DIGGING DEEPERBy Ivan G. Goldman
Instead of comparing our presidential candidates to each other, why not compare them to past presidents? We don't because it’s been pretty well accepted that we will never seek the likes of an FDR or Lincoln again, so get with it and settle for what’s out there.
But you have to ask yourself why, if the 1930s could give us an FDR, and the 1860s a Lincoln, couldn’t the 2000s find us another clear thinker and doer like them -- a decent, take-charge human being who's not loony -- from a population that’s more than twice the size now than it was in 1932?
But you have to ask yourself why, if the 1930s could give us an FDR, and the 1860s a Lincoln, couldn’t the 2000s find us another clear thinker and doer like them -- a decent, take-charge human being who's not loony -- from a population that’s more than twice the size now than it was in 1932?
The answer is, we still have people like FDR and Lincoln around, but they don’t run for office. That's because our system requires presidential candidates to spend years traveling around the country begging for campaign money from rich people.
So we wind up with some really defective personalities as candidates. Then we’re told we must choose one of these screwy people. That’s practically as stupid as saying we’ll just continue doing what we’re doing in Iraq until a nice, friendly democracy rises from the rubble there whose citizens won’t mind if Big Oil carts off their petroleum at a cut rate.
This Bush dynasty, father and son, did everything they possibly could to keep our elections crippled by the brute force of plutocratic dollars. George I vetoed campaign reform, and when George II saw he’d have to let something through, he and his compadres made sure McCain-Feingold was so shot full of holes it did nothing except change the name of campaign kitties.
So we wind up with some really defective personalities as candidates. Then we’re told we must choose one of these screwy people. That’s practically as stupid as saying we’ll just continue doing what we’re doing in Iraq until a nice, friendly democracy rises from the rubble there whose citizens won’t mind if Big Oil carts off their petroleum at a cut rate.
This Bush dynasty, father and son, did everything they possibly could to keep our elections crippled by the brute force of plutocratic dollars. George I vetoed campaign reform, and when George II saw he’d have to let something through, he and his compadres made sure McCain-Feingold was so shot full of holes it did nothing except change the name of campaign kitties.
LET'S PRETEND
Donations are unlimited as long as they’re made to groups that pretend they aren’t coordinating their activities with the candidates’ campaigns. Just as politicians pretend the favors they do for their big contributors at the expense of everyone else aren’t related to those contributions. And more than half the states allow corporations to give money directly to the campaigns.
The result is that the race is not always to the swift, just as Ecclesiastes tells us, but also, election-wise, it is never, ever won by people lacking this defective beg-mongering chromosome. So guess what? Our front-runners from both parties, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, are both twisted, egomaniacal liars who don't mind kissing ass for the right price. Just what their biggest contributors were looking for.
Donations are unlimited as long as they’re made to groups that pretend they aren’t coordinating their activities with the candidates’ campaigns. Just as politicians pretend the favors they do for their big contributors at the expense of everyone else aren’t related to those contributions. And more than half the states allow corporations to give money directly to the campaigns.
The result is that the race is not always to the swift, just as Ecclesiastes tells us, but also, election-wise, it is never, ever won by people lacking this defective beg-mongering chromosome. So guess what? Our front-runners from both parties, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, are both twisted, egomaniacal liars who don't mind kissing ass for the right price. Just what their biggest contributors were looking for.
