The last five or six months have just been fun, haven't they? We've had the pleasure (and pain) of watching the Republican primary candidates tear into each other, and of course they all tore into President Obama with reckless abandon. I say "reckless" because they haven't been very..... truth-y. We've had our fun and our laughs over the goofs and gaffs as the Republicans came up with the most nut-ball ideas we've heard in decades. Who can forget Trump and his crazy, racist birther talk? Apparently he can't forget it either. Then there was Michele Bachmann and her complete fumbling of U.S. history to suit her ultra-right-wing narrative. Never go on Jeopardy, Michele. Then we got to watch Rick .......uh?...uh?... Perry totally embarrass himself. Next it was Herman Cain and his 9-9-9 plan, and him finding out "What Women Don't Want", followed by the incomparable Newt Gingrich. This man gave us a truck load of laughs from moon colonies, to abolishing child-labor laws. With an ego the size of Georgia he told us it was a foregone conclusion he would win. Oops! (sorry Rick Perry) turns out old Newt and Calista were just out for a good time with donor's money. He's gone, and $4 million in the hole. Finally it was Rick Santorum. Rick is just nuts. College is for snobs- birth control is just wrong- blah-blah-blah. He dropped out when he figured out he couldn't compete in his own state-again. The clown show is finally over and the circus has left town.
So here we are with Mitt Romney just like we knew we would be. The Republicans always settle on the next guy in line. He was there six years ago and he's finally getting his turn. They will fall in line, but they will never fall in love with this guy. Most of the party faithful don't even like him much. Just look at the tepid endorsements he's gotten. Nonetheless he and his super-PACs will have tons of money to throw around. When you think about it, you realize the party ends up with an empty vessel like Mr. Romney because they just don't have anybody else to choose from. The other candidates were totally loony-tunes and there is not one Republican in the House or the Senate who has shown themselves to be a statesman- or a leader. At least now we know it will be Obama vs. Romney in the main event. Here are my early predictions on the election:
-This will be an important (critically important) election. However I predict the general electorate will not be treated like it's a critically important election by the candidates or their surrogates. That is, we the voters, will be fed a boatload of inaccurate nonsense (from both sides) because it fits in a 30 second commercial, while they never really address the fundamental issues facing the country. Selling the candidates will be more important understanding the candidates; and unless we really dig hard for the truth on our own, most of us will go into the voting booth with nothing more than the last political ad in our heads.
-The election process will be drowning in money. The Supreme Court's Citizens United case has allowed unlimited funds from just about anywhere (even foreign countries) to flood in on us. All the billionaires who are complaining that they don't want to pay more taxes seem to have plenty of money to throw around on this election. It sure makes you wonder why. (Actually we know why- it is in their financial interest, that's why) There are two problems for us. 1) we have no idea who is behind all the super-PAC donations and what they expect to gain, and 2) we will be inundated with negative advertising to the extent we may just get sick of it and spurn the whole process out of disgust. One thing is for sure- we will see this flood of super-PAC spending on commercials unlike anything we've ever seen before. My hope is that it will awaken common sense again so the Congress, along with all of us, will demand a change from the non-sense wrought on us from Citizens United.
-A lot of voters may experience a case of mass amnesia. We will be asked to make judgments on the President's past 3 1/2 years in office, and the Republicans will do anything to have us forget the shape our country was in when the President took office. And we may just oblige them by not remembering what was left to clean up when the President took office. If we don't remember how close we were to total collapse, we won't be able to fairly judge what President Obama has accomplished. I heard a commentator use the analogy that President Obama's challenge was like having a new Captain take over the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. The more I learn about the economic crisis that hit us while President Bush was in office, the more I appreciate what President Obama did to keep us from going over the edge into a full-blown depression. It was deeper and more frightening than most of us realize, which is why it is taking so long to recover from it. But we'll be asked to forget all that, and blame this slow recovery entirely on the President. We'll also be asked to have amnesia about the Bush policies that caused the melt down - because Mr. Romney is proposing more of that old Bush magic; lower taxes for the wealthy- cuts to programs for the middle class and the poor- no spending on infra-structure- no regulation of the financial industry- increased spending on the military. That is the same recipe that took us from a surplus federal budget to huge deficits in one year under the Bush plan (and that before 9-11-01). But please, just forget all that- and blame the new guy for not digging us out of their mess faster. Oh, by the way you should also forget that Republicans in Congress have obstructed every effort the President has made since he took office.
-This election will be remembered (and written about in the history books) for the efforts to suppress and hinder voting. After the election of Barack Obama the opposition systematically set out to eliminate as many voters as possible from the demographic that voted for President Obama in 2008. We have seen State after State (where Republicans control the State Legislatures) pass legislation to suppress voting. They have required ID's that were never required before- they have limited early voting- they have purged voter rolls using inaccurate data bases- they have eliminated voting for out-of state student voters. All of these tactics specifically target traditional Democratic voters- and this is no coincidence! They claim the purpose is to prevent voter fraud, but they can't give a single example of voter fraud remotely influencing an election. If these efforts are allowed to succeed, history will record that these laws set back democracy in our country. America has always stood for the expansion of democracy and citizen rights. The trend to suppress voting will prove to be a shameful chapter in our history, one we will regret if these measures go forward.
Those are my predictions- except who I think will actually win. I know who I want to win- and who I'll vote for, but these are all rather sad predictions about the nature of the election itself. This promises to be a very close and, by all accounts, very ugly election. Don't be surprised to see the subtle and not-so-subtle racism again. The influence of unfettered amounts of money will certainly be a huge factor along with the issue of how voting is done in the various States. No matter who wins I'm hoping for a resurgence of the People's will in how our government functions, based on the horrible lessons I think we are about to learn. It seems that within the last generation our precious democracy has literally been taken over by lobbyists and the big-money interests who own them. It can only get worse under the current set of rules. If we learn anything from this election- I hope we learn that our government exists for us, the ordinary folk- not the elites who have taken us to this sorry state of affairs-and that we have to reassert ourselves back into our system of government
Thanks for looking in.
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