~
This seems to be the question every political pundit is asking and answering about last week's election results.
As far as this observer can tell, it means the American voter is... I hate to use words like stupid, empty-headed or pathetic... so I'll stick with the somewhat more polite hapless and hopeless.
If it's true, as many pundits suggest, that independent voters - "those in the center" - and true-blue conservatives were angry at the failure of Republican elected officials to do much in the last few years, why on Earth would these voters cast votes for Democrats? This is daft. If Republicans were too corrupt for these "sensitive" voters, is their memory so short they have forgotten corruption on the other side of the aisle?
If these same voters were unhappy with the Republican's lack of fiscal responsibility, do they actually believe the Democrats will do better? Have they forgotten it was a Republican Congress under Gingrich which forced Democrats to control spending?
If these same voters were unhappy with the war in Iraq, do they actually think Kerry, Murtha et al. will make things any better over there? Do they actually think our boys and girls will be coming home sooner with Pelosi steering the House?
If these same voters were unhappy with the lack of progress in controlling our borders, do they actually believe the Democrats will build that fence any faster? Will go after illegal aliens any harder? Will face down the ACLU? Will clean up the drug gangs? Any voter who believes this is beyond hopeless. He is delusional.
We are told these unhappy voters were "sending a message" to President Bush. "We are unhappy with you and your people Mr Bush, so we are making Congress change hands." Somehow this is supposed to make President Bush see the light. Quite frankly, President Bush no longer cares about this. He has been acting as a "war president" and so knows his damnable "legacy" is dependent upon success or failure in Iraq and the general Middle East. "Success" in that arena, if it is to come at all, will take ten years if not more. Two years isn't going to cut it. So President Bush will have to declare some kind of made-up victory and pull many if not most of the troops out by 2008, well before the end of his term. James Baker will help him find his way out of the morass. At least Baker is a bright man. He and his cohorts will come up with a plan to do this - probably the same plan you or I would come up with around the kitchen table - and Pelosi and her Nancy Boys will go along with it.
Now I have to ask the embarrassing question no one else is asking as far as I can tell. Why is no one contesting this election? We all know there are hundreds of thousands of Democrat votes cast by the dead, the illegal, and the otherwise ineligible. A difference in only a few thousand votes in several close and important races would have changed the results dramatically. Had the shoe been on the other foot, had the Republicans retained control of both Houses by such narrowly-won races, there would be an army of "hanging chad" counters, touch-screen weenies and paid lawyers combing over the results like a horde of locusts from now until January First in order to overturn the election. Could it be that these things are all pre-determined anyway?
In the end, yes, I think the general American voter is hopeless. He couldn't figure out that a vote against a Republican doesn't have to be a vote for a Democrat - a party no more worthy to run Congress than Republicans. Those protest votes could have been cast for write-in candidates of their own choosing, or third party candidates where available. That would have been a better way to protest. That would have been a clear and unambiguous signal to both parties that we are not very happy with either of you and we want more choices.
"Choice" we are told, is a good thing. "Competition" we are told, is a good thing. Dictatorships, we don't need to be told are a bad thing, because they only get one choice of leader - the one with the guns. But here in "free" America we get more choice of ice cream flavors, more choices of credit card companies, more choices of auto makers, breakfast cereal, cell phone plans, sports programs, shoe styles, and cable stations - things that don't really matter much - but we get just a couple of candidate choices at the polls. The choice between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dumber isn't much better than we'd get in an oligarchy - for that is essentially what we have become. Are two choices much better than one when both are in cahoots?
We need more choices at the polls. In 2008, in this great nation there must be more than two viable candidates to run for President. In order to get better choices, we must somehow find a way to break the stranglehold the two party system has on democracy. We have no choice.
~
