Hi,
Most Europeans have a pretty high opinion of themselves politically, and with some justification. Over the time I have been paying attention it has been a given that the standard of political debate on one side of the Atlantic has been of a far higher standard than over the other side.
The reason I say that without feeling like a dick is because it was true.
A politician in the States could get a huge voter approval by wearing a badge, looking constipated/having angina during the National Anthem, and declaring his love for Jesus.
Believe me, no European could have got away with that.
The reason is that even if you agreed with the badge wearing, constipated Jesus freak, it was understood that to lead, or be a part of leading a nation, you needed more, you needed to have a set of policies that stood on their merits.
Not once in my time in the UK was any politician ever smeared with the character attacks we were used to seeing in the States (Jeremy Thorpe excepted, but that was in the 70's).
If a man was a Homosexual, Atheist who was an ex communist and wanted to abolish the house of Lords and the Monarchy, it was only the last to that were ever commented upon.
The political stuff.
We watched mouths agape when politicians were attacked for changing their minds (Kerry), or having an affair (Gary Hart, Clinton) or having bailed out of a burning aircraft (G.H.W. Bush..wtf??) or collapsing during a marathon in a heat wave (Carter) and we kind of laughed "Silly Americans, paying attention to all that shite, what are they thinking".
Well we laugh no longer.
For the first time in my life, I can say the American people picked their President based on a political, rather than a personal factor. I liked John McCain, I saw him as the authentic voice of caring conservatism, prepared to stand up to bigotry in his own party, and to fight for the political conservative creed. I don't agree with him personally, but I respected him.
However, it appears that to get to be a candidate for the Presidency endorsed by the GOP, you need to get the more extreme elements on your side. So Sarah was the VP choice. You then had to "go after Obama" to get the "base excited" so here come the innuendo's the distortions and the out and out lies.
But this time something was different.
The people heard what the ads said, and then they Googled, and You Tubed, and Blogged and found out the truth.
People do not like being misled.
Hence come election time Obama wins big. What I found strange was that it was patently obvious that the scare tactics were not working, but they still kept coming.
President Obama.
I saw the speech he gave in Chicago. I had tears in my eyes. He is an inspirational politician, and seems a genuinely good person. I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
Of course, in the present climate, a lot of what he said he would do he will not be able to do. You don't take over a bankrupt country and hand out tax cuts, first get the country in surplus, then comes the sweeties. Is that lying? Possibly, but i am sure that John McCain would be in exactly the same boat.
His tax cuts just wouldn't be for the middle class, that's all, and the rich can wait, they are OK.
I watched John McCain's "acceptance of defeat" speech. All I can say is if he had run an honourable campaign, if he had concentrated on the issues, and shown how his way forward was better, if he had stood up for tolerance, respect and civility and if he had stared down the batshit mad part of his party, we may have had President McCain.
However, if he had done that, he wouldn't have been the GOP candidate in the first place.
We have had an election in NZ, and National have got in. National are kind of like the GOP in NZ politics, except their policies would be called dangerously Socialist in the USA.
I don't know if this will be a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know most people here vote on their own narrow self interest, with no thought to how the policy they benefit from in particular, will benefit the country in general.
So now the US voter can look at the NZ voter and condescendingly say, "they are so naive and stupid, when will they learn" and be justified in saying so.
In Final
Well done USA, and God Bless America!!
No comments:
Post a Comment