In thinking of past presidents who have gained their parties’ nomination, and then the nation’s trust, I think of their champions who helped put them there. And how that ultimately led to the orator turning into later candidate. Of course, there are notable exceptions. Remember Bill Clinton’s torturous marathon for Dukakis? But to make my point, think also of Reagan championing Goldwater. And there was Mario Cuomo who mesmerized me in his 1984 presentation for the Mondale/Ferraro ticket. It took me a long time to realize I would never see Cuomo on even a primary ballot. “Hamlet on the Hudson” they called him. Nevertheless, I always believed there was more than oratory to the man. So when I learned he had written an op-ed in the LA Times on September 3 , I sought it out.
Indeed, he had the clear syntax to explain how the country doesn’t need an imperial presidency. Then came his solution, and I quote: "First, Democrats should make clear that it is the president who is keeping the war in Iraq from ending."
But sad to say, there was no Second. Just the usual discussion of power of the purse and the obstruction of new Supreme Justices.
Nothing wrong with what the former New York governor said. I do not expect him to lay out an agenda for impeachment just because I believe there should be one. But the article made me understand just how little the MSM is involved in helping “the people” come to grips with their problems.
So beware! I’m going to show some regional bigotry. As long as I can remember, which is since Franklin Roosevelt campaigned the first time, I have heard about the New York banks and the Hollywood moguls. It’s a way for us who live in the hinterlands to proclaim our Americanism.
Times have changed in the past three-quarters of a century. The hinterland folks eat Big Macs and watch reality TV shows, too. They watch the news coming from New York and Washington and get their kicks with celebrity gossip as always. However, families are concerned with too many tests for schoolchildren, too little early childhood medical care, and far too many politicians telling them about Middle America. In the middle is how many feel. And some vote with their feet by putting them up at the Lazy Boy on election day.
Democrats like to bill themselves as friends of “the people” and proceed to tell them how they are going to save the middle class. Like a dash of cold water, they promise tax deductions even as there is no chance of an IRS long form. They tell how they will help to send their kids to college. To do what? Maybe the kid would like a course in welding but not a degree. Don’t ask me, or I’ll tell you that a lot of such rhetoric is hoity-toity.
When the 2004 election was declared over, maps were shown of the US in red and blue. Blue tended to hug water–-both oceans and around the Great Lakes. The middle was left in the red.
Now I don’t want to be too harsh. Since the previous presidential election, Democrats have come to recognize that there are fifty states (and some appendages) in the United States. Some forward thinkers have even suggested they are all purple, having remembered from kindergarten that mixing red and blue does turn purple. I’d be happier with the concept if it weren’t that in our nation-building, we decided to put that color on the fingers of voters in the new sovereignties.