We are in an election cycle where I hope the wonders never cease. Susan Eisenhower, Caroline Kennedy and Tom Hayden agree on the same thing. All three want Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.
Who does this scare? It severely frightens the establishment of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The recent purpose of our two party system has been to ferment screams of ear popping loudest and conjure the best scare tactics to cause panic among the American people.
Rudy Giuliani’s failed candidacy should illustrate that Americans do not want a catastrophe candidate. We want a candidate who offers hope, growth and opportunity. It seems more and more Americans have come to the decision that Barack Obama is that candidate.
His critics say that he is inexperienced. Teddy Kennedy told us people said the same thing about his brother Jack, but in less than two years in office he influenced a whole generation to enter public service, fight for equality and be selfless with regard to our national interest.
We have had enough of corporate greed and special interest domination of our politics. It is for this reason that Obama has the political power structure running scared. The era of special interest domination of our politics from the corporate board room to the labor union may be in jeopardy. Their selfishness has gone far enough.
An Obama victory will put an end to pitting one group of Americans against another, or what the major parties euphemistically call constituent politics. Look at either party’s web site and you will see the smoldering hodge-podge that is there view of America. We will see what should be a melting pot fractionalized into ethnic groups, gender preference and difference, age, religion, employment down to the minutest sub-group possible. (Where is the group for the one-legged gay Lithuanian priests? I joke, but if there were more than two a niche would be carved out for them.)
Once they have us separated is when their fun starts. They pit group against group and to hell with national unity. Once this occurs and victory is secured by one side or the other the new president believes he/she has the power of Christ to heal a divided nation.
We have witnessed at least sixteen years of division. The responsibility for this chasm can be laid at the door step of both political parties. The Republicans have their Scaife and the Democrats their Soros. Both sides are involved in subverting our constitution, the media and any entity that should be independent.
There was a time when a think-tank was a laboratory for ideas not ideology. We should not have to qualify the press by ideological affiliation. The press should report news. News is reality. Reality is garnered by empirical facts not spin.
The development of public policy should satisfy a two prong test. Will the policy strengthen the state and serve the public interest. Is, for example, President Bush’s decision to cut funds from teaching hospitals and medical research to fund the war in Iraq a vital national interest? Is accruing a budget deficit of over $413 billion that excludes Iraq War appropriations for the public good? This year’s deficit, by the way, will be the largest in our nation’s history.
Cuts in aid to medical research and teaching hospitals are the front door budget cuts what about the projected budget cuts that will have to be addressed by our next president. George Bush’s objective is a smaller federal government but he has left his successor to make the hard choices as discretionary funds wither away to pay interest on our debt.
Ms. Eisenhower is correct. We need a change in our national priorities but also in our national worth both as an ideal and in reality. Our greatness should not be behind us.
There are some economists who predict in a regionalized world at the turn of the century or sooner the United States will no longer be the richest country in the world but our economy will rank fifth.
This ranking presupposes economic unity between Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
We seem to turn a blind-eye to the fact that as we decline as an economic power we will also decline as a military one. To promote "democracy" may have its pitfalls particularly when fostered with the brunt of a gun or state-of-the–art torture techniques. History may come back and dog one, particularly in a time of weakness.
The question we must ask ourselves this year and people in twenty-two states have to ask on Tuesday is do we want a status quo election of McCain versus Clinton or do we want a change election?
Do we want to continue to allow our international reputation to be sullied, our nation divided and our children’s future threatened?
All this is between you a lever, a stylus, pushpin or finger.
Use it for change. Use it to start the third American Revolution.
(Joe Garcia is a political consultant with 25 years of political combat experience.)