The Boring Campaign

This presidential campaign is dull and uninspiring. Why? There is a charismatic black candidate with a swooning delivery in his rhetoric and an ancient war hero plodding along taking snips whenever an opening strikes. What´s missing? This campaign is the campaign without ideas. Neither side has any ideas that can motivate and inspire. There is talk of hope and change but nothing to document the claims. What we have is a the dead end of both camps. The liberals can no longer talk of the wonders of government without acknowledging the failures and the present. The Democrats decried the high gas prices before they were elected two years ago and now the prices are even higher under their watch. Credibility has gone out the window for both the Republicans sand the Democrats. Republicans forgot the fiscal responsibility portion of their platform and the Democrats found out that meaningless promises have reality to contend with.

Of course there are the third and fourth party candidates that decry the Democrats and the Republicans and offer a contradictory message that is easily seen through. The biggest deficit ( besides the one Washington has created) is in the arena of ideas. Obama talks of a new direction yet announces more government, more taxes and foreign appeasement. This isn´t new. It is ancient, flawed and destructive. It is the oldest trick in the book to resurrect the spellbinder image and have nothing to offer that can be critically examined and accepted. This old saw of blaming the other party for problems government itself at the hands of both parties is creating and sustaining has run its course. We know both parties are big spenders and have run up the national debt beyond repair. We know both parties have been in collusion on faking the rate of inflation and agreeing to deficit spending that is unaffordable. We know the candidates for both parties and the Representatives and the Senators up for election are all out of the same mold and parrot each other. They compromise without principle and only have a vision of election to cling to.

Senator McCain fancies himself as a maverick but in reality he is simply the most mediocre of both parties. He has cozied up to the Democrats to show his bipartisanship and is now trying to convince the Republicans he is really one of them. Old fashioned from too many years in government and stale because of habitual methodology. This is supposed to bring out the voters? No, the cry will be anti-Obama for there is no pro Mccain message. This was Bob Dole´s campaign and it inspired no one. Had Hillary won the Democratic nomination the Republicans might have rallied around an anti-Hillary campaign but Obama might be believed given he has no record to speak of and he does have some likability.

The benefit of the doubt is a poor way to decide who to vote for. There are too many unknowns although the implications are clear. There is no message of less government. There is only the promise of more government which means a further slide toward socialism and/or fascism. This is always accompanied by higher inflation, greater deficit spending, greater regulation, more fines and taxes, more government employees, more government buildings, more laws and less freedom for the individual. This is what is behind Senator Obama´s vague notion of hope. The mantra of, "Yes We Can" in reality means the government can be more intrusive although the window dressing is effectiveness which translates into a more restrictive life for the private citizen. The costs of the government programs will come at the expense of the productive members of the nation supplying goods and services. These costs will further hamper the producers ability to provide and the shortages will begin. The Harold Hill from Illinois doesn´t have a brass band but he tells you he has and like the citizens of River City Iowa the promise and the flimflam may just work. The results will be devastating but politicians only think of getting elected and then it is time to blame and find scapegoats when the promised results don´t happen.

Meanwhile stodgy, more of the same, McCain will try to balance on a the wire being a maverick but a stable dependable one. The election may be very close because the prospects are just not attractive. It will be like going to a three day old buffet and hoping you don´t get poisoned.

Even the old line of, " Addressing the issues" has faded. The only issue is the amount of damage the government has done to the economy, our national defense readiness, the hidden inflation figures and the drifting of Congress who can´t even loosen up regulations enough to let the oil producers find and drill and refine enough oil to make it affordable for transportation. Ideas and issues are from a different era. What we have now is charisma, rock style gatherings and feel good reactions to hollow promises on one side and dull platitudes that smell of stale worn out policies that are failing and will continue to fail on the other. If the rock concert crowds elect Obama on the basis of belonging the nation will suffer another misstep. On the other hand if Senator McCain should win ( and I don´t see how he can muster enough enthusiasm from whatever constituency he claims) the future is also bleak. He has a record of legislation that has gotten us where we are today and that isn´t good. He has not articulated any new ideas, he is proven to be an advocate of hanging on to government power and will offer only pragmatic range of the moment reactions to whatever crisis the nation faces ( and there will be several).

It would be preferable to have a candidate to look up to that showed some promise, some new ideas and some knowledge of the limitations of government. Instead we have the logical result of both parties losing any form of ideology and deteriorating into a personality contest with neither side having anything other than appearance and pandering. Thus we have a boring campaign that most people would rather avoid all together. The feeling I have is a dread that the election will be over and whatever candidate wins will be a disappointment. Empty promises have been made in campaigns before but this campaign is somewhat different. We know the empty promises are so far out of line that they cannot even begin to be believable. Neither party can resurrect the image they started with many decades ago. Too many unkept promises, too much deficit spending and too many attempts to have government control everything. This is the promise we can expect to be fulfilled under the candidates of today. This I submit is depressing and yes, boring.