You may have noticed my lack of commentary on the presidential race. The reason is simple, I just cannot get very excited about it and the reason is - Mitt Romney. That man could 'Bore for the USA' at the Olympics! I remember MDA (My Darling Ann[Coulter]) telling us all that Romney's great advantage was that he would not frighten the independents. According to all the wiseacres, it is the independents who always and forever hold the key to the White House door. That's all very well and good but what happens if he just sends them all off to sleep?
Fortunately he is faced with a man who talks and thinks in empty platitudes. It must be catching because his wife does the same. Here is an example which gave one of my 'Trot-lot' American bloggers an orgasm:
Dear old Ted McLaughlin over at his 'jobsanger' site quivered with excitement at those portentious and totally empty words and wrote: "The United States is very lucky to have such a wonderful First Lady!" Unfortunately, her husband already tried the sonorous but empty platitude shtick during his first campaign. Who will ever forget "Hope 'n' Change"? Not the unemployed and the repossessed, I suspect!
The Dems are making much, or at least, as much as they can, from Romney's previous occupation in that most hated of all quarters - Big Business. But somehow, when you look at mild-mannered Mitt, before your eyelids flutter shut, he just doesn't come across as a cigar-chomping, mail-fisted Capitalist red in tooth and claw. A lot, I think, will depend on his choice of Vice-President. Would he be wise to pick someone with charisma and drive and deep convictions on the rightness, as well as the Rightness, of the free market, or, would he do better to avoid offering a target for the Left-wing MSM to aim at and choose another Mr. or Mrs. Boring?
I don't know. All I do absolutely know is that Obama is one of the most dangerous men in the world. His 'Hope 'n' Change' was hope for a socialist America and the means to change it to exactly that. The result will be disasterous for them and for us. I know many of my regular readers are, shall we say, less than enthusiastic for America given their frequent blunders in the past but at a much deeper level they are crucial for our well-being. In America, if nowhere else, there still burns a candle for the sort of political philosophy which is based on liberty and free markets. The candle is reaching its end and is beginning to gutter which is unsurprising given the winds of socialism that are whistling through the banging shutters of the Republic. They, and we, need a new man to replace the candle with a lamp and to fix up the house again over the next eight years.
I'm even less fond of Obama than you are, in part because I live in the US and it's my country he's wrecking.
I have grave qualms about Romney. He certainly wasn't my choice for Republican nominee. However, I'll be donating to and voting for him for one simple reason; he can't possibly be as bad as Obama.
A further factor; so far, Obama has been moderated by the desire for a second term. If he wins, he can never run again, so he'd be utterly unconstrained.
I've been a registered independent for most of my life (I recently registered as a Republican to have a voice in the primaries) so I'm not a strong partisan, but I know a disaster when I see it, and we've got just that in the white house.
Posted by: Arizona CJ | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 10:47
I wonder though, CJ, whether the American electorate will repeat their frequent habit of putting one 'colour' in the White House but ensuring that another 'colour' runs the Congress?
That would be, I suppose, better than a total cross-government Dem victory but America needs to take some hideously difficult economic and fiscal decisions. Just letting things drag on is no answer at all. In four years time the markets will turn on you as they have others.
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 11:02
I'll tell you one thing about Boring. He stood in front of the NAACP and told them he would repeal Obamacare. Took (some) guts.
Posted by: Dom | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 19:35
Hanging around these parts is dangerous for my reputation - I'm taking up bad habits as ya'll will note at my ending line (stolen from somebody else but Dom, in this case it's kinda like what you typed).
Guess I can always say, Duff made me do it!
Unlike CJ, I'd early been a registered Republican (decidedly unhealthy in not-so-long-ago Arkansas) it was only during the run up to Iraq during the "Thar's WMDs in that thar place!" that got me to drop official affiliation becoming Independent. (But Arkansas did have "Blue Dog Democrats".)
I'm frankly of the opinion that despite ourselves electing the occasional doofusses, criminals, and as CJ sorta alludes to - the dangerous - the Union will survive it. I guess in a way, that's the closest thing to "Faith" I've come to.
Dom?
Read a line earlier today: "It was good for Romney to get booed at the NAACP - it made it appear he'd said something!"
Posted by: JK | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 21:23
I'd add one thing.
To be candid - I prefer "divided government" (I'm guessing you David know what I mean but - at least one branch of government held by the opposition. Too much leeway for for a one Party has all - to get us all into some really questionable policies.
Posted by: JK | Thursday, 12 July 2012 at 21:36
I generally prefer divided government as well; looking back at history, we get better fiscal responsibility that way, plus less pandering to the "base" with pork such as bridges to nowhere or a plethora of other examples on both sides.
However, in this case, I see a strong need for a republican majority in both houses of congress, in order to kill Obamacare and also take a fireaxe to government spending. The good news is that both can be done without much hassle regarding filibusters; Obamacare was passed via the reconciliation process (which does not allow filibusters) and you can't filibuster budget measures either.
The R's currently have 47 seats in the Senate. That means they have to pick up 3 to get to 50 and a majority. (in the case of a 50-50 split, the vice president decides, so assuming Romney wins, 50 seats give the R's the senate). Personally, I;m hoping they do better than 50, because such narrow control would mean any R senator could hold out for pork, and some would.
America was monumentally stupid to elect a man who was basically an unknown to the white house and then give him total control of congress. I'm hoping that this November will help reverse that error.
Posted by: Arizona CJ | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 05:00
Interesting commentary, Gentlemen. By and large I would agree that a divided government is best but you face extraordinary times. Cities are going bankrupt, how long before entire States do the same? And the only reason the Federal government keeps going is because it can print its own money, at least, for the time being before the markets take fright. You need, I think, another Reagan (or a Maggie Thatcher?) with a clear ideology and the power to ram it through.
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 08:34
CJ, we're in bsic agreement (your second paragraph) actually - that's primarily what I was referring to with my "questionable policies" - but I'm of the opinion something had to be done viz healthcare. I'm figuring that bad policy whatever the soon-to-be-result is gonna soon be subject to some major tweaking.
Just to get it out of the way (might make things clearer tho' I'm gonna be making an admission I've up to this point not put on a blog) my Dad was Navy during WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. Enlisted for the first two, then got his MD after which he returned to active retiring in '68. I worry this [my admission] might make me seem not very Independent but - Dad worked in the Reagan admin. I was already active Navy and happy to see Carter replaced.
Returning to subject - CJ, I wouldn't be too particularly unjoyful to see the Senate basically tied [that - in the event the O manages a squeaker] Biden casting the decider. Should Romney pull it out, I'd prefer a non-veto proof chamber. Guess we'll see.
These "extraordinary times" didn't just come out of nowhere riding along with Obama's coattails David. I would submit that along with Justice Roberts' concluding "Obamacare" (a misnomer in my opinion - handy but a misnomer nonetheless) is a tax. Well, two wars in my humble estimation are likewise a tax. The one necessary, the follow-on front, "Napoleonic." Cue Eisenhower:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
"America monumentally stupid"? Perhaps. Not the first time. We did manage to get out of The Carter Funk. Peanuts, prayer and parsimmony do not a good gumbo make.
Guess I'm "lucky" personally - Tri-Care. But the days when a country doctor such as my Dad was, when called upon to do so - deliverin' babies in somebody's home - being paid with a hog (chickens and two seasons of garden vegetables in one case I recall) are long gone. Doing so today would only get a doc sued, likely imprisoned.
Frankly - I'd be comfortable with sequestration actually kicking in.
Posted by: JK | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 12:10
Up above I used "parsimmony" - we use words differently in Arkansas sometimes in ways others wouldn't normally associate.
Thanks be to Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
"Economy of explanation in conformity with Occam's razor."
Posted by: JK | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 12:28
"we use words differently in Arkansas sometimes in ways others wouldn't normally associate."
Yeeeeees, I think I've noticed that, JK!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 13:57
Well David. Did'ja notice... no links today?
Posted by: JK | Friday, 13 July 2012 at 14:37