Already on the Republican side we have waved goodbyes without regret to Primarily Speaking, 2000
by sonya hammond
As we suffer through the country's 54th presidential election campaign, it's a temptation to presume that some past contests were at least shorter in duration, if not less ludicrous.
The season has opened in which U.S. voters in theory select their parties' candidates ... although in reality they merely send off contingents of people wearing really stupid hats to participate in gatherings of dubious merit.
It's only January, but already it feels like November.
While the debates, accusations and promises may have just started officially, it seems as though some of the candidates have been campaigning since the Reagan administration. Republicans, in particular, jaws slathering over the departure of their most loathed Democratic White house foe since Franklin Roosevelt, began campaigning in droves almost the moment the incumbent finished his second Inaugural Address.
This bickering bevy will undoubtedly thin out by convention time, hoisted by its own petards and/or defeated in the media or the polls, but ...
Already on the Republican side we have waved goodbyes without regret to
- Libby Dole [living proof that gushing, color-coordinated shoes, and a Viagra-supported sex life are insurmountable obstacles to credibility]
Dan Quayle [living, more or less, proof that the public can tolerate only one intellectually challenged candidate per campaign]
- and Warren Hatch [who, rigidly encased in his Woodrow Wilson wardrobe, failed to prove that he was living at all.]
The remaining choices include
- a gay basher who equates abortion and taxes and almost everything else with slavery
- this season's most forgettable candidate whose only claim to attention was a press conference held to deny allegations no one realized anyone had made against him
- the gazillionaire winner of the campaign's 'least quotable' contest
- a military hero [5th from last in his Annapolis class] campaigning to reform campaigns and terrifying his party with ideas bordering on [gasp] liberal!
- and the leader of the pack ... a twig off the old shrub and current holder of the 'dumb and dumber' title, who with curling lip and regal disdain intends to claim a throne he considers his by right of succession.*
Uninvited to the ball, various unofficial Third Party voices amuse themselves in a political game of Hide and Seek in which, since no one is
'It', no one is ever 'Out', and who is still 'In' is anybody's guess.
Since no one in this wildly disorganized group can claim any presidential qualifications whatsoever, at least they won't confuse voters with viable choices.
The undeclared include
- an Aging Stud [having far too much fun to be serious]
- God's Richest Gift to Himself [without money, couldn't get a date let alone a vote]
- Big Foot-in-the-Mouth [Ban gays, abortion, welfare, non-Christians, and burn all liberals at the stake!]
- and Talking Bonehead [ex-star of the other sport that's a complete fake].
On the Democratic side, things are more cut and dried, dried being the operative word, with a mere two candidates
posturing for their party's nod of approval. These two, apprized that their campaign styles were inducing comas, and finding that wardrobe changes alone failed to revive audiences, have thrown out with their
chinos all vows of positive-only campaigning.
Rarely has such a spectacle of elbow prodding and verbal sparring seemed less sincere or more ineffective, and their snippy efforts to neutralize each other are arguably more boring than their oratorical styles. Unfortunately, they are the only two candidates addressing issues about which voters actually care.
Not that voters' interests are ever really of primary concern to anyone running for office. Polls suggest that issues the public cares most about ... health care and insurance, prescription drugs, education and its costs, crime, school safety, environmental pollution, and drug abuse ... are at least themes in the Democrat's 'did so'/'did not' campaign. Taxes, the issue most persistently addressed by Republican candidates, does not make the voters' wish list at all, nor do campaign reform, school prayer and abortion, other Republican favorites.
Which brings up one of the great ironies of Presidential election campaigns ... No matter how many promises are made, they are beyond the ability of the winner to bring to fruition by himself.
The President may propose ... but in the end Congress can and will cut, alter, bury in pork, dilute, or trash. We may think we choose a president on the basis of what he promises to do, but our expectations must be tempered by the knowledge that neither his nor ours is the final voice.
Admittedly, we sometimes expect the impossible. Not only must our president press the issues that concern us, represent with competence our government here and around the globe, and make intelligent decisions in time of crisis, he or she must have humor, charm and charisma.
We want it all, and many a good contender has lost by failing in the superfluous categories. The current field of hopefuls is sadly lacking in any of these, and few of them show signs so far that they are sufficiently strong in the essentials to make up for lack of star quality.
True, we have had past presidents who performed well in spite of personalities that stirred up all the excitement of tofu on rice cakes, but there is a temptation to gaze longingly at a couple of fictitious presidential examples who have got it all.
Instead of debating how to appear to be giving us universal healthcare without actually doing it, perhaps the candidates should be forced to watch marathon re-runs of Martin Sheen in "The West Wing" or Michael Douglas in "The American President", two great examples of how to be politically savvy and still lead the country with grace.
Not only are they decisive, strong, liberal, intelligent and aware of their fallibility, they look as great in shirt sleeves as they do in formal wear, strike fear into the hearts of cantankerous congressional leaders, out-quote the religious right, and actually have sex appeal without needing to prove it in the Oval Office anteroom.
This couldn't be any more of a time waster than the farce of media-moderated debates, and with any luck, it might force one of the contenders to learn how to look presidential.
If nothing else, that's one thing Congress will allow the winner to do.
*And the ultimate non-winner, by a brainless ruling of the Supreme Courtiers and the ability of the State of Florida to staple, mutilate and fold.
©sonya hammond, 2000