There seems to be an inverse relationship between the sheer length of the American political process and the probity with which important issues are discussed, while the mainstream media abdicate their responsibility by focusing on the “horse race” aspects of the campaigns instead of pointing out what kind of governance this all will lead to.
A few veteran campaign watchers point out that presidential candidates are really part of a grand popularity contest — a vast "American Idol" show — not a plebiscite on things that really matter.
Issues-oriented voters, they say, can go to candidate Web sites and bone up on position papers prepared by policy wonks that hang around and insinuate themselves into candidate campaigns. Here, interested parties can read about positions on issues that a winning candidate may or may not follow upon elevation to office.
And there are those voters who choose a candidate because she will be the first woman president or the first black man to become president. These people are arguably exercising their franchise for the wrong reasons and are beyond the pale of rational discussion.
What remains, then, is the individual charisma — if any — of the candidates, and the fervency with which their followers believe that if their candidate wins, he or she will put the country in the direction that they want it to go. In the case of Democrats, this means using the levers of government, the coercive power of taxation, spending and regulation, to favor those constituencies and policies that benefit their favored interests.
So what we get is a charisma-impaired Hillary Clinton running around claiming that a government led by her would solve all sorts of real and imagined problems: from aids, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, to failing schools, global warming, and rising gas prices.
Barack Obama says the same things, con molto charisma, all under the hypnotic and somewhat delusional mantra of “change,” but in an elliptical and obscurantist way, since, as a relative newcomer, his legislative track record is marginal at best and lacking a history of proscriptive pronouncements.
Obama also has the stinking albatross of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright around his neck, having to explain his long association with a semi-educated man of the cloth, who has a trunk full of crackpot ideas based on his “readings” into Afrocentrism and black liberation theology. These unfortunately spill over into politically embarrassing harangues that make skittish voters uneasy about their possible influence on Obama’s own unrevealed views.
The tenor of both candidates’ campaigns is more reminiscent of 19th century snake oil salesmen — peddlers of questionable cures, buttressed by pseudo-scientific evidence, claiming that their dubious remedies for real or imagined ailments should be eagerly adopted by the populace.
Using campaign stops as marketing platforms for their various nostrums, the candidates hope to beguile listeners with the placebo effect of their future efficacy. Since people hear what they want to hear, their emotional fervor ends up clouding their judgment, especially in forums that do not allow probing questions to be addressed to candidates.
Like their 19th century counterparts, these political snake oil peddlers offer seeming panaceas and miraculous remedies, and voters will only find out later that they are going to turn out to be only inert and ineffective, but do contain the possibility of being really dangerous if actually implemented.
Where does John McCain stand in relation to this traveling carnival show? Candidate McCain revels in having earned the moniker of “maverick,” though this has been used disparagingly to his often-exercised predilection to vote against his party’s interests.
It also suggests someone who is unpredictable in his behavior — a shoot-from-the-hip character who is quick to form opinions and positions, but fails to foresee the consequences of these positions until time proves them untenable.
This has been McCain’s Achilles' heel on a number of issues: McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, the “gang of 14” judicial appointments compromise with Democrats, the unexamined embrace of the global warming scam, his knee-jerk condemnation of the North Carolina Republican Party TV ads, and on and on.
It would be less than accurate to describe John McCain as a man of no settled principles, but compared to the well-ordered conservative universe of Ronald Reagan, McCain’s world is a jumble of fits and starts, with no fixed points other than his passion to be right in all things and a desire to be the first to jump on the closest bandwagon.
Although his carny’s tent has the usual political paraphernalia and bric-a-brac of the medicine show, it’s hard to see if the bottles all bear the same labels as those of the other candidates. You know, the ones that read “Snake Oil — Good For What Ails You.”
Barrett Kalellis is a Michigan-based columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications. He may be reached at kalellis@hotmail.com.
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