'Are the Dems Celebrating Too Soon?'
By J. D. Longstreet (10/10/08)
Is Celebrating a Disaster Wrong? - I was thinking the other day as I read, listened to, and watched all the dismal poll data showing the republican candidate for president down and falling in the polls… where have I seen this before? Well, it didn't take long to find out. It was the Reagan/Carter race back in the 1980 election. As unlikely as it may seem, looking back on it from this vantage point, that race was a cliffhanger until less than 72 hours before the vote. And then the dam burst for Reagan.
John Zogby, of the Zogby Poll says, in an article in the Boston Herald that he doesn't think Obama has "closed the deal" with voters yet. You can read the article at:
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?articleid=1124117&srvc=2008campaign&position=8
Conservatives fault McCain for not having closed the deal himself. Many of us feel that McCain could have, and should have, run a much more aggressive campaign than he has so far. The Obama campaign has handed the McCain camp campaign issues McCain could have easily used against Obama and yet, he hasn't used them. That failure to attack has created a load of consternation among conservatives. Some leading lights in the conservative camp are saying that conservatives will have to drag McCain over the line to victory on Election Day if he is to win. Understand… McCain still doesn't have the conservative republicans in his pocket. They are in Palin's pocket… not McCain's.
Along about this time in 2000, if memory serves, the pollsters had Gore approximately 11 points ahead in the polls. In 2004, right wing radio talkers were saying the race was Kerry's to lose… and yet, Bush won both. Go figure.
There is a different feel to this election campaign than others I have experienced. And I have experienced a LOT of presidential elections. I blame much of that on my own disappointment in the American electorate. One likes to think his fellow Americans are smarter than they, in fact, are. I am disappointed at how easily the electorate is herded toward a candidate who, no matter how you consider his credentials is absolutely not qualified to be president of a country, certainly not this country. And yet, uneducated as they are about the issues of the day, they bite the bait, and drink the kool-aid, and fall in step behind a candidate who is leading them to… who knows what? They certainly do not know!
At the risk of sounding like a pamphleteer in the pre-Revolutionary days in American… these are perilous times. To be absolutely honest with you, who in their right mind would want to be President considering what the next President will have facing him the moment he takes his hand off the Bible at the swearing in. (You DO know he is already sworn in before we actually see him take the oath…right? Oh, yeah, that is done quietly, out of sight of the public.) The nation is at war, and no matter what any candidate tells you, no matter what any political party tells you, that is not going to change anytime soon. We are not going to be able to disengage our troops from the Middle East no matter how much howling goes up from the left. It ain't gonna happen. That fact alone means a world of hurt for Obama, with his constituency, should he win. The economy is shot to hell, and we are looking at decades of recovery time. Guess who will get the blame for that slow recovery… no matter who the left tries to pin that on. If McCain wins all this blame is going to fall on him.
Now, at the risk of sounding like a prophet of doom… I don't think the economic slide is nearly over yet. Rumors are floating around that other huge manufacturers will go belly-up next year if they don't receive billions more of taxpayer money to bail them out. Here in my own neck of the woods a large employer, an international company based in the US, is closing the local plant and laying off 400 employees the first of December, just before Christmas. (A heck of a Christmas gift, what?) Having been through these economic slowdowns before, a number of times while managing a business myself, and trying to keep it afloat, experience tells me this is going to take time… and before it is over… a lot of Americans are going to be hurt. Care to venture a guess as to whom they are going to take that anger out on? You got it! The new President will be at the center of that bull's eye.
Another thing, should Obama win, where, pray tell, is he going to get all that money necessary to implement all those new programs he is promising? See, the money is gone… and then some! Can you say… TAXES! Taxes on big business? Are you aware that currently the US has the highest corporate taxes of any nation on earth? Would you be surprised if big business began pulling out of the US and taking their operations over to, oh, say, China, where, in some circumstances, they are offering NO corporate taxes for companies that relocate to China.
These are all important issues voters absolutely must consider before casting that ballot in November. If you are reading this it means that you are one of the Americans who cares about what is going on today and how a wrong decision at the polling place will impact your future and the future of your family, your neighbors, and your nation.
One thing is for certain. This is not the time in the history of this country to elect a novice to the office of President of the United States. The wolves are circling just waiting to learn how Americans vote. The wrong vote will bring them bounding in to devour the poor, unsuspecting, newly elected, quite likely overwhelmed, leader of a nation in dire straits.
Yes, we have the strongest, best equipped, and best-trained military in the world. But it is simply not nearly large enough to meet such a challenge. We are going to need, and I hate to say it, a military draft to at least double, preferably triple, the size of the standing military we have today. That will cost billions, even trillions, more money.
I do not doubt that America will pull out of this mess, but it is going to cost money and worse… it is going to cost American blood. But…we have no choice. These things weigh heavily on the minds of thinking Americans who understand the danger in which this country currently finds itself. I don't worry about how they will cast their ballots. No, those who worry me are the unthinking, the unknowing voter, those ruled by emotion, those blinded by race, by perceived slights, real or unreal, slights they feel have been done them by their fellow Americans, who will take this opportunity to cast a ballot in angry protest no matter the cost to themselves or their country. They do not seem to understand, or they simply do not care, that they will be the first segment of American society to be hurt, if not destroyed, by the pain and anguish brought by a wrong decision at the ballot box in November. That's what worries me as the election draws ever nearer.
J. D. Longstreet
http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/
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