Trey Smith
Much has been written about the sorry state of the current field of individuals vying for the Republican nomination for President in 2012. In many ways, it resembles a sideshow replete with freaks, wonders and human curiosities. Each time one of the main characters ascends to the top of the ladder, the Republican faithful see the candidate's exposed fanny and, almost instantaneously, knock the pole sitter off the ladder!
In their numerous debates, these candidates try to outdo one another in the most ludicrous ways. They enthusiastically reject science, statistics and commonsense. They make up "facts" that almost any third grader could disprove without breaking a sweat. They mangle names and almost all of them seem to have failed in geography class.
Why is it that only the clowns from the GOP circus have thrown their hats into the proverbial center ring?
Writing in The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald my have discovered the answer!
In fairness to the much-maligned GOP field, they face a formidable hurdle: how to credibly attack Obama when he has adopted so many of their party's defining beliefs. Depicting the other party's president as a radical menace is one of the chief requirements for a candidate seeking to convince his party to crown him as the chosen challenger. Because Obama has governed as a centrist Republican, these GOP candidates are able to attack him as a leftist radical only by moving so far to the right in their rhetoric and policy prescriptions that they fall over the cliff of mainstream acceptability, or even basic sanity.In other words, Democrats like President Obama are the real culprits. As Greenwald points out, on issue after issue, Obama has moved in to claim the traditional Republican turf. Since everyone knows that the Republicans are the right-leaning political party, they have been forced by the Democratic Party to move to the outer right fringe.
So, what does this leave the American voter? If you chose to participate in this rigged electoral system, you get to choose between a Republican (Obama) or a fringe nutcase (the Republican nominee). What kind of choice is that?!
If you identify with left-of-center politics, you're shit out of luck. Even worse, if you define yourself as a moderate -- someone in the middle -- you're in the same boat. The only voters these days who are granted the possibility of a choice are the conservatives and even some of them are turned off by the choices as well.
Unless AmericansElect.org comes up with anyone my vote right now is for Ron Paul (the libertarian under the Republican ticket). He's not ideal, but it seems like our best shot and can beat Obama and the other Republican's. He's the only candidate who's strictly anti-war and wants to revive our civil liberties lost to the war on terror. The establishment (the 1%) is very afraid of him and thats a good sign for the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteIf Ron Paul runs an independent campaign for prez, I actually might vote for him for the reasons you mentioned. There's no way in hell he can win the GOP nomination -- the party big wigs will see to that.
ReplyDeleteRon Paul is only libertarian on certain subjects, especially in a financial sense. I've seen him described as a "neo-confederate conservative Christian". I assume mentioning his religion means he would tilt government in that direction. No theocratic dominionism for me, thanks. I've heard that Gary Johnson is more libertarian that Paul, but I know little about him. All of which doesn't matter anyway, since I will not be voting in the Republican primaries. I might not vote in the national elections because of the lack of choices. If I do show up and flash my ID for the right to fill in a bubble, I might just pick third party candidates as a protest vote.
ReplyDeleteThe word verification for this post is "mystorm" which fits perfectly this election cycle.