A friend of mine recently remarked, looking at the Democratic field of candidate aspirants, that it would be nice to have a candidate who stood firm on the issues of the day, drawing on their own personal belief system rather than always running off to conduct polls before taking a stand, a la Obama and Clinton.

Aye, and there’s the rub.

I don’t believe ANYONE, regardless of party affiliation, who runs for elected office today, whether in the US or abroad, can possibly ever win if they create their election platform from their personal views on the issues, as unfortunate a situation as that may be.

It’s honest, it’s ethical, it’s moral, it’s correct–and it’s unelectable!

Y’see, today’s politics–and to a great extent, all politics, ever–is just like class elections in high school. It’s a popularity contest, and always has been, save for George Washington’s election. The hoi polloi likes it this way. No thinking required.

And no matter how much John Q. Public personally likes or admires any candidate, or even, upon examination, should he find that a majority of their planks conform to his own ideas, there is bound to be one serious issue on which each candidate and John disagree. If it’s a big enough plank (abortion? Iraq? Church and State? etc., etc.) then it will matter not one whit how fine a mayor, senator, or president they’ll make; based on Mr. Public’s one pet issue, he’ll find someone else who may be a much worse choice overall, but with whom he is in agreement on his pet issue.

Thus, we end up with elected officials who compete for votes based on how honeyed their words are. Fuck truth!  We can’t HANDLE the truth!  (Well, actually, we can, but, as with our dear friend Bartleby, “we would prefer not to.”)

To complete the popularity contest analogy: The above example, my friends, is a microcosm of only those who actually care about the issues–call it 15% of the voting electorate, generously. The vast majority of the voting public, as best illustrated by the idiotic and feckless Mr. Lamar Alexander in a recent interview regarding Fred Thompson’s candidacy, for instance–are more concerned with how “presidential” a candidate looks on TV. Or how craggy their face appears, how photogenic they are or the size of their boobs, and so it goes.

Truth be told, as a nation, we are a superficial bunch of moronic ninnies, and we get just what we deserve–superficial and moronic public servants.

It’s easy to say Al Gore would have been a “better” president (I happen to think our cat Stirling would have been a better choice, but I digress) but without the 2000 election, the latent statesman in Gore never would have made an appearance. (don’t believe me, have a look at his record on issues pre-2000 and post-2000; he’s MUCH more of a true leader now). Even folks who are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives at least respect Al Gore now, which is a story unto itself.

Looking at the current crop of Democrats, I see no current candidates that I truly endorse. I like Barak Obama, but more because he’s a literate man of African-American descent who stands a chance than for any other reason. Hillary, as polarizing as she may be, has bigger ‘nads than Bush OR her husband, but as an acquaintance of mine so aptly illustrated recently by declaiming how much he “hated Hillary Clinton!”, the media and religious-right conservatives are so in the habit of disbelieving anything she says that I doubt she would be effective. (note: most people that say they “hate Hillary” cannot offer one solid reason WHY they hate her, which should make us all triple-wary of the media. Generally when I hate someone, I at least am capable of offering an immediate, concrete reason!)

In short, we’re probably screwed again, and will get some lukewarm dungball–and who will care or even notice if s/he is a liberal, moderate, conservative, or religious nutbag–who parrots what his/her advisors put in the 2 page brief.

Hurray for us. America rocks.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.