Disappointing election season
The only person I would hate seeing in the White House more than Giuliani is Hillary Clinton. But the two are the front-runners in the two major parties. Has all hope been lost?
Giuliani seems to be the epitome of separation of private values from public values. I’m all for keeping peoples’ private lives private, but you can’t live with two separate and distinct value sets. How can a man who can’t run his own family run the nation, and even if he could, why would we want him to? How can we be confident he will make wise decisions in the executive office and be a trustworthy public servant? Is he really the best the GOP has to offer this year?
How can you tell Giuliani’s family life is a problem? When he starts trying to shove a rosy family facade down your throat. Answering canned phone calls during speeches to the NRA? Nothing could come across as more fake - do voters not see that? I wouldn’t mind his liberal social positions nearly as much if I knew he was an honest seeker of the truth. Instead, he comes across as the (second) biggest politician in the election - and the American people (at least the Americans being polled, whoever that is) are eating it up.
The GOP’s best hope is probably Mitt Romney, but after reading stupid front-page articles like this one from the October 8 edition of Newsweek, it’s hard not to get frustrated. If you haven’t read it, don’t bother, it’s another media personality suggesting that the only way Romney will get elected is if he explains every tenet of his religion. That’s the same argument as other mindless talking heads have suggested before (more here). Of course this standard has been erected exclusively for Romney, but the media can’t understand it’s own duplicity. Does every religious adherent running for office get pressed to explain all of the fine details of the religion they believe in? Why aren’t we pandering for explanations from Clinton, Obama, Giuliani, or Thompson about why they believe (or don’t believe) in each specific tenet of their faith? Americans seem to prefer (at least publicly) candidates without a moral backbone, or any commitment or conviction to any set of standards.
What a confusing world–it’s an outcry if we see a manger scene at a courthouse, or hear a prayer in school, yet we want presidential candidates to preach the finer points of his/her faith to us on the campaign trail. We’d prefer religions (of any kind) to decrease but don’t mind hearing that child abuse, pornography, poverty, and crime are all on the increase.
The election typifies it all–sloganeering, cheap facades, and empty promises dominate, while character, principles, and values all get trampled along the campaign trail.
Disappointing. Frustrating.
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