You’ll notice that I’ve added a “2008 election” category (see sidebar). Don’t worry, this blog will not become a political blog. But, it is difficult to not discuss the 2008 presidential race here in the U.S. at least a little bit. Over the next several months, I am pretty sure I’ll blog about it once in a while.
It’s only primary season (New Hampshire is today) … still way too early to start narrowing the field significantly.
I am not registered as a Democrat or Republican, which means I cannot vote in their primaries. On one hand, this is unfortunate because I’d like to participate…but, on the other hand, I’ve never been thrilled with officially registering for a party. My past voting record (which I won’t discuss specifically) has included Democrats, Republicans, and independents. I don’t like the feeling of registering for a “side” because I try and look at the continuum and vote for people, referenda, or propositions that I feel are the right choice at that particular time.
There was a time when some of the libertarian ideals that used to be part of the Republican party were important to me. In my view (I’m no political expert by any means…this is just my opinion), they have strayed so far from those ideals … the current version of a Republican, that is, the the type in power now, is difficult to recognize as a Republican. The candidate with actual libertarian ideals, Ron Paul, seems to be continually shown the door, to put it nicely, by the Republican elite (see this latest gossip, for example). Why? Probably because he’s against the current war, and against foreign entanglements in general. That’s what a libertarian is. During one of the hundreds of debates last fall, when Romney answered a question about going to war with “I’ll have to check with my lawyers first”, Ron Paul rightly responded that perhaps “perhaps we should check with the Constitution!”. Hmmm…that would be a good idea, the Constitution…let’s get rid of him. The current version of a Republican is much closer to an authoritarian.
And then there’s Huckabee … the winner of the Iowa caucuses for the Republicans. Apparently, the vast majority of his votes in Iowa were from self-described evangelical Christians. The Republican elite are not entirely thrilled with Huckabee either. Huckabee has been called a socially-conservative democrat. He is fighting the all-important fight against gays and teaching science, but his party-mates are afraid he might not cut their taxes. Bush was able to successfully pander to this group of voters AND be a champion of robber-barrons fiscal conservatives. Huckabee seems to be quite a different type of Bible-thumper … he may actually believe in some of the compassion evident in the Bible (unless it’s directed at the gay community … they’re just plain evil, everybody knows that).
McCain is the only Republican I can possibly stomach (see a discussion over at the Lounge a few days ago). I certainly don’t agree with a lot of what he says or what his plans are…but, at least, he’s against torture (having gone through it himself) and against parsing words about the definition of torture. That’s something I guess.
As for the Democrats, I am very thrilled to see Clinton not doing well … so far. The Clintons are not that different from the Bushes. Americans have been duped into thinking they are complete opposites. They are both extremely powerful families…that will do whatever it takes to obtain and wield power. Hillary would keep us fully entangled in wars of various types and styles. Sure…she might have some different policies on the domestic front, but wake up everybody. She’s not that different. She never really says anything with any certainty. She’s a triangulator. If I have to vote for her, I’m gonna be pretty cranky.
Perhaps Obama will keep doing well … we’ll see. My guess is that upcoming smear campaigns against him from the state media will take its toll. But, hopefully Americans are waking up to the fact that they are being propaganized (is that a word?). I don’t know if Obama has all the answers…no single person does. Like many, I tend to view elections as a “lesser of two evils” choice. This is a negative view, I know. It seems to me that the U.S. needs someone that is willing to inherit a complete and utter mess. This is always the case…it’s always a mess…but, I think most rational people would agree that the current mess is especially rancid. Maybe it sounds trite, but I think Americans do want a significant change in course and style of leadership.
