Last Updated on February 12, 2022
I have read with amusement and disgust those polls which indicate the main reason many will vote for John Kerry in November is that Kerry is not George W. Bush.
You will have to forgive me if I find terrible flaws in this line of reasoning. I think we should be voting for the best man for the job, not voting for someone because they aren’t someone else. That’s pretty much what we do no matter who we vote for, isn’t it?
Is it possible for either side to talk about what its candidate intends to do to improve the situation without hiding behind a wall of what the opponent didn’t do during the last four years? Can either side give me a positive plan about getting us out of Iraq without reminding me what those fanatical nutcases on the other side of the political spectrum would likely do between 2005-2009? Can I get some compelling reasons to vote for one, rather than voting against someone else? (The “voting against” part is pretty much covered, I think.)
Our own John Scalzi of “By the Way” fame has a journal that’s outside of the AOL family. In it, he has an interesting take on the election and the candidates. He has less-than-kind things to say about Bush, including:
“If re-elected, will go down as the worst president in 100 years, if only because Warren Harding had the decency to die in his first term.”
Fear not. He also has choice words for Kerry:
“The fact that John Kerry is opposed to verifiably the worst president in eight decades and is still neck-in-neck in the polls at this point is absolutely shameful, and opens up the argument of who is more incompetent.”
His biggest gripe though is about those voters who still call themselves “undecided.” He wants those of us who are still looking for that compelling argument that doesn’t involve name-calling, finger pointing, he-said-he-said rhetoric or whining about what the other guy didn’t do to get up off our duffs and make up our minds.
Scalzi also mentions Reagan’s “Better Off Now” test. What is either side going to do, assuming it cares, to make sure that I personally am better off by 2009?
Then there’s Bruce over at “Old Hickory’s Website” who goes into multiple essays about the thought of postponing the election in the event of a terrorist attack. He says Bush and “the Oxycontin crowd” (he seems proud enough of that to the point of using it nearly constantly!) have no right to even consider such a thing.
He then talks about the typical GOP spin being something along the lines of this: The same people who complained that Bush didn’t do enough to prevent the 9/11 attacks are now complaining about Bush considering a plan to react should terrorists try to sabotage the election. He doesn’t really answer that question, he just points it out as the obvious query. “Yeah, nothing to see here, folks. Move along,” he says. I guess his take is that this question is little more than an Oxycontin-induced cloud over the judgment of anyone who would ask.
I’ve never taken Oxycontin, but I wouldn’t mind knowing the answer. Do we want to be reactive to everything, or do we want to complain about any attempt to be proactive to a threat? Somehow, I think they come to the same thing. The truth seems to be in the eye of the politico.
He does make points about the election still being held on time during the Civil War, and suggests that if it could be done then, it could be done now. Everyone knew the nation was at war and saw fighting on a daily basis in this country back then. There are plenty of people operating under the delusion of safety now. It’s a big delusion, granted, but it’s there. I can’t imagine that a terrorist attack wouldn’t keep some people from exercising their right to vote. Even in areas not directly affected, there may be areas where voters might be scared to vote out of fear that their polling place is the next target. If this influences the election either way, is that a good thing?
Would it be fair to postpone the election in only the affected area, which would no doubt be flooded by both the Bush and Kerry camps after an attack were to happen, worried not so much about thesurvivors’ welfare but rather who they’d vote for when the lights came back on?
If Gore was in office now and suggested the same idea, would there be as many people raising such a complaint?
A survey in yesterday’s AOL Daily Pulse revealed that when it comes to voting method, 84% of respondents say all areas should vote the same way…either with punch cards, machines, or electronically. More than half (54%) say they will not trust this year’s election results. Even more (59%) claim not to have been satisfied with the results of the 2000 election.
Yet if the worst would happen: if a terrorist attack occurred during the election, we’d expect voters everywhere else to cast their ballots, voters in affected areas to have their voting date rescheduled, and still assume that there would be no dispute over the numbers?? We would all be willing to accept that no one would have the time to tamper with the collected votes in the rest of the country while we wait for word from affected areas, or that there would be no way to tamper with vote counts within affected areas? Come on, folks. Let’s pick one side or the other here.
Also today, Ron over at “Think it Over,” who points to an editorial about John Edwards‘ “American Dream” story being a logic problem. He ends with this:
“Can political discourse ever evolve to really ‘telling it like it is?’ I doubt it. I believe that most politicians would view attempts at such honesty as the kiss of death. The American people may be ready for it, but until the candidates believe they are it will never happen.”
Quite right, Ron.
We’re spending a lot of time doing damage control, and very little time talking about issues. We’re spending lots of time putting messages out there about how bad the other side is; we’re also spending lots of time pointing out how flawed those messages are. We have to, because there are those who will swallow anything fed to them. But while the facts are being picked apart to break it down for the masses, we’re still missing the real points.
Those voters who are motivated to vote for the “lessor of two evils” are, by definition, still voting for an evil. Is there any wonder why there are still plenty of voters who still want to gauge how “evil” either choice will really be? Maybe I’m mistaken, but I think there’s a lot riding on this this election, regardless of who you want to see in the White House next year.
