A Preview of Things to Come
C January 20, 2006

It’s 2007, mid-way through the second presidency of King George II.

           

He is well past the point that he can blame prior presidents for the mistakes of his administration. Six years has been more than enough time for even the most adamant Bush supporter to realize the effect his policies have had on our environment, our welfare, and our appearance in the eyes of every other country in the world.

And even if, like a good Bush supporter, you’re inclined to believe that these things don’t matter, I find it hard to believe he would get a single electoral vote, even if he could run again.

But this is more than vindication that I, that we, were right all along. This is having effects across the political spectrum, to the point that Bush will be hard pressed to find an heir when it comes time for his to lay down his scepter.

Yes, like Bill Clinton before him, Bush will be obligated to show support for the front running Republican candidate. But unlike Al Gore, who divided his time between showing involvement in Clinton’s policies and distancing himself from the scandals of his administration, any front-running Republican candidate is likely to rebuke Bush involvement in his campaign except where absolutely necessary.

His supporters have all fallen before him, which speaks even louder of the men he allows into his inner circle. The Republican senate has been riddled with more scandal than ever before, from page-molesting nymphomaniacs to the more traditional sort of greedy-minded scumbag.

At a time like this, it’s funnier than ever that we ever cared that Clinton showed his dick to an intern.

Vice-president Dick Cheney isn’t going to run. He wants to retire and spend time with his grandchildren, and I say good for him. He may be a prince of darkness in his own right, but if he has torn his hand away from the Bible that scalded him and realized the futility in reaping any more souls during this incarnation, then I’m prepared to leave him alone. Fair is fair.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice doesn’t want to do it. Even though, if she did, I think she’d have quite a large following. But she doesn’t want the job.

And rumor has it that some people are trying to groom Jeb to be the third Bush in office. But, let’s face it, that would be retarded.

Jeb Bush running for President would be more retarded than a stampede of angry Downs Syndrome folks charging through the Church of Scientology while Barney the purple dinosaur sings “Copacabana” on loudspeaker. First of all, he doesn’t want the job either, because he’s realized what a shitty job he’s done as governor or Florida. Secondly, who decided this is going to be the new American dynasty? I never got the memo.

But enough of that, the point is that no one who likes Bush is remotely close to the seat of power. Maybe he would do better looking on oil ranches in Texas.

The only Republican candidates with any face recognition at all, defined by me knowing who the heck they are, are Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

McCain was edged out in the primary six years ago, but he seems like a pretty nice guy. “Seems like” being the operative word; his voting record reads like a rubber stamp for Republican policies, even though on television he likes to pretend he’s listening to everyone. He was against the war, but that’s as far as my support for him runs.

I’m only telling you this so you don’t get fooled late, assuming you are not Republican. If you are, maybe he’s your ideal candidate. For us liberals, lets hope he keeps making Daily Show appearances, but not as President.

Gulliani is more of a wildcard, and I wish I knew more about him to include in this report. It seems to me he kept New York pretty much in line for a number of years, before he quit because of prostate cancer (all men reading this may now squirm in your seat). Now he wants back in the game, and unless you live in New York, I don’t expect you’re going to know the full story until after the primary.

One bit of pointless information, George Carlin once advocated putting him in charge of Operation Iraqi Freedom because he’s “an Italian from Brooklyn.” Carlin rarely mentions politics, and has never had anything good to say about an individual politician, so from this viewpoint, Gulliani has at least one glowing endorsement.

But enough about candidates none of us are going to vote for anyway, my intention here is to inform, and perhaps persuade you to vote for my favorite.

Keep in mind, two years is a long time. There’s plenty of time for something to happen that no one can predict. A new candidate may rise to popularity, or a popular candidate may be revealed to be a slime-ball. I can only claim to make predictions based on the knowledge available to me, although I’d like to think I have an interest that extends beyond that of most people I meet on a daily basis. But you already knew that.

John Kerry is apparently interested, but I don’t see him getting past that slip of the tongue he made about our veterans. It’s a shame, because I know what he meant and he was correct, but the Republicans have perfected their spin machine to the point that everyone gets the disinformation before they even know what happened. If you don’t know what happened, I invite you to e-mail me and I’ll tell you.

Former vice-president Al Gore has shown up in a lot of polls, though I have seen nothing to indicate he’s interested. To be honest, I hope he doesn’t show an interest, and I hope he doesn’t win. Don’t take that to mean I don’t like him, I have a respect for the man approaching the respect most people have for Jesus. But my respect is based on his lecture, and subsequent movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

If you haven’t seen this movie, you should, and if you don’t want to, you are a jerk. Basically, what he says in the movie is that he was disappointed at losing the presidency, but eventually realigned his priorities and decided to start giving the lecture again. He is a famous person delivering a good speech that is slowly winning people over to the cause of protecting our planet Earth. I am not exaggerating that I think he might be Mother Nature’s last, best hope for recovery before we all burn up and die, and I think he can do more good as an advisor than an administrator.

The bid for president, which will be won by the winner of the Democratic primary however we feel about party politics is going to come down to one of three people. Yes, two years is a long time for something to happen, but three horses have broken off early, and with every minute are getting further and further away from the rest of the pack.

This trinity of hope, or as Bush might phrase it, Axis of Evil, is composed of Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John Edwards, and Senator Barack Obamba.

Clinton, or more accurately, Rodham-Clinton, would be like a return to the politics of six years ago. When Bill was president, he had Hillary chair a lot of committees for projects she was interested in, thinking of her as an unofficial advisor. Clinton supporters even championed the decision as getting two brains for one vote, while Republicans said the same thing with a frowny face, and called him “Billary”.

The same thing is likely to happen, and Bill Clinton would again be involved in the politics of the nation. Whether or not you like this idea is up to you.

To her credit, Hillary was one of the first First Ladies to do more than simply be a wife. I’m going to say this next quickly before the feminists commandeer this article, but most of her policies still seem to be wife things. I’m not at all opposed to having a woman in the White House (see my earlier comments about Condi), but her history shows an amazing devotion to women’s rights as well as education and health care. Again, with all apologies to the feminists, these seem like female concerns.

The thing is, I wonder if these are the most important concerns to us, now, as a nation. Granted, if she could turn our current macho-cowboy Iraq war policies around and make us worry about education, that would be terrific and we would probably re-elect her. About the war, however, her stance has been a more or less traditional anger at Bush for getting us into this, without offering a single helpful suggestion to get us out. As tempting as it is to say it never should have happened, because it shouldn’t have, it is important to move past it and find the best way to proceed. The Democrats’ inability to offer any helpful suggestions is what has mired them for the last six years.

On the plus side, she is almost certain to lean heavily on national health care, since this has been a pet project of hers for years.

Senator John Edwards, on the other hand, has been an active voice for phased withdrawals from Iraq. Most people remember him as a smiling face, a relatively good looking guy standing next to John Kerry during the 2004 white house run. That’s certainly how I remember him, even though he was a staunch competitor for the Democratic primary. Though his comments during the debate with Cheney were witty and original, it’s hard to picture him as anything other than a rubber stamp for his party.

For those who haven’t heard about him, I’ll remind you that John Edwards started out as a trial lawyer, during which he gave many speeches that his fellow lawyers described as the best they had ever heard. It wasn’t until later that he decided to get into politics.

John Edwards started out low, and got elected because he had the strength, initiative and good ideas to impress himself on people. He was not born into money, which is a claim none of the previous politicians I have mentioned can claim. This is something I think we need as a nation, if only to give hope to the downtrodden. It’s called The American Dream.

Otherwise the poor will always remain poor, and the rich will keep getting richer, and if things stay under the current administration it’s only going to get worse. But there is another candidate not yet mentioned, a man who lived with and champions the lower class, who has not forgotten them even after his intelligence and charisma brought him to power, and continues to do his part as a person and a politician to help the common man of every nation. And this is why I have chosen to throw my support behind Senator Barack Obamba.

Obamba has been a national senator for only two years, but in that short amount of time has become the go-to guy on issues as diverse as Iraq, to medical research, and poverty. If you don’t trust me, check Life magazine, which rated him one of the ten most influential people in America today.

Obamba is a native of Chicago, a mid-western city not different from Toledo, though he has managed to navigate the murky waters of a city famous for its corrupt politicians. And though he is a registered Democrat, Obamba has also developed a reputation for cooperating well with members of any party, as well as for thinking over issues at length no matter who approaches him to take their side.

He has written two books, ostensibly both autobiographies, that have risen to the New York Times best seller list. His most recent, The Audacity of Hope, defines his belief in a new kind of politics that focuses less on party lines and more on what is good for America. The current system, he would say, cannot sustain itself.

Obama is the child of a Kenyan man and a Midwestern woman, and grew up in the Chicago public school system as a mixed race student. In his autobiography he confesses to trying marijuana as a kid in an attempt to deal with these issues, but I am more impressed with his honestly, and in fact with the idea that he has been where we are and overcame the same issues of identity men of our age (to which I mean Chris and me) are all dealing with.

On a recent fact-finding trip to Kenya, he spent his own money to bring his wife and children to the home city of his estranged father. There, he gave a speech about erasing race lines, and also got an AIDS test with high publicity to show there is no shame in checking up on your health. He can’t be hoping to get any votes from the citizens of Africa, he did it because he is a good person.

His voting record as a state Senator before he got on the national ticket, shows a complete support for welfare programs, health care, and he was given a 100% by a popular women’s magazine for championing their rights. Again, he did this not as a favor to any special interest or friendly politician, but because he considered the issue and decided what he thought was best for the people of Illinois.

I support and will contribute to Obamba’s campaign for all these reasons and one more. Because of his contributions to civil rights institutions, and because he is the first African-American this close to the White House, I believe Obamba is one of the most fitting bearers of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy than any other person today.

But no matter who you vote for, please remember to vote come November 2008. When my dad refused to vote in the 2004 election, I was disappointed to see that Ohio became a red state by such a short margin. If one more person had cared enough to vote, I thought, we might not be where we are now.

So consider the issues, consider the candidates, and then vote. It’s the least you can do for your future.

Information on Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obamba gleaned from www.wikipedia.org, the internet’s largest free encyclopedia. Information of everything else gleaned from the voices in my head.