A few post-election thoughts
I don’t know if anyone really comes here for my political thoughts, though it hardly seems likely. Nevertheless, since my political thoughts this time around are strongly colored by my religious ones, here goes:
1. All elections are a mixed bag, morally speaking. Since broken people elect equally or even more broken people, they cannot help but be mixed. It is perhaps the biggest tautology ever to appear on Kairos, but I will say it anyway: I am a politically conservative person. Nonetheless, the general trend towards the Republican party (to which I have never belonged)** is hardly unqualified good news. For one thing, though I truly believe the free market is a surer way of reducing poverty than government handouts, and though I loathe the class warfare the Democrats constantly wage as Institutionalized Coveting, I do think that the reputation of many republicans as mean-spirited or hard-hearted is, shall we say, not entirely unmerited.
2. In spite of this, I don’t think of voting for Republicans as “the lesser of two evils” in most cases, but the opportunity to do more good. The only sense in which they are the “less evil” choice, in general and allowing for particular exceptions, is in that all candidates are human (except of course the extraterrestrials controlled by the CIA and/or the UN--but I digress). Cast in those terms, it is a choice of who can effect the most good.
3. President Bush really needs to resubmit Charles Pickering’s name to the Senate. Today.
4. I sincerely hope that the defeat of the Democrats will lead to a resurgence of that party. But, for that to happen, Terry McAuliffe’s odious style of “Clinton minus the charm” will have to be tossed over the transom. The Permanent Campaign needs to become a thing of the past, and WJC needs to be fully and finally repudiated. This will only happen when the Democratic Party understands that he was unique, and the things he got away with will not work for others. Gary Condit should have alerted them to this fact, but did not. Perhaps a crushing defeat in places where the battle should not have even been close will do so. This will be a good thing, both for Democrats and Republicans.
5. If Sandra Day O’Connor or William Rehnquist really is considering retirement, please do it quickly, before Susan Collins or Olympia Snow or any other Democrat-in-Republican-Clothing goes all Jeffords.
6. Send help to Suzie Terrell in Lousianna. Mary Landrieu, the Democrat who got 46% of the vote, identifies herself as a Roman Catholic, and is not entirely hopeless on the life issue, but she is pretty far gone. A runoff election is to be held in a few weeks, and Republicans got the majority of the vote the first-time around. This race is very much up-for-grabs.
7. Note to Trent Lott: If Democrats threaten to filibuster anything, make them. Seriously. Make them stage a filibuster. Make them bring in cots, and sleep in the aisles. Let C-Span and CNN and Dan Rather broadcast hour after hour of coverage of Democrats reading from cookbooks and novels, halting the government in wartime in order to score points with a vanishing base. A filibuster is a no-cost threat with a high return for them right now. See how much stamina Teddy Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg have.
8. If Republicans are going to ask for a recount in South Dakota, that’s fine. But stop at that request. If the Democrats can plausibly be shown to have engaged in fraud, then seek criminal prosecutions of those who did so. But don’t refight the battle of Florida in South Dakota. Democrats are better at that kind of nastiness, and it won’t work for you.
**In fact, the only parties I have ever been a member of are the Democratic Party, and, for literally about 10 minutes, the Communist Party. When I first registered to vote during a Registration Drive in High School, I checked “Communist” as a joke. At lunch a few minutes later, a friend whose father worked for the FBI or some other federal law enforcement agency pointed out that this fact, noted by the County, would almost surely result in the opening of a permanent file with my name on it. So, I returned to the desk, tore up my original form because of a mistake on it, and registered as a Democrat, which lasted until my sophomore year of college, at which point I became an independent, permanently, in all likelihood. (Though the One-Party + Governor system here in Taxachusetts makes me consider annually whether I should change my registration so as to vote in the primary, the only election that counts for most races.)
I don’t know if anyone really comes here for my political thoughts, though it hardly seems likely. Nevertheless, since my political thoughts this time around are strongly colored by my religious ones, here goes:
1. All elections are a mixed bag, morally speaking. Since broken people elect equally or even more broken people, they cannot help but be mixed. It is perhaps the biggest tautology ever to appear on Kairos, but I will say it anyway: I am a politically conservative person. Nonetheless, the general trend towards the Republican party (to which I have never belonged)** is hardly unqualified good news. For one thing, though I truly believe the free market is a surer way of reducing poverty than government handouts, and though I loathe the class warfare the Democrats constantly wage as Institutionalized Coveting, I do think that the reputation of many republicans as mean-spirited or hard-hearted is, shall we say, not entirely unmerited.
2. In spite of this, I don’t think of voting for Republicans as “the lesser of two evils” in most cases, but the opportunity to do more good. The only sense in which they are the “less evil” choice, in general and allowing for particular exceptions, is in that all candidates are human (except of course the extraterrestrials controlled by the CIA and/or the UN--but I digress). Cast in those terms, it is a choice of who can effect the most good.
3. President Bush really needs to resubmit Charles Pickering’s name to the Senate. Today.
4. I sincerely hope that the defeat of the Democrats will lead to a resurgence of that party. But, for that to happen, Terry McAuliffe’s odious style of “Clinton minus the charm” will have to be tossed over the transom. The Permanent Campaign needs to become a thing of the past, and WJC needs to be fully and finally repudiated. This will only happen when the Democratic Party understands that he was unique, and the things he got away with will not work for others. Gary Condit should have alerted them to this fact, but did not. Perhaps a crushing defeat in places where the battle should not have even been close will do so. This will be a good thing, both for Democrats and Republicans.
5. If Sandra Day O’Connor or William Rehnquist really is considering retirement, please do it quickly, before Susan Collins or Olympia Snow or any other Democrat-in-Republican-Clothing goes all Jeffords.
6. Send help to Suzie Terrell in Lousianna. Mary Landrieu, the Democrat who got 46% of the vote, identifies herself as a Roman Catholic, and is not entirely hopeless on the life issue, but she is pretty far gone. A runoff election is to be held in a few weeks, and Republicans got the majority of the vote the first-time around. This race is very much up-for-grabs.
7. Note to Trent Lott: If Democrats threaten to filibuster anything, make them. Seriously. Make them stage a filibuster. Make them bring in cots, and sleep in the aisles. Let C-Span and CNN and Dan Rather broadcast hour after hour of coverage of Democrats reading from cookbooks and novels, halting the government in wartime in order to score points with a vanishing base. A filibuster is a no-cost threat with a high return for them right now. See how much stamina Teddy Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg have.
8. If Republicans are going to ask for a recount in South Dakota, that’s fine. But stop at that request. If the Democrats can plausibly be shown to have engaged in fraud, then seek criminal prosecutions of those who did so. But don’t refight the battle of Florida in South Dakota. Democrats are better at that kind of nastiness, and it won’t work for you.
**In fact, the only parties I have ever been a member of are the Democratic Party, and, for literally about 10 minutes, the Communist Party. When I first registered to vote during a Registration Drive in High School, I checked “Communist” as a joke. At lunch a few minutes later, a friend whose father worked for the FBI or some other federal law enforcement agency pointed out that this fact, noted by the County, would almost surely result in the opening of a permanent file with my name on it. So, I returned to the desk, tore up my original form because of a mistake on it, and registered as a Democrat, which lasted until my sophomore year of college, at which point I became an independent, permanently, in all likelihood. (Though the One-Party + Governor system here in Taxachusetts makes me consider annually whether I should change my registration so as to vote in the primary, the only election that counts for most races.)
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