I felt an urgent need I could no longer ignore for this short, sweet post. I'll warn you right from the start that it's a rant, nothing more.
First, I must repeat it once again, I used to like this McCain guy. If he remains a senator I probably will again AFTER this election is over, but COME ON. How can anyone seriously be considering voting for this guy after the last seven years, the nasty campaign, the lessons learned over a similar 12-year experiment under Reagan and Bush 41 that resulted in a triple double (inflation, interest rates and unemployment) and the initial steps toward the deregulation that dumped today's economic crisis in our laps on top of everything else right now?
Does an attractive VP who says the right things on TV REALLY wash away her career that flies in the face of those TV promises? Wasn't her selection so blatant and obvious an attempt to inject gender and age (Hillary voters) to the ticket that even the most right-leaning Repub HAS to see through it? Even long-time Repubs are asking if there wasn't someone more qualified he could have picked... some congresswoman or governor. And how does family values now include pregnant, unwed teens? Isn't that what the family values folks always told us they'd do away with? Doesn't it strike anyone else as disingenuous at best that "at least she didn't abort" has become the standard to replace "just say no?!"
Are a few TV promises that are clearly contradictory to the pair's track record really all it takes to leave us in the complacency... now downward spiral where we don't even care about the issues as long as we get the party right? Are folks so bent on their party loyalty that the BS of the campaign is all it takes to make us forget our jobs, our homes, our health care, our children's futures, our common sense?
Look. If you don't like Obama or the Democratic Party that much, then vote for Ron Paul or Ralph Nader, or just don't even vote. I never thought I'd say that, but how can you seriously consider McCain-Palin? Sure they're NOT the SAME as W, but they HAVE based their campaign on supporting his two favorite issues: the economy and the war. On those issues, they may not be the same, but they're certainly in the same camp and where has it gotten us? After choosing the candidate with whom you'd rather have a beer, can't we agree that being just like us isn't the best reason to choose the guy in the top post? Hell, if that's your criteria, then I want to be your president. I'm fun to have a beer with!
Yes, this is a challenge for someone to convince me that McCain is still the guy I thought he was as a senator who got the job done. It's the second time I've issued this challenge. If you bother to read more than the one little detail you came here to either agree with or rail against, you'd know that I'll consider just about any argument. I'll defend my position, but I'll also listen intently to and seriously weigh those of others. I've listened throughout the campaigns believing, at least at the beginning, that it would be the first in my lifetime that actually offered us two good choices as opposed to the lesser of two evils. I no longer believe that and given the lunacy of the McCain campaign, I can't believe anyone is still falling for it to the point that it's even remotely close.
Look, I'm not a Democrat. I'm an independent with a little "i" because it's not a party. I vote for the best candidate regardless of party and I've voted for more Repubs in the last 10 years than I have Dems. I'm liberal in that I expect others to consider new ideas and to bear some responsibility for the welfare of others when they can. I'm conservative when it comes to personal responsibility, including that responsibility to occasionally be my brother's keeper when I have the means and he has the need. And I really think that my fellow voters have a responsibility to give me something better than the party line to explain why this guy is still a viable presidential candidate. I really tried to find it on my own and I'm simply stunned that it just doesn't seem to be there when you strip away the party trappings and yet, the polls have it as just a few point difference. Somebody explain that to me.
Does anyone out there honestly believe McCain is backing out of the debate in order to save our economy after he worked so hard to do away with the kinds of regulation we're now considering imposing? C'mon. He's got no chance to come out of that debate with anything but lost support and he knows it. Like Obama or not, he's going to clean up... or maybe not. Maybe the debate is what I need to change my mind, but without McCain involved, I won't get the chance, so somebody's got to help me see what half of our polled voters see in this ticket. Broaden my perspective before the debate... or before McCain ducks it.
W is talking legacy still and it's time we all consider what that might actually be... first and foremost there's the war. No matter how you feel about that, the legacy of how it was sold to us and how it's gone thus far is not going to be pretty. Then there's the nationalizing of the banking industry - the closest move toward socialism we've had since the Depression all while telling us out the other side of the face that nationalized health care is a bad idea and government should keep its hands off industry. Then there's the growing divide between the top 1% of wage earners and the bottom 99% which was supposed to materialize into/trickle down by creating all kinds of economic growth but instead resulted in all kinds of foreign ownership and record unemployment. And finally there's what all of this luxury will cost us: yep the national debt! Now that's a legacy our great grandchildren can share!
Thus far, McCain has promised to shore up that legacy by augmenting it. He wants the war to continue to be the biggest drain on our economy indefinitely with no objectives to signal its success or failure or completion. He'll make up for that, apparently, by admitting that his laissez-fair economic policy for the last 26 years was wrong then borrowing even more taxpayer money to bail out the campaign contributors who benefited most from those policies and whose golden parachutes are apparently not enough to sustain them while the rest of us fall farther and farther into the hole supporting them by running their plants and building their products for paychecks that buy less and less and benefits that are all but extinct.
Does anyone out there still think that someone's stance on gay marriage or abortion means more than a rat's ass compared to the issues the next president must solve? Are those two issues and gun laws REALLY what we're voting on this year? Does a label like conservative or liberal or Dem or Repub REALLY factor into any of this anymore? Have we become that dependent on sound bites and empty rhetoric? I've read more articles on how the candidates are handling the press than I have on what the candidates actually intend to do.
I usually love the freedom to ignore the stupid "never talk politics or religion" rule during the campaign season. I enjoy little more than getting all fired up in a lively debate, but I'm getting nothing this year. No one seems interested in telling me why $700 billion to bail out spoiled bankers and insurers couldn't have been better spent on alternative fuel technology or why $2 billion a week in Iraq for the last five years couldn't have put electric or hydrogen cars on the road or at least bought a little health insurance for a few folks. Speaking of that, no one seems to want to apply the deregulation model (that did SO well with our mortgage institutions) to the insurance industry and predict when we'll have to bail them out as well once they finally price the rest of us out of their system and offer very little actual medical care in return.
I don't even bother explaining why I'll put up with some of Obama's bad ideas in exchange for a level-headed, intelligent, buck-stops-here type of leader with proven management ability anymore. It's so easy to support, it's not even fun. I mean, compare his opportunities and successes with the achievements W racked up before the White House... seriously. How does "failed baseball team" compare with "turned down top law firms after graduating at the top of my class at Harvard Law?" Or how about "failed Texas oil company bought out by the Saudis" against "successfully reclaimed dead neighborhoods" Or what about "awol from the Guard(and Vietnam) to pursue failed senate campaign" vs. "successful senate campaign" Or even "rehab, dui, sealed coke arrests" vs. "yeah, I smoked pot"
I know, I know, O's not running against W. How about the Repub convention rallying around their "service" signs one night, then picking on Obama's service to his community the next. (are slogans and chants really more important than actually doing something?) And if we must inject religion into the debate - though it should have even less relevance than the other non-issues I've mentioned, then O's definitely the man. We know what church he's attended consistently at least since his early Chicago days. We used his pastor against him! His opponent listed himself as one religion on his senate bio but didn't attend any church until he showed up at a "competing" venue one Sunday before the campaign began in earnest, but I guess his VP more than makes up for his lack of spiritual conviction.
And how about the family values as representatives of character and integrity? One guy's still married to his first wife. The other... well, I think it's all out of my system by now. I need to get to bed.
Thanks for listening.
Luth
Out
5 comments:
What? Did you say something?
Luth, I often take the opposite position of yours but I do find much in your rant that is justified.
I like this statment of yours, "I'm liberal in that I expect others to consider new ideas and to bear some responsibility for the welfare of others when they can. I'm conservative when it comes to personal responsibility, including that responsibility to occasionally be my brother's keeper when I have the means and he has the need."
We may not agree on what constitutes valid new ideas, but I do agree we should be more concerned with the welfare of others. This is one of the problems some of us have with choosing sides, neither side is really completely right. The repubs have for too long been weak on providing help.
Which really puts us into a quandry over this bailout. I really agree with your comment about about it. I realize you posted this last week and I'm repying nearly a week later, but it is interesting that the Dems are the ones pushing for Bush's bailout plan and the Repubs have left him hanging out to dry. It does seem as though the extreme bailout flies in the face of fiscal conservatism.
This bailout will affect us all. And that bothers me because I see it less of a result of failed Repub policies but more a result of greed. Greed that can be assigned to many different people. So, I have lived well within my means and now I will be punished because of the sins of others. That irritates me. But, if we don't do something, it could be far worse.
Lesser of two evils?
Seems to be a theme.
OK, I'll give you a shot back, too. Yes, Palin's nomination was politically motivated and she was obviously chosen for reasons other than her expertise. But, aren't the Dems just as guilty for nominating Obama, the first black candidate? Is he really the best they can offer? As I see it, both parties have mud on their shoes.
Yeah, Ron Paul sounds like the guy.
You can't seriously be comparing Obama's resume to Palin's?
He is at least as qualified as W was when we first met him. He then proceeded to lock up the Dem nomination with grass roots support managed and a finely tuned campaign machine that beat the whiteys at their own game. After the longest primary season in televised history, can you really say he's there because he's black?! He's there because we refused to let the Dems count him out. Sure, the ticket might be easier to buy if Biden's name came first, but Obama is a lot easier to get excited about. When the election dust finally settles, we'll have to take what we get, but until then, he's our Kennedy - young, optimistic, smart, practical, unflappable (thus far)... about the only thing he seems to be missing is a Marilyn Monroe.
Is that really so bad?
Not a direct comparison. This is a tough one, because I could sound like a racist, which I'm not. It has been said many times that if Obama were white he would not have been nominated. The Dems were very anxious to prove their commitment to racial equality so pushed him through. Of course, their alternative was Hillary. Lesser of two evils? But, that's not fair either.
I hope if Obama is elected he will never be found with a Marilyn or a Monica. For some reason, I highly doubt he will.
He appears (by politician standards, anyway) to be of a little more integrity - human, of course, but clean enough so far.
I don't know if I buy the "wouldn't have made it if he were white" story. I thought that had died down by now. I must be reading the wrong newspaper and watching the wrong channels.
He's an immensely capable manager with far more of a track record supporting that than Bush has to this day, and I believe Bush is white and beat out several candidates of far more experienced, let alone a few (hell, just one!) successful ventures prior to running for president. Obama's campaign has been amazingly efficient without the infighting and credit hogging of either Hillary's or McCain's. If he'll run the country like he's run his campaign, I'll take him. But what I like most about him is that he is (or at least appears to be) genuinely curious. That alone is the welcome change I embrace. I believe it will go a long way toward earning back a small shred of a once great nation's reputation in the rest of the world.
We'll see I guess. I still love Ralph Nader and if he'd partner up with Ron Paul so they kept each other in check, I'd vote for them but for now, I'm going with a more viable candidate.
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