Not since William Howard Taft has there been a fatter presidential candidate than our own Chris Christie - a strange combination of names - who was slated to say something in front of a bunch of assembled Republicans in Florida tonight.
I don't care to listen because I am a resident of the state in which he is the governor, so I could probably write the speech. I don't need to tune into CNN to listen to it.
He'll tell the world (or the American part of it) how the budget should be balanced and how badly we've done since the scourge of the Democrats have descended on America. It's that predictable. Politics has relegated itself to denigrating the other party and telling you how bad your life is because the other party is in charge.
That's how it has been since the beginning of politics. But, for your lifetime, let's review: Jimmy Carter promised to bring back honesty to the office after the Nixon/Ford nonsense. Ronald Reagan promised to take you away from government control that you were under with the Carter administration. The first Bush promised to continue the "good times" that the Reagan administration gave us. We elected Bill Clinton because we were tired of the Republicans. In response to that, we mistakenly elected another Bush (twice) because the Democrats were so unorganized that we couldn't figure out what was going on.
Now, the miracle of Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and we can't imagine another four years of this guy.
Side note: When Obama gave the keynote speech at the Democrat Convention in 2004 I wondered, "Who is this guy?" If we are supposed to believe that (any kid) in America can grow up to be president, we look at a guy like Barack Obama and wonder how he can be a one-term Senator and give a keynote address in front of millions of people at a major political convention. It made me think that something was up. It turned out, something was up, and the guy went on to become the president of our country. That's about as "up" as something could become.
So now, we are confronted with that guy (Obama) and another guy who millions of Americans believe is wealthy, and as such, is out of touch with our middle-American values. As it turns out, all of the political parties' candidates are out of touch with our values because none of them ever had a job where they were paid minimum wage or struggled to do ... ANYTHING ... and we are supposed to believe that they are working in the best interests of the so-called "regular Americans."
[pause]
There are no candidates that are working for the regular Americans. At least no candidates that are running for president. They will tell you that they are working for you and that your best interests are their best interests.
The truth is ... if there is a truth ... that there is nobody in politics that is interested in what you are interested in. That is: Keeping your cost of living stable, increasing your wages and making the problems in your life go away. Forget about that.
So, vote for who you're going to vote for. Display your politics and pretend that your anti-abortion or anti-gay or anti-whatever policy reflects your viewpoint. It ain't necessarily so, and if you think it is, you're horribly misinformed.
Which puts you straight in line with the rest of America.
2 comments:
When I watch the US pre-election procedures and see the hysteria, the confidence of victory, the self-righteousness, it makes me cringe a little, I must say.
But politicians over here are no different, of course. It's simply not such a media spectacle.
Politics in America boils down to a few things. Blaming somebody, making you afraid of something and trying to make people believe that your way is the only right way.
It's pathetic that our process has become a TV show, complete with celebrity speakers (Clint Eastwood) and staged events. I think the people they are serving are way down on their list.
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