Making the Best Of a Bad Election Cycle
By JB Williams (07/09/08)
This day has been a long time coming. We’ve arrived at a time in American history when we have reached the bottom of the barrel in terms of political talent and no decent American truly qualified to lead the free world would ever even consider entering the cesspool of national politics.
Americans have never been so disgusted with their federal government - and rightfully so. No matter which party the people have put in power, once in Washington DC, all politicians find a way to sell out the American people for a career ride on America’s best get-rich-quick scheme of national politics.
The current president’s low approval rating only looks good when compared to the even lower approval ratings of the Democrat controlled congress, and their overtly biased Democratic Socialist minions in the lamestream press. The American people don’t like or trust any of them and for a change, the American people are right.
Republicans are offering a candidate opposed by 70 percent of traditional Republican voters and Democrats are offering a first term neophyte chameleon, opposed by more than half of traditional Democrat voters.
As a result, third party fantasies are still foolish, but abundant. None of them have a chance to do any more than play spoiler to the two primary party candidates. But for many Americans, just playing spoiler to the two indignant party powers has a certain appeal to it.
How Bad is It?
It’s bad enough that some self-proclaimed “conservatives” are actually considering voting for Barack Obambi, the most inexperienced far left member of the U.S. Senate, while many life-long Democrats are planning on voting for Republican John McCain, the most unpredictable career member of the U.S. Senate.
Thomas Sowell asks “What’s going on?” [1] in regards to so-called conservatives for Obambi, while the oldest progressive (Democratic Socialist) magazine in America, Progressive.org, [2] sucker-punches the most progressive member of congress for not being progressive enough. They are right in their attacks too, for a change. I just can’t comprehend why a leftist magazine would ever attack a leftist candidate, but they are.
Obambi isn’t old enough, but McCain is too old. Obambi isn’t black enough, but McCain, despite his years as a guest of the Hanoi Hilton, is not patriotic enough, according to some of the most unpatriotic people in America.
It’s bad, real bad…
What’s a voter to do?
In short, every voter finds him/herself with only two viable options in this election cycle. They can choose to make the best of a bad situation, or choose to make the worst of a bad situation. Either way, it’s a bad situation… But how bad must we make it?
America is not in very good condition for another misguided misstep. The dollar is in trouble; energy and health care prices are skyrocketing. We are a nation engaged in a very unpopular and complex, but very real war. Unemployment is rising as the stock market falls and America finds itself surrounded by landmines too numerous to list, with almost nowhere to step without blowing something up.
Still, American voters must find a way to navigate the mine field and carefully set one foot in front of the other until we walk our way out of the messes we have created or allowed to be created on our behalf. We must survive to fight another day.
We can make matters worse, or we can buy a little time to regroup and make matters better. This mess wasn’t created in a single election and despite soon-to-be-broken stereotypical campaign promises of “hope and change,” it won’t be solved in a single election either. Only fools yet to make their first car payment, still fall for these lies.
So, What can I (the average voter) do?
For starters, I can stop buying into the tired old partisan chess match of Democrat power versus Republican power. Best I can tell, both parties are now actively engaged in anti-American destruction of the union. Though I personally see Democrats as the leaders in the race to deconstruct America, Republicans aren’t trailing far behind these days.
From this moment forward, I am neither Republican nor Democrat, Libertarian nor Liberal, leftist nor right-wing conspirator. I’m simply AMERICAN, which is to say, I will support any viable candidate that unapologetically and fervently supports AMERICAN principles and values, as defined by our founders, via the founding documents, no matter which political party they call home, the operative word being “viable.”
Call yourself anything you like, but if you don’t stand for American principles and values, you can’t legitimately call yourself American, even if you are running for office.
For me, the founding principles are not out-dated, but rather the only set of political principles on earth which have stood the test of time. You can call regressive Marxist principles progressive if you like, but the founders would call those principles something else, treasonous…
If my choice for the White House is limited to a candidate that represents only 6 of 10 founding principles versus a candidate that represents 0 of 10 founding principles, I’ll take the one that represents at least 60 percent of what I believe in and work with him on the other 40 percent until a candidate who believes in 100 percent of those values steps forward and tosses his/her hat in the ring.
Simply stated, I can choose to not make a bad situation worse, by throwing the entire nation under the bus in some childish temper tantrum allegedly aimed at teaching people who don’t care about learning the lesson.
I can buy time to develop better options in the next election cycle. This is the only means I know of making the best of the bad election cycle. If you have another way, I’d love to hear about it.
The alternative is to make the worst of it, to throw the nation into a tail spin just to enjoy watching the chaos and destruction. Conservatives tried this twice already with the same devastating result, in 1992 and 1996. Are conservatives now foolish enough to go for it a third time, expecting a different outcome?
It appears that the next president will be elected with less than 50 percent of the popular vote, opposed by the majority of American voters. Bill Clinton was elected against the will of the majority twice, and George W. Bush won the White House in 2000 the same way.
Every American longs for the day that a truly AMERICAN candidate tosses their hat in the ring and can draw a majority of voters to a campaign based upon common AMERICAN principles and values. But until such a candidate runs, we are left with making the best of a bad election cycle.
Shame on us, if we fail to at least limit our losses. Shame on our generation, if we make the worst of a bad situation, in the name of protest. Our children and grandchildren deserve better…
[1] http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/07/08/conservatives_for_obama
[2] http://www.progressive.org/mag_reed0508
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