Friday, April 25, 2008

Horns of a Dilemma

Neal Boortz in an article on Nealz Nooz of today makes an interesting point with regard to the corner into which the Democratic Party has painted itself during the current presidential campaign cycle.Boortz refers to it as "buyers remorse". Having hung its hat more or less on a candidate (Obama) who has not been vetted in the traditional sense, the Democrats are beginning to witness an unraveling as more data comes to light in his background.

The media spin machine initially was able to portray Obama's legislative record as "moderate" when in fact he has accumulated a voting record to the left of Ted (the swimmer) Kennedy as well as "reporting for duty" John Kerry. Subsequent revelations however, have not been so easy to spin. The 20 year association with the America damning Jeremiah Wright has been more difficult to handle as the evidence has been plastered all over the electronic media for several weeks now and shows no indication of going quietly into the gentle night. Couple this with Obama's speech in San Francisco referring to flyover country residents as "bitter" and his association with Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground and the Democratic Party apparatchiks are beginning to perceive a problem with their anointed one come the November general election.

Boortz is onto something when he points out that Howard Dean and company will inevitably resort to the race card in defending their candidate by portraying any opponent i.e. McCain and other Republicans as "racist" who would dare to criticize "the first (or is that the second) black presidential candidate".

Although there are a number of voters who can be chided successfully for not voting for the anointed black candidate the secret ballot process militates against such a strategy. Evidence of such a problem has already been noted in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary where the exit poll data versus the actual vote tally indicated a substantial divergence in how voters actually voted as opposed to their answers to pollsters' queries.

The leftists Democrats who routinely avoid debate on the issues by hurling epithets such as "racist, homophobe, sexist" etc. at those with whom they disagree will likely command considerable favorable attention in the mainstream media but will be at a loss to explain why libertarians and conservatives such as this humble scribbler would in a New York minute vote for Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Ward Connerly or Janice Jackson Brown (all African Americans) over ANY other candidate black or white.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Disclosure first- independent voter, McCain supporter since 2000.
Voted against every Bush every chance I got. Active service as Army JAG.

It's pretty clear in this election that the Democrats pitch to persons who have been conditioned to expect the government to fix their lives. Moreover, they are running two professional politicians who went to Yale and Harvard against a person
who put his very life on the line after going to a service academy.
If service teaches you anything, it's respect for the other guy who may not have had the advantages you did. Politics teaches the elected to look down on "the little guy", to fool as many people as much as the time as you can.

Service demands you to look your
comrades in the eye.

And the Dems are expected to win. Appalling.

While McCain says nothing about it, the last Presidents who had
their own children face fire
were the two Roosevelts, who are widely regarded as two of our finest Presidents. Teddy R.
and his sons and their sons amassed a service record that will never be equalled by any other President's family.

Hillary's kid is being groomed to be a politician.
Obama's are too young to tell.
And let's not mention the twins.

Maybe democracy doesn't work when
the people don't have to.

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

1:28PM, Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I do not share your view that military service is a likely indicator of Presidential effectiveness. Nor do I agree with your evaluation of the presedencies of the two Roosevelts. They were both avid "progressives".

I would recommend to you a reading of Jonah Goldberg's recent book "Liberal Fascism". He makes the connection between the "Progressives" (fascists) and the modern "Liberals" far better than I. My own preference for the two greatest presidents are George Washington and James Knox Polk.

Anonymous said...

That book is on my list.
If you read carefully, you won't find my evaluation in my previous post. That said, I do in fact admire Teddy, and I do believe that military service, esp when
it involves actually getting shot at, is a valid consideration when weighing candidates. It's not perfect (witness JFK) but it isn't bad. Washington was shot at, Polk was not.

ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ said...

"Washington was shot at, Polk was not."

Congratulations! You get my point.

Anonymous said...

Why does getting shot at somehow better qualify a man to be our president? John Kerry was shot at in Vietnam, but I am afraid that his presidency would nonetheless have been disasterous to our country.

I've never been shot at (on purpose, anyway) but do not feel as though that would make a Goober presidency any better or worse.

I respect John McCain for his service, as I respect all those who honorably served, both in times of war and in times of peace. These men stand at the gates and promise that they will die to protect us from the evils of the world, and for that, I am eternally grateful. However, I don't want to elect them as president for their sacrifice.

I would much rather elect a man that has successfully run a business, has a conservative fiscal policy, and wants to leave us alone to do what is best for us, but has never pulled the trigger of so much as a pellet gun.

Leonidas has been shot at on purpose. I've been shot at accidentally, and have been in one situation where the person WOULD have shot at me given the chance. I think Leonidas would agree with me that those types of situations simply reveal the character that is already in place, instead of molding a person's character in some ethereal way.

Both Roosevelt presidencies stood witness to huge power grabs by the federal government, and progressive increases in governmental interference with daily life. This disqualifies their presidencies from being considered "great" in my book. You might also notice that your statement about "being shot at" would not apply to FDR. He never served!

-Goober