By Michael Rutschky
Published on January 8, 2008
I woke up on New Year’s Day to nightmares of venomous snakes and a stomach virus, an omen of things to come perhaps? This will be a strange year, I am hoping. Lots of trickery and revelations as the spectator sport known as American politics begins another season.
Just as the Earth hurdles forward for another race around the sun, the Republican and Democratic parties spew forth their candidates for another race at the Presidency.
The Dems promising an anti-Bush that will undo the nightmare of the last eight years, the GOP hoping not to lose the executive branch by keeping the public sold on the fear of terrorism and gays.
Me, I’m very skeptical of politicians in general after coming to age under George W. Bush, and may very well wind up voting undecided (voting undecided counts as a vote but not towards either party, which widens the gap, whereas not voting altogether means that’s one less vote that the candidates need to score in order to win).
I don’t think any of these jerks really represent me as an American. But, neutral election coverage is sure to get old fast, just as no one will give a damn about a sports column written by someone without a team to side with.
So, in the interest of playing the game, I’m going with the candidate who is from my perspective the least of all evils, Barack Obama. He’s young, he’s hip, he’s got to overcome being an ethnic minority (and having the middle name Hussein), he has some good policies, and he doesn’t remind me at all of W.
Besides, I’m pretty sure Obama will make it through the primaries, so I can follow him to the end of the election. I’m not saying that this is now the OBAMA ’08 column; I’m just saying it’s more fun to write politics from the perspective of one who has someone to cheer for.
Campaigning for President appears to me to be a battle of slyness and pandering first, and morals and ideas second. It’s about selling a product, just like everything else in America, and the best salesmen get to go sleep in the White House.
This is why McCain sells himself as a tough guy veteran, Huckabee and Romney sell themselves as champions of the religious right, Giuliani sells himself as the brave man that picked up the pieces of New York City after 9/11, and why Huckabee, Romney, and Giuliani all make sure to publicly admire McCain at the debates for being a tough guy veteran. It’s all about embodying the product that you think the American people want to buy.
The word “caucus” is a Native American word that means “a conference of tribal leaders.” It’s hilarious that the rich white men that dominate the Republican and Democratic parties stole this word to use for their own meetings to vote on a Presidential candidate. The 2008 Iowa caucuses were the opening shot in the Presidential election.
Early numbers showed an almost clean three-way split in the Democratic caucuses between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, with Edwards taking a slight lead; but soon the tables turned with Obama jumping to the lead and being named CNN’s projected leader of the Democratic caucuses after about an hour and a half. Meanwhile, Huckabee was announced the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses by CNN after about an hour.
When the dust settled Obama and Huckabee’s wins were solidified and Dems Chris Dodd and Joe Biden had given up on the Presidency altogether.
I watched the Iowa coverage with a few friends of mine. We stayed in, had some beers, and talked politics. It was nice; we called it the Iowa Cauc’ Party.
My buddy in the Grand Ol’ Party was incredibly disappointed at seeing Huckabee take the lead. Although my buddy’s Christian, he doesn’t want to see a preacher-President that studied under a Texas televangelist lead the country. He wants the President to refer to the Constitution over the Bible.
He also believes that if the general election came down to the two candidates that won Iowa, Obama would take the executive in a blood bath of a landslide. There aren’t enough Republicans that would bother leaving their houses to turn up in November to support Huckabee.
After all, 200,000 Democrats came out to vote in the Iowa caucuses; while a mere 80,000 Republicans participated in the caucuses of their party. People seem to be ready for a drastic change in this country, that’s for sure.
Suckabee said in his victory speech that the greatest generation is the one that hasn’t been born yet. I think I actually saw a tear gleaming in Chuck Norris’s eye (and no, that is not the cure for cancer). So my generation isn’t the greatest generation? We’re a lost cause to you? We don’t have anything to offer to you except whatever spawn we leave behind? Thanks.
Election ’08 is finally here. Game on!
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