There isn’t much I can say about the presidential race except … it’s going to happen, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Much has been said about the general lack of enthusiasm about both major candidates. It seems we Americans always find ourselves in this situation. Certainly, we focus too much on famous people (i.e. politicians) and not enough on what is really important (i.e. politics). I supported Obama in 2008, but not because I loved him. Rather, it was because McCain would have been an unmitigated disaster – a point he has proven every time he’s opened his mouth over the last three years. With respect to the presidency, voting is a zero-sum game. If you lose, the other wins. And the other, my friends, gets worse every time around.
In all honesty, the Republican party is more virulent and destructive every time they return to power. It’s hard to imagine an administration more regressive and destructive than that of George W. Bush, but judging by Romney’s advisors – folks like John Bolton – it’s not hard to imagine that we would get just that. They will, of course, attempt to conceal their extremism starting … well, starting last week, when Santorum suspended his campaign and effectively ended the primary season. Romney will now be the nominee, and being the Colorforms (another sixties toy) creature he is, they will now stick a more moderate outfit to his two-dimensional frame. It’s Mitt the Moderate, once again! Come on, ladies! He didn’t mean it when he told Mike Huckabee that he believes life begins at conception! Come on, Latinos! He was only pandering when he said Arizona’s SB 1070 “papers, please” law was a model for the nation!
Fortunately for Romney and for the Republican party, pop culture in the United States is a cross between a bulimic twelve-year-old and someone with advanced Alzheimer’s. We’re stuck in the perpetual purge/gorge cycle, and we can’t remember what happened yesterday … or even earlier today. Romney is the perfect politician for that circumstance. He apparently has no actual convictions, so he can seem equally committed to any portfolio of views that might fit a given electoral situation. Even having extensive video archives of him taking contradictory positions somehow doesn’t register. So what is likely to happen this fall? Anyone’s guess.
I’m not an Obama acolyte. There were some serious missteps over the past few years that demonstrate a certain lack of boldness on his part. But there’s no question but that he was better than the alternative, and he remains so today.
luv u,
jp
