Fierce Celt, my housemate, steadfastly refrains from investing too much in the outcome of the Presidential election. Given the outcome of the last few elections, she maintains there is no telling what will happen so why get your hopes up? I'm a reluctant realist when it comes to politics: Voters don't always have the clear say over the results on election day.

Republican political fixers certainly influenced the outcome of 2000 and the 2004 results doesn't seem all that clear either considering the numerous problems with "caging" voters and voter roll purges.

Like the X-Files tagline, I want to believe in fair elections in the USA but manipulators work hard to affect the final count. I don't mean the normal heat of elections, accusations and self-praise flowing in abundance from both camps. That's just the normal political jockeying for position and to be expected.

Our voting system is so flawed in execution that I sometimes wonder why impartial international observers don't monitor the vote counting. Electronic voting machines are still astonishingly problematic and so full of glitches I can't believe they are used at all. There is no guarantees of their accuracy and the companies manufacturing them have documented close ties to the Republican Party, something that doesn't exactly generate confidence in the impartiality of their programming.

It's obvious my cynicism is ascendant and rampant.

I just can't believe in a system that continually tries to deny access to many citizen voters. It is the Republicans who seem to have mastered the art of constricting access in their favor. No one tries to deny voters in well-off neighborhoods their franchise. It's always the poor and working class who suffer the attention of self-styled gatekeepers crying "voter fraud" to exclude them.

Democracy is supposed to be built on the basic right of citizens to vote politicians into and out of office. Once this is circumvented, we are left at the mercy of white collar thieves and professional manipulators. We lose faith in the basic credibility of the election system. This leads to a sense of powerlessness and of being helpless pawns.

In the face of my cynicism, I'm left with hope that the system isn't anywhere as corrupt as it seems. But hope isn't much of a comfort in these dark times. It feels more like a crutch, an illusion best ignored.

Yet I still hope.

Labels: cynicism, election, hope, politics, Presidential race 2008, republicans

This election season is boring me to tears. In terms of mainstream electoral preferences (ie, the two major parties), I'm firmly in the Dem camp. It should be said, however, that I think national elections in the USA are generally at the bottom of the electorate's ability to change society, the absolute minimum responsibility a voter/citizen can take.

Despite the hoopla about how wonderful it is that Dems have a choice between a Black man and a white woman, how amazing and wonderful it is that the US has reached a point where these groups can aspire to and probably achieve the White House, it remains a sorry indictment of our society that this happens in 2008.

And what of those Dem two candidates? I'd estimate that the actual difference between their stated positions is minimal, probably under 5%. They are much more alike than different, representative of the right-centrist positions of the Dems. Once you delve beyond the surface excitement of their unique identities, there is little for me to be excited about.

Obama is wonderfully charismatic. My housemate, Fierce Celt, had the premonition that Obama would run when she saw him speak at the 2004 Dem convention. His charisma and ability to speak to people's aspirations was apparent and obvious.

And Clinton? It's been obvious at least since the Clintons left the White House in 2001 that she was positioning herself for the Prez run. (Even earlier to some people but I'm speaking about myself.)

But I'm left with a violent antipathy towards both of them. Beyond the words and promises, the substance of their positions remains rather less than radical. Oh, much better than Bush II across the board or McCain but these Dems still generally support the status quo of corporate Amerika.

Health care? Force people to buy insurance, whether they can afford it or not. (Government will tell you if you can afford it.) And if you don't buy it, face penalties, probably including jail in extreme circumstances. At the least, financial penalties. How compassionate, how generous, how uplifting for people struggling to survive.

Iraq? Yeah, we'll get the troops out, sometime, as long as it suits our foreign policy. The US can't just abandon Iraq, right? We've got responsibilities and commitments to the people of Iraq.

Don't get me wrong: I will probably vote Dem in November '08. That doesn't mean I'm happy with them.

Labels: dog pound of daddies (and mommies now), election, Prez race 2008

Considering that I started this blog around the Democratic National Convention in 2004, I figure I might as well begin to weigh in on the current state of the 2008 Presidential race.

Of course, it's difficult to be excited with the expansive groups from both major parties, comprising about 16 candidates by my lazy count. My opinion on the early debates? I missed them completely. Thanks, major media outlets, for keeping me informed of these things!

What's always interesting to watch is the media winnowing of candidates to the "front runners" and those with top contributions. I rarely find those candidates representative of my views. They almost always have major flaws of position from my perspective. I could detail these flaws but it's just too depressing this early in the race.

I believe the estimate of total expenses for the 2008 race is over a billion dollars before it's done. Let me write that out: US$1,000,000,000.00. I thought of detailing what a billion dollars could do in if spent elsewhere in the US economy but that is a bit of false comparison.

What is disturbing is how much we choose based on presented image rather than substantive issues. I believe John Lennon described it as picking a favourite Daddy from the group of Daddies. In other words, an emotional reaction rather than a reasoned one. Let us not forget the curious phrase which always makes the rounds during this period: Acting Presidential. It always strikes me as a failure of vision that people might pick their President by whether a candidate appears "Presidential" during press conferences or speeches.

While I perfectly understand candidates changing and evolving their positions on issues over time, often it merely seems like an accommodation to polls rather than a genuine development of policy. This is why candidates often seem shallow and lacking in personal conviction to me. It all appears as stage management and posturing generated in staff meetings. It rings false and hollow. Once I get that sense about one position by a candidate, I begin to sense that many positions are like that. Then their credibility begins to erode to me and I lose faith that the candidate will ever act with constancy.

Welcome to this year's cynical views on elections. Umph.

Labels: election, Prez race 2008