The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate
I figured this would be another slam-dunk kind of post to write. My first temptation of course is to name Ron Paul as the biggest obstacle. (Ron Paul is THE crack cocaine for authors of political blogs these days; the mere inclusion of the man's name in a post title practically guarantees a blogger a slew of new readers, a bunch of Diggs and a slew of comments both on the blog itself and on Digg and I am as susceptible as the next hack to the temptation to "give 'em what they want" and draw all those eyeballs to my words and ads.) But try as I might, I can not fashion a cogent argument that the Gentleman from Texas is any obstacle at all. America is not going to elect a Libertarian running as a Republican, no matter how many genuinely committed and Internet savvy supporters he can muster.
IMHO, the real effect of the Ron Paul campaign will be the political awakening and activation of those supporters, some of whom will no doubt go on to become involved with other more successful campaigns and perhaps become political players in their own right, in the manner of several currently prominent liberal bloggers who got their starts in the Howard Dean campaign.
My second thought was to cast Hillary Clinton as the biggest obstacle to electing the right President. I quite agree with techfun who has argued that electing Hillary would insure we have another four or eight years of deeply divided government that is primarily focused on political in-fighting and incapable of effectively addressing the myriad real problems we face as a nation. And I yield to no one in the depth and strength of my disdain for Mrs. Clinton. But if I am to be honest, I do not believe that Hillary is electable, and for all the copy she generates and all of the passions she arouses, both negative and positive, I can't honestly say I believe that Hillary is our biggest problem. (She is at most a symptom of the problem or obstacle rather than the obstacle itself.)
So having ruled out the easy and obvious answers, I'm forced to look deeper. I gaze into the mirror over the sink in my bathroom and realize the obstacle is staring me back in the face. The real obstacle to electing the right President lies with the citizens who will cast their votes this week next year rather than with any of the candidates they will blacken an oval or pull a lever for. The real obstacle I believe is that we Americans by and large have lost the ability to speak with and more importantly Listen To people we disagree with.
Whether we listen to Rush Limbaugh or Air America, watch Fox News or PBS, read The Nation or The New Republic and get our political news and world view from Red State or daily Kos, most of our political intelligentsia preach only to the choir and most Americans who care about politics pay attention mostly or exclusively to media (both old and new) that reinforce and re-affirm their convictions and beliefs and actively urge, if not outright require, that they see their political opponents only as enemies, to be fought and battled against and vanquished rather than as fellow citizens who care as deeply as they do about the country we all share and claim to love and want what's best for.
Whether Ron Paul or Hillary Clinton (or any of the other candidates) would make a great President or a terrible President is a question for another debate. But to my thinking it really isn't debatable that we will never be able to agree upon and elect the Right President until we learn again to talk civilly and substantively with people we strongly disagree with and learn to see again that all of us-- liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, red state-ers or blue-- are first and foremost Americans. Our inability to see that and use it as a starting point for trying to understand each other and find a common ground we can share is the biggest obstacle to electing the right Presidential candidate.
8 comments:
Excellent points. I would love to see a debate solely on how the candidates feel they can bridge that partisan gap and get something accomplished.
Tom Delay's legacy will take a long time to go away. His focus on strict party line associations from the K Street Project to using national party funding as a tool to consolidate votes has poisoned a generation of legislators.
Older Senators and Representatives talk about the "good old days" when politicians of both parties socialized after hours, golfed together, dined together, and shared prostitutes together (ok I made that one up but it could be true anyway).
A president that has a plan to help restore some of that civility and ca articulate that plan would definitely get my attention.
I find the idea of blaming it all on us voters a sound argument, though overcoming the parochial isolation of some partisanship is probably a pipe dream.
Is no one in your blogging group talking about laws about campaign finance and media ownership?
Sorry, can't join the blogging political debate. Got no political blogs and even less time.
Mark,
JD's post today is very much about the media issue
http://blog.techfun.org/political-gossip-clouds-the-issues
Hi Alan,
Interesting post :) I'll probably respond more in depth later, but I would like to clarify one of your statements:
"America is not going to elect a Libertarian running as a Republican, no matter how many genuinely committed and Internet savvy supporters he can muster."
Ron Paul switched to the libertarian for only one year in 1988 to run for president. He switched back to the republican party immediately following his campaign. He has been a capital L libertarian for 1 year, a Republican for more than 50 years. In those 50 years, he's also been elected to Congress as a Republican for 10 terms.
It's a mis-characterization given to him by the media, although Ron Paul himself sees no problem with being called a libertarian as the constitution is libertarian itself. He associates libertarianism with freedom, and does not believe there needs to be such a distinction between the parties. In an interview yesterday, he said people can be republican, libertarian, liberal or any combination of those three They need not be mutually exclusive.
Cindy,
I will apolgoize then for the inappropriate Capitalization and did not intend to erroneously construe that Dr. Paul is a member of the Libertarian Party. But no one acquainted with the Ron Paul campaign in the slightest could be unaware that many of his views are lower case libertarian and the basic values upon which the capitaL eL Libertarian Party was formed.
Your site has been reviewed by the radical blogger = you can see the results here:
http://myradicalblogs.com/?page_id=80
It may take several hours for the front page article to appear. You review however has been published.
I see the biggest obstacle to electing the best person for the job is the media and the amount of money a candidate can bring to the effort.
It is sad as there are some folks that may have the integrity to do the job in our best interest. I admit that I have been so influenced by the media in the past, that now I can't stand candidate "flash". By this I mean tactics like using Oprah or Bill, etc. I am praying folks will actually vote this coming year, and also will back their vote with reasonable investigation. I have to admit that I'm starting to like Kucinich. It's probably because he appears to me to be the candidate with the least B.S. that I'm so tired of. I don't necessarily agree with all of his programs, but he has been the most consistant on some that are most important to me. And frankly, I can't stand the usual Washington Flashies any more.
Yeah anything to get the Religious Right the Hell outta the Republican Party would be Awesome!
I like Ron Paul's Common Sense Ideas but yer right he ain't got a Snowball's chance in Hell of Winning! Even tho I fear the Election being Stolen yet again from the Democrats if Ron Paul or some other Independent Thinking Libertarian runs - much like Ralph Nader did.
That said I still feel it's Important that an Independent runs - maybe Barack Obama may be less tied to Good Ol' Boy Washington Lobbyists.
Plus he's Smart + Charismatic + like Bill Clinton has a Great Smile + Funny sense of Humour!!
;))
Peace*
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