reason I have inklings to keep our borders tight, is that I want our country to be able to provide for it's citizens even more so than we already do.

I could never vote on a single issue as our government is not a single issue institution. It needs to be said that there at times, albeit rare, where I do feel like I vote for the lesser of two evils, so to speak. Some dear friends, who support the European democracy model, in which there are many political parties to ensure a cohesiveness between a voter and whom they chose to represent them in government. I hear ya, it does seem to make more sense. Unfortunately, our government is do deeply entrenched in it's party system that a drastic change such as that would probably only result in splintering among the parties, weakening our main parties yet still not resulting in enough support for newer, smaller parties. Therefore, it would cause some significant damage and dissension within an already-damaged government.

No, I'm happy with our party system. I'm proud to be a Democrat. I do stand by my party's fundamentals as I do believe that they echo my own. I am not a socialist, I am a capitalist yet I do think the government could do a much better job at providing for it's citizens. I think we've come a long way in terms of protected rights of our people, yet we could do so much more about tolerating and protecting the rights of every citizen, no matter their race, religion or sexuality. Yes, taxes stink, but they are necessary in providing the funding this nation needs to operate.

We are an incredible nation, yet we cannot sit back and let our government work for us. It is our job to participate in your government, everyday, not just every four years. Democracy is a gift, not just a birthright. Our participation and engagement in it, is our gift back.

Therefore, as the New Year approaches, my wish for the coming is year is for our new, blue administration to works towards repairing a hopelessly injured government and move towards a more unified nation. We may not agree on our political parties, but that doesn't mean that we cannot agree to rescue our dear nation out of the near-ruin that the Bush administration has gotten us into.

Here's to the new blue working for you!

Happy New Year!