Presidential Thoughts
It’s been awhile since I did any political commentary - so here goes:
Here are my thoughts about the state of the Presidential primaries. First off, I can now confirm that I am out of touch with the rest of the Republican Party, which is why I’m glad I became an Independent after the 2006 election. Why do I say this? Over 60% of the South Carolina votes went to McCain and Huckabee. So here we have a situation in which Republicans, allegedly the party of small government, are supporting one candidate who will use government to take away your First Amendment rights and another candidate which will tax you for “bad behavior,” as defined by his religion. Since when did the Republican party start standing for any of that.
Second thought - there is a real possiblity that we could have two candidates who will have trouble getting support of their own party members. On the D side - Hillary Clinton. I personally know several Democrats who not only won’t vote for her, but would change their party registration if she is the nominee. It ranges in reason from not wanting Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, to just not liking her because she’s arrogant. On the Republican side - John McCain. I know plenty of Republicans who just won’t vote for the guy for plenty of reasons.
So what happens? Voters can either decide to vote for the lesser of two evils, or they can vote for someone they like - third party, write-in a name, etc., but know that who they vote for will not win. The last presidential race that I can remember that seems like a similar situation was in 1996 - Dole vs. Clinton. I didn’t vote for either - I did a write-in. I’m not crazy about the “it was Dole’s turn” argument. Want to blame me for the second four years of Clinton - fine by me, but it’s the candidate’s job to win over voters, not my job to just fall in line like a lemming and vote for a Republican, because the candidate has an R after their name. I know the argument of not making the perfect the enemy of the good. But gee - given a choice between one candidate who will mandate your health and who knows what and another candidate who will mandate your speech and education, I’m having a hard time seeing any good.