Our national malaise
I was reading Karl Rove’s missive in the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled “Is Obama Ready for Prime Time” that basically goes through the dreary accounting of the Democrat delegates.
Mrs. Clinton’s problem remains that she’s behind in the delegate count, with 1,589 to Mr. Obama’s 1,714. Neither candidate will get to the 2,025 needed for nomination with elected delegates. But the Democratic Party’s rules of proportionality mean it will be hard to close that margin among the 733 delegates yet to be elected or declared. Mrs. Clinton will need to take 58% of the remaining delegates. Thus far, she’s been able to get that or better in just four of the 46 contests.
Her path gets rougher. While Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Puerto Rico are good territory for her, Oregon and Montana may not be. And Mrs. Clinton will be outspent badly. She entered April with $9.3 million in cash, but debts of $10.3 million. Mr. Obama had $42.5 million but only $663,000 in unpaid bills.
Well, I know there are bloggers out there, and readers as well, that understand all of that stuff. That’s fine, everybody needs something they’re good at. But honestly, I could care less. And most of America probably cares even less than I care. We still have seven months before the election…seven frickin’ months, f’pete’s sake.
We’ve been suffering through 17 months of this presidential campaign…and look at our choices for President. It took us 17 months of millions, nay, billions of dollars, endless debates (of which I’ve watched not a minute), speechifying, fingerpointing, crap slinging, baby-kissing, swooning, crying, waitress-snubbing, waffle-chewing drivel. And our choices are probably the worst in our history.
Why? What has brought us to this point? Because, simply, the parties’ heirarchy has decided that the best candidates aren’t the best leaders (the president’s main job is leadership, not someone who’ll “fight for your rights”) but the person for whom they imagine both sides will vote. That’s why the Democrats can’t decide – they’ve got two candidates that should shame voters into voting for them exclusively (because, I guess, we Republicans can’t resist showing how non-racist and non-sexist we are), they’re just not sure which can shame us more.
But the Republicans did the same – except that we had all pale white guys to choose from, so the “maverick” who ignores all of the conventions of the stodgy GOP was an easier choice to make. However, we arrived at our choice because we’re not looking for a leader, we’re looking for a candidate for whom the Democrats will cast their vote.
So there you have it – we’ve reached the point of a national snooze-fest. Do I support John McCain presidency? Given the alternatives, what choice do I have? Yeah, I’ve got the pretty buttons on my blog that proclaim my affiliation. Yes, I’ve given money to the McCain campaign. Yes, I’m sure my candidate will win given that the other two are complete idiots who remind me of the tigers in the Little Black Sambo story who chase each other the base of a tree in which LBS is hiding until they turn into butter. If there was an equivalent fable about a little white kid hiding from tigers in a tree or a fricken turtle, or a lizard, I’d have used that one. I’m no racist and that comment wasn’t aimed at any candidate. Chill out for a minute.
Nothing about any of these three candidates gets anyone excited – other than the fact that everyone is sure the opposition will vote for them. A sure-fire recipe for a disastrous four years.
