I had hopes for this presidential campaign. I had hopes that it would be a vigorous discussion of the issues so important to our future. I had hopes that it would be a close but fair examination of which candidate would be best able to address those issues. I had hopes that we had seen the last of Karl Rove type politics based on character assassination, lies told with unashamed confidence, avoidance of difficult issues, and distortions of every kind, but that does not seem to be the case.
The Republicans appear to be running a campaign along the lines of one of those reality shows where the winner is the one who, with obvious pride, can outwit the others through devious, underhanded ways. It may be that responsible news reporting and analysis are doing a decent job of revealing all of that to the public, but my sense is that the public is not paying much attention. The public appears to be absorbed with talk radio and Fox television hosts who pander to Rove style politics with absolute delight. It’s certainly more entertaining than listening to the considered and thoughtful response of someone actually interested in the issues and the well being of the nation.
So as far as hope goes, I don’t have much right now. I figure we will elect a man who may have many years of government service but has progressed little, who will continue economic policies that are driving us into the lower ranks of the developed countries, and who has demonstrated that, in spite of years in Washington and military service, he doesn’t know beans about foreign policy. His vice president will be a ideologue whose short time on the national scene has been filled with calculating deceptions of every kind.
My friend Don will smile and say all of this is just so much whining from another liberal Democrat who knows he’s losing again, but I’m really a pretty conservative Independent, and what I see is a Republican machine that is undermining the foundation of the nation in the pursuit of power and position, and that values little and has less use for legitimate democracy.