Or so says so many people I talk to. Everyone seems to feel that when push comes to shove, and they are actually faced with making the real decision, the American public just COULDN’T be that stupid.
There were two essays in this week’s New Yorker that were absolutely dead on, nailed it to the wall. The second makes quite the case for giving Al a big kick in the head for the way he fucked this up by trying to hard to please too many. In trying to be the just right temperature, he’s been coming across as too hot or too cold, depending on your point of view. And I fear that’s true. While I feel comfortable with where Al is coming from (I like him, always have, ever since he became VP), and I trust for the most part what he would actually try to do as prez., I understand the need he feels to try and appeal to everybody, and how that has made some people feel uncomfortable with him. And it makes me sad and mad.
But the first essay is the one that really says it all, calmly, clearly, and IMNSHO, irrefutably. It addresses the question: how is this decision is being made, issues or personality?
Some (brief- chill, mods! Whatever is in brackets is paraphrasing, not quoting) excerpts:
Is it issues? Then it’s Gore, because he’s
“Shown himself to be more fiscally responsible [proposes spending less of the supposed surplus] more socially responsible [more of that spending on social needs, less to individual consumption] and more egalitarian [his plans would] ameliorate inequalities of wealth while Bush’s would exacerbate them.”
“Bush has offered few clues (regarding his foreign policy) except to say that he would build a missile-defense system whether or not it was technically workable or strategically advantageous (italics mine) and he opposes [our presence in Haiti, all 23 of us]”
“As for the superiority of Gore’s command of the issues, this is not a matter of opinon-or, if it is, everyone’s opinion is the same, even (to judge from his defensive jokes) Bush’s: Gore knows more, understands more, and has thought more, and more coherently, about virtually every aspect of public policy, domestic and foreign, than Bush has.”
As far as experience, “Gore is also the superior candidate.” [All Bush has done in his life is fail at the oil business, sort of succeed at baseball business where he was just a front man and his “success was due largely to family connections and the use of public funds, and the states power of eminent doman in building a stadium. [the governor of Texas is a weak office] which he has held during an unchallending period cushioned by unprecedented national prosperity.”
[Gore’s experience has been long at the national level and] it is fair to say, distinguished. (And here we have several paragraphs talking about how his experience is better than just about anyone’s outside of actual presidents’ , and better and more active than alot of them, and certainly it could be said that he’s been the most active and successful vice-president in history.
Bush’s superiority seems to be personality, which is very narrowly defined for this election. it “apparantly excludes, if not intelligence itself, then such manifestations as intellectual curiosity, analytic ability, and a capacity for original thought. all of which Gore has in abundance and Bush not only lacks but scorns” It also seems to exclude both physical and political courage, whihc the article explains that Gore has and Bush doesn’t.
It goes on to breakdown the whole dignity/credibility thing. It goes into detail, which we’ve all seen many times, about Gore’s eexaggerations and what they sprang from. It then goes on to say that the attempts to paint Gore as a liar spring from Clinton as a liar and the whole impeachment mess. It’s essentially trying to paint Gore with Clinton’s brush, exaggerating his exagerrations into some moral issue.
Then:
“Bush uttered inaccuracies [during the debates] that, unlike Gore’s falsify the underlying essence of his point-as, for example, when he said that Gore was outspending him in the campaign, when the reverse is true, to the tune of fifty million dollars” and he claimed to fight for patient’s rights bills that he actually tried to veto! And there is more.
So in the end, “personality” comes down to likability, which is a matter of taste.
Later on:
“much of the public seems to have developed a thirst for passivity, a thirst that Bush is eager to slake.”
Talking about the debates:
“To caricature them both Gore was the smart bully, Bush a hapless tattletale. Neither attribute is attractive, but it may turn out that fear of the first will outweigh contempt for the second. In that case, “personality” will definitively have triumphed over “issues” and the transformation of the presidency of the United States into the presidency of the student council will be complete.”
Right on, brother! Sing out! And say it ain’t so!!
Pick it up and read the whole thing.
(And to the mods: I really did not overquote. I was very careful to paraphrase most of what I did quote, so don’t freak!)
And so…given all this…it just isn’t possible that the American public will make such a horrendous mistake. I refuse to believe it. And I am sending good and positive vibes to the universe and to my fellow Americans, that I trust them to do the right thing. the smart thing, the compassionate thing, the only thing that makes any kind of sense, and elect Al Gore our next President. YAY!!!
stoid
Stayin’ positive.