The Candidates are working hard to lose my vote
"McCain would be an outstanding president. In government, he has almost always had an instinct for the right cause. He has become an experienced legislative craftsman. He is stalwart against the country’s foes and cooperative with its friends. But he never escaped the straightjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservatism that is behind the times. And that’s what makes the final weeks of this campaign so unspeakably sad." - David Brooks, NYT columnist in Sunday's Times.
"Palin goes Rogue" - Yahoo headline for a newswire story on Gov. Palin's resistance to tightly scripted campaigning. The article described her bent towards articulating a neo-Regan conservatism that is at odds with the image the handlers sought to project.
So, is going against the grain of the merchandisers the reason McCain-Palin ticket is convincing me not to vote for them? No! It's that they're in this battle is why. Each has a history of taking positions outside the party orthodoxy and pushing their agenda when they believed it was in the interest of the people. Each have abandoned that in an attempt to be elected. Why should I think that if elected they would rediscover their backbones?
Sen. Obama has a long history of avoiding controversial stands. His hundreds of present votes in the Illinois senate is but one example. He is an very intelligent and extremely gifted politician, but he has a penchant for "politics" over governance. As energy costs spiraled and it became clear that strict environmentalism was no longer the popular position in regards to oil production he adroitly shifted from being an opponent of off-shore drilling to presenting himself in a chameleon stance that allows voters to see him as both a champion of the environment and a supporter of increased off-shore production. Does he have the backbone to take the hard stand? Is he ready to push an unpopular agenda if national interests demand it? He hasn't shown me any reason to believe he would.
All of this does not mean that either major party candidate is destined to be a Buchanan of a president. (He was the president right before Lincoln. He was basically useless.) As the investment ads all say, previous performance does not guarantee future results. But it's rare when a politician behaves radically differently from their past once elected president. But I do have hope.
LBJ was a great example. American Perspectives had a great show on his presidency and showed how this Southern democrat who had opposed and defeated every attempt to pass civil rights and voting rights legislation while Senate leader did a u-turn and used every bit of his political capital to pass the highly unpopular Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"Palin goes Rogue" - Yahoo headline for a newswire story on Gov. Palin's resistance to tightly scripted campaigning. The article described her bent towards articulating a neo-Regan conservatism that is at odds with the image the handlers sought to project.
So, is going against the grain of the merchandisers the reason McCain-Palin ticket is convincing me not to vote for them? No! It's that they're in this battle is why. Each has a history of taking positions outside the party orthodoxy and pushing their agenda when they believed it was in the interest of the people. Each have abandoned that in an attempt to be elected. Why should I think that if elected they would rediscover their backbones?
Sen. Obama has a long history of avoiding controversial stands. His hundreds of present votes in the Illinois senate is but one example. He is an very intelligent and extremely gifted politician, but he has a penchant for "politics" over governance. As energy costs spiraled and it became clear that strict environmentalism was no longer the popular position in regards to oil production he adroitly shifted from being an opponent of off-shore drilling to presenting himself in a chameleon stance that allows voters to see him as both a champion of the environment and a supporter of increased off-shore production. Does he have the backbone to take the hard stand? Is he ready to push an unpopular agenda if national interests demand it? He hasn't shown me any reason to believe he would.
All of this does not mean that either major party candidate is destined to be a Buchanan of a president. (He was the president right before Lincoln. He was basically useless.) As the investment ads all say, previous performance does not guarantee future results. But it's rare when a politician behaves radically differently from their past once elected president. But I do have hope.
LBJ was a great example. American Perspectives had a great show on his presidency and showed how this Southern democrat who had opposed and defeated every attempt to pass civil rights and voting rights legislation while Senate leader did a u-turn and used every bit of his political capital to pass the highly unpopular Civil Rights Act of 1964.
posted by Wake of the Flood at 6:54 AM
2 Comments:
Yes, Mr. Johnson became a champion of Civil Rights when there was nothing left for him to conquer or fanangle. I'm not sure it was a change based entirely on principle and a desire to "do the right thing." I should look for that show.
I'm really torn on this election, for the same reasons you articulate.
McCain's opportunity seems to have been 8 or even 4 years ago. Now it seems as though he has succumbed to the willingness to do whatever it takes to be President that he will no longer have the political capital to advance progressive but unpopular ideas.
Obama is quite smooth. He appears to have great respect for human beings. But he is also a creation of Eastern Elitists whose political past brought us the Carter Era when regulation and oversight crippled the economy. Certainly there needs to be some governmental involvement but these folks may swing the pendulum back to the other extreme.
Bob Barr is looking better and better.
God no -- not Bob Barr! He's the worst of the reactionary Republicans who jumped ship when the train went off the tracks during the current administration.
And not Nader either. Like McCain, his day has come and gone.
So what 3rd party candidate? Pick a party that comes close to your core values and vote that ticket. If 20% of those who vote this year did that there would be a real reaction within the major parties. Happened with Perot, Anderson, Wallace. The party bosses were forced to act in the interests of the common American, at least in part, or risk losing any place of power in the halls of governance. Of course once they got folks back on board they went back to the old graft system knowing it would be years, if not decades before Americans paid attention again.
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