And Not A Thing To Watch

You might not know it but there are other things going on in the world today besides the Presidential election.  Heck, there’s even other things happening in the United States.  You might not know it if you’re watching CNN.  CNN seems to have become the All-Election-All-The-Time channel with hourly updates on polls and predictions about how the next primary is going to turn out.  Every second of the day has a Democratic or Republican candidate plastered on the screen and if there’s nothing new, well, CNN will find some sound-byte to make controversial and start playing it every fifteen minutes.

I was so happy when there was breaking news about Britney Spears and I can’t even stand her and I don’t understand why anyone thinks she’s news.  Yet, I was ecstatic that CNN was acknowledging that there was more to life than the election.  For God’s sake, it’s only January!  It’s going to be a long year if they intend to continue this ridiculousness.

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The Ideal Candidate

The last few days, Hillary Clinton and Obama have been pressing the public to really look at the candidates’ records. Personally, I kind of liked the way Senator Clinton has gone about it more than Senator Obama or even John Edwards. Just from what I’ve seen over the weekend, she seems to have gotten the message from Iowa about the public being tired of negative messages and political attack dogs. While Edwards and Obama still appear to be pointing fingers and making accusations, she seems to be much calmer, less defensive, less abrasive.

But one thing has been nagging me more and more the past week than it usually does about Presidential campaigning. Maybe it’s because I’m just so aware of how many sitting Senators are running this time around — and I can’t forget Governor Richardson who I’m inclined to like best amongst the Democrats but I think it’s simply because they don’t let him talk much.

I keep wondering when was the last time any of these public officials were actually doing the job they have now rather than campaigning for the job they want next? Running for President of the United States appears to be as much a full time job as President of the United States. How can they possibly have time to govern a state or sponsor the kind of bills they claim they support or even vote on the actual bills struggling to become law?

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Do You Vote By Consensus or Conscience?

I’ve been chewing on PunditMom’s post “How Are You Going to Vote?” for a while now.  Mostly because it’s a subject that bothers me every election.  PunditMom queries each of us if we are voting by consensus or by conscience?  In other words, are we voting with the herd or voting with our heart?  Are we casting our ballot for the candidate most likely to win or the one who best represents our world view, our stand on the issues, and who we think can lead our country as we wish it should be?

I have long thought that most of us choose a candidate to vote for using the least brain-wracking methods.  We choose candidates based on what party we believe we are in and most of the time we have signed on to a political party because that’s the party our parents, boyfriend/girlfriend, or husband/wife is in.  We choose candidates because that’s who someone we know is voting for — my grandmother always voted for whomever my grandfather told her and after he died, she would always ask my parents who she should vote for, though she never liked their non-Republican answer.  Then there are those of us who are hung up on just one or maybe two issues.  Nothing else matters as much.  As long as the candidate swears on the souls of his or her dead ancestors that he or she will do everything in his or her power to grant their wishes on that one issue, there are those of us who will sell our vote.  We choose candidates because that’s who’s leading in the polls and we like to be part of the winning team.  We choose because of peer pressure.  We choose because that’s who our preacher or our favorite talk show host told us to choose.  We choose because the candidate had more advertising or more mudslinging ads.  We choose because the candidate is the right skin color or is the right religion or is the right gender or is better looking or has the right education or married the right wife.

We often choose candidates for a lot of the wrong reasons.

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In-Party Mudslinging Only Hurts The Party

Did you know that CNN rebroadcast the Democrat Debate all night long last night?

I had insomnia last night so I had the privilege of discovering this. Fortunately it was the kind of insomnia that allowed me a few spurts of sleep so I didn’t have to suffer through it all over and over, but the experience reinforced some of my opinions and made me rethink some of the candidates.

Despite being a woman, I am not afraid to admit that I made up my mind way before Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy that I would not be voting for her. While I think her husband was an excellent President, she has proven to be a horrible politician or perhaps she’s proven to be too good at it. She doesn’t take responsibility for how she votes and her voting record is so conservative, it’s almost Republican in nature. I’d love to see a woman as President of the United States, but I want someone I believe will do the job with integrity and will lead this country out of the quagmire it’s in both domestically and in foreign policy. I just don’t think Hillary Clinton is the right woman for the job; I think she’s an elitist and will say anything and promise anything to get elected; I think she cares about power more than she cares about this country and serving the Average Joe.

So, that said, I already have my mind made up about Hillary Clinton and there’s pretty much nothing she can say in these debates that is going to change my mind. I really don’t know what I’ll do if somehow she becomes the DNC nominee.

Anyway, I was very disappointed in Barack Obama and John Edwards, not that I was planning on voting for either of them in the primaries either. (I do want to note that Obama looks like he’s aged 5 years in the last year. This campaign must have been hard on him.) When they announced their campaigns, I thought they were kind of inexperienced but who knows, you know?

However, last night, I was so turned off by their mudslinging. It seemed like most of what came out of their mouths was negative comments about Hillary. I wished someone would tell them to shut up about Hillary and just talk about their ownselves, what they have accomplished and what they would do as President. Hillary doesn’t actually give real answers about solid plans. They don’t need to sling mud to make her look bad and it just makes them look bad.

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Will An Independent Candidate Be The Nov. 2008 Surprise?

Half-watching CNN this morning as I got ready for work, I caught an interview with Lou Dobbs, who host his own nightly CNN show.  What caught my attention was Dobbs’ prediction for the 2008 Presidential election — mostly because it’s something I’ve been saying I’ve been hoping for all year long since the usual suspects started campaigning.

Dobb believes that none of the current candidates, Democrat or Republican, will be elected President; his opinion is that the next President of the United States will be an independent populist, a man or woman ” of great character, vision and accomplishment, a candidate who has not yet entered the race.”  He thinks that the independents and centrists will come together and elect someone who puts the people of this country and their wants first rather than be influenced by the power of a few elites.

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