


As the dust settles from Super Tuesday, you have to ask: Are the presidential candidates, Republicans and Democrats alike, the best we can do in a nation of 300 million, give or take 20 million who should not even be here?
Barack Obama? A Chicago ward-heeler who voted “present” every time he could, amassing an impressive non-record. Hillary Clinton? You already know all about Hillary Clinton. None of it good. John McCain? A total wackjob (yes, yes, I know, he’s a war hero) who calls himself a Republican, but is closer to being a socialist than even Hillary Clinton. Mitt Romney? Flip-flopper with really nice hair and good line of patter. Mike Huckabee? A Bible thumper who never saw a tax he did not like as Arkansas governor and who concurred with the state’s parole board decision to free a convicted rapist. The rapist, by the way, then trotted over to Missouri and killed a pregnant woman. Ron Paul? Pass out the foil hats.
And we won’t even go into the campaign has-beens such as John (the Breck Girl) Edwards or Rudy Giuliani, a constitutional scholar who opined the Second Amendment only applies out in the hinterlands. Good riddance.
What is most amazing to me is that this nation actually accepts that this sorry lot is the best it can do. In my humble view, none of these people, not one, is qualified to lead a kazoo band on a one-block march, much less the world’s most powerful constitutional republic in perhaps the most perilous era in human history.
So what is the problem? Is the system flawed? Not that you could prove. It has produced presidents who were political geniuses and true leaders. Men who changed the world. George Washington. John Adams. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison. And on and on. Abraham Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Harry Truman. John Kennedy. Ronald Reagan. Strong wills. Strong intellect. Strong character. Strong senses of who they were and what this nation was about. They put the United States first, albeit sometimes bruising the Constitution in the process, and they were people, I’d guess, who never would deign to waste air by voting “present.” But, mind you, they were not all geniuses. There has been more than one bounder in the White House.
Are our politicans of weaker stock and intellect than those throughout the nation’s history? Maybe. Maybe not. The difference is that campaigns, and politics in general, nowadays are fueled by television and aimed at the lowest common denominator.
This nation. let’s face it, has been reduced to haves and have-nots — those who work to make money to support those who don’t. There are two basic political messages. “Vote for me, I will give you this, this and this,” or, “Vote for me, I’ll make sure ‘they’ do not take what is yours through higher taxes or confiscation.”
There is not much real talk about preserving the Constitution or protecting individual rights in the face of a growing socialist collectivism.
There is no real effort to reduce spending or get out of debt or redirect the national focus to a frugality that would benefit our great-grandchildren. Too many of us, it seems, are busily encouraging even more spending, more lunacy.
In the end, it is not the system that is the problem; it is us and what we are willing to tolerate. Let’s face it, the best and brightest in America do not always run for office; the best and brightest in politics do not always run for the presidency. We are left now with candidates who can appeal mostly to those most adamant about getting handouts or ending them.
It is almost enough to make you sick. A great nation finally reduced to picking between the lesser of two evils, not the best possible person for the job. That is our fault. We could do better picking our presidents by lottery.
It’s enough to make you want to stay home on election day.
(voiceofthetimes.net)