Ron Rants

I'm under the weather again, so I'll let frequent contributor Ron have his say.

The truth of American general elections is that in most cases, roughly 45% will vote Democrat regardless of whom the party offers, and another 45% will vote Republican no matter what. Many can’t give a logical reason for their party affiliation, taking refuge in the old saws that Democrats tax and spend or Republicans are anti-black or liberals are too soft on crime or conservatives don’t care about the middle class, and so on.

Many vote one way or another simply because that’s the way Mom did, or dear old Dad, or Gramps, or the Baptist preacher, or the guy down the street who fixed their car one time. Every 4 years we get promises about cleaning up corruption, or holding government accountable for waste and fraud, or improving relations with some overdressed dictator. Generally the rallying cry is "Time for Change in Washington!!""

Well, horse doovers. When a full-grown adult American does NOT vote straight ticket one way or another, you can bet that the reason comes either from his wallet or his fear that a real and present danger is threatening his personal security. Hard-line liberals would vote for Alfred E. Neuman if that’s what the DNC told them to do, and conservatives would get behind Bobby Knight if he wrapped himself in the flag and wore a Reagan button on his lapel. Experience and qualifications are farther down their lists of considerations than the price of gas and what’s for lunch.

Those 10% left over who will actually decide who changes his address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are mostly victims of the phenomenon of fickleness. They approach important decisions much like most men watch TV, with the clicker in one hand and a beer in the other. If within 5 seconds a program shows something they don’t like or fails to show something they want, they click to another one.

They are the people who would vote for a woman or an African-American for all the wrong reasons, not for social advancement or minority rights, but to bring a little excitement to their dull lives with a novelty toy. They’re capricious, whimsical little pricks who like to consider themselves avante garde or roguish or adventuresome by leaping on the "Change!" bandwagon. They’re bored, jaded, ignorant aesthetes who look at Senator Obama or Senator Clinton like some kind of pet rock, or a Rubik’s cube, or a hula hoop . . . not really very useful or functional, but good for a laugh from time to time.

Many of the ten-percenters have simply overheard an out-of-context quote from Emerson or Cicero or Jefferson or someone praising the virtues of independent thought or civil disobedience or working outside the box and believe they are cultural pioneers. They think they know the Constitution because they heard some loud, persuasive voice talking about it once when they could get only 2 bars on their cell phone and the battery in their iPod was weak.

The fact is that the election will be determined by people’s perception of not how good a job some inexperienced, unprepared, overhyped senator might do in the Oval Office, but how much excitement he or she can drum up before throwing in the towel to a hopelessly gridlocked Congress. Most don’t even understand government or leadership, much less care who’s actually running it. They merely want more cash in their pockets and some kind of assurance that the evil empire du jour won’t interfere with the Superbowl or the Oscars or All My Children.

Any reasonable person knows that Obama is grossly underqualified and dangerously inexperienced for the job of negotiating with hard-line lobbyists, socialists, and terrorists. And anyone who doesn’t see that Clinton(s)’ run for the roses is simply to perpetuate the façade of power and importance they’ve erected in the past two decades a la Juan and Evita Peron just isn’t paying attention. It’s come down to a race for firsts – first black, first woman, first septuagenarian RINO.

The whole process has been hijacked by posturers, pretenders, liars, frauds, shills, swindlers, deceivers, carnival barkers, mountebanks, and charlatans. Once again I will, like many others, hold my nose and vote the only way I can to try to preserve a balance of power between the Code Pinkers and the Jonathan Birchers. It’s still the best country on the planet, despite what the French might like to believe, but its grip on reality grows more anemic every day. I’m just glad that Pfizer or somebody hasn’t come up with an affordable immortality pill yet.

Posted by denny at February 27, 2008 12:42 PM