Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

The Presidential Campaign?
What Presidential Campaign?

OCTOBER 28, 2008 --

About two weeks before Election Day, someone told me that Sen. McCain ran a terrible campaign. And I wondered, to myself, if -- other than the three debates with Sen. Obama -- he -- and the Republican party -- ran any campaign at all.

As of October 23, polls suggest that Sen. Obama will win in a landslide. LPR understands that this would increase Democratic majorities in House and Senate.

Add to this the truth, made obvious this campaign (if not in past campaigns) that most of the media serve as cheerleaders for the Democratic candidate, the country seems headed for two years of one party government, and, likely, inquisitorial congressional hearings conducted by zealous Democratic partisans like Reps. Henry Waxman and Barney Frank, and like Senator Charles E. Schumer.

Indeed, which committee will be the first to subpoena President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, among others, with Gen. Colin Powell possibly appearing as a friendly witness.

And what will Senate Democrats do to poor Sen. Lieberman who apparently placed his bets on the wrong candidate, criticizing Sen. Obama, to boot, before the Republican National Convention?

Will Senator Obama change Washington? Would a candidate who raises $150 million in one month change a culture that is apparently based on influence deriving mainly from campaign contributions? Not likely, in LPR's view.

LPR would not be surprised if, after the Democratic victory on Election Day, we shall hear from the Democratic party's media stalwarts that the economy is not really as bad as believed, prior to the election.

(LPR recalls that the "missile gap" issue of the Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960 disappeared after JFK was elected.)

Sen. McCain began his post primary campaign on precisely the right note: declaring that he and Gov.Palin are dedicated to the "common good."

Alas, LPR heard those words only once, when Sen. McCain introduced Sen. Palin as his running mate. If only he campaigned on the basis of the advice set forth in the first half of Federaloist No. 57…

And so, Iraq turned out to be of little consequence in the autumn run to the White House. Instead, we were told that the economy is in bad shape, and the stock market added to financial anxiety, behaving as if in a manic depressive mood -- up hundreds of Dow Jones points one day, down hundreds of Dow Jones points in following days.

Also, voters were reminded how good it would be for the image of America if Senator Obama were elected president, while the media disdained Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for vice president.

The media clearly suggested that affirmative action by the voters in the presidential election will be good for our global image. Can there be any doubt that if Sen. Obama were to lose after leading by a wide margin on October 23, the media will attribute Sen.McCain's win to racism?

LPR expects that,within a few years, congressional Democrats will overreach, as they did in the early1990's.

(That, after all, is what zealopus,, greatly self-confident partisans do.)

LPR got this image on October 19. It shows the Statue of Liberty. Please note that it is not called the Share the Wealth Statue.

Perhaps when that happens, Republicans will have learned that it is not enough to stand in wonder at getting a majority in Congress, but the members have a responsibility to serve the common good, a responsibility which, if fulfilled,should see their majorities enlarged in succeeding elections, not whittled down as happened to the GOP in every election after 1994.

And perhaps Republicans should include a smoke-filled room in the presidential nomination process. The "progressive" reforms one hundred years ago, including primaries and popular election of U.S. senators have, in LPR's views, turned out to be giant steps backward from the concept of government of, by and for the people.

Also, LPR again proposes a copnstitutional amendment requiring two decades to elapse between the years family members are elected president -- the two decades being the period between the presidencies of John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams.

LPR believes that in a Republic, politics should not dissolve into a family business; therein leads the path to neo-aristocracy.

LPR, of course, does not expect the liberal media will enter into an adversary relationship with the Democrats.

Otherwise, we might have heard more questions how higher taxes for people earning more than $250 thousand a year will be a significant budgetary measure.

Otherwise, we might have heard questions about the Democratic role in the mortgage meltdown.

Otherwise, we might have heard questions whether people who obtained mortgages had been advised by counsel, and, further, been warned that they might not be able to keep up their payments.

The liberal media regard only Republicans as adversary, indeed, perhaps even foe.

May the new administration and the new Congress not cause our Founders to despair of the future of the Constitution they gave us.

And may God continue to bless an America that deserves His blessing.