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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:15 am Post subject: Forget ideology, Americans just want things fixed |
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Americans today hunger for one thing above all: consensus.
When they achieve it, watch out.
Hillary Clinton tried out a new stump speech last weekend. There was nothing particularly radical about it, just a slight shift of emphasis. But that shift is crucial.
The senator wants voters to know that she, of all the Democratic candidates, is the one who can get things done. Barack Obama and John Edwards insist they are agents of change. Ms. Clinton prefers "principled compromise."
Now principled compromise, even if it isn't an oxymoron, is hardly a rallying cry. It sounds like something Mackenzie King might have said. But it's what Americans want to hear.
Speaking about her experience in the White House and Senate, Ms. Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd that audacious visions are all well and good, but delivering 60 votes in the Senate is what matters.
"You bring change by working in the system established by the Constitution," she reminded them, and us. That sort of message is going to get someone elected president.
Talking to Americans inside and, more important, outside Washington, you encounter the same thing pollsters are reporting: Americans are fed up with the political gridlock afflicting the federal government. They want an end to ideology.
This is a big change. The left and the right have endlessly contended for power within and between the Democratic and Republican parties. Liberal progressives dominated from the Depression until 1980; fiscal and social conservatives have had the upper hand since.
George W. Bush's administration sought to establish a perpetual governing coalition based on a particular brand of militant Christian conservatism. Not only did the President and his advisers fail, but they polarized the country and paralyzed Congress in the process, leaving only an unpopular war, mounting debt, imbalanced trade and a raft of unsolved problems.
The Republicans continue to insist that voters must choose between strength or weakness, personal freedom or big government.
If they persist, they will lose the next election. Because most voters don't want to choose between competing philosophies. They just want things fixed.
They want to find a way to get out of Iraq without handing the place over to the insurgents. They want to abandon the "you're either with us or against us" Bush belligerence, re-establishing America's proper role as the co-operative leader of a web of global alliances.
They want an end to the debate over private versus public health care. Now consuming almost 17 per cent of GDP, health care is costing too much and delivering too little. People want their coverage broadened and deepened, and they don't care how it's done.
And they want their government to return to fiscal balance, without crippling increases in taxes or cuts in spending.
These goals are, in fact, all achievable, provided the White House and Congress co-operate for the common good rather than compete for partisan advantage. That is why a pragmatic message is a winning message, why in the next election competence will trump ideology, and why Ms. Clinton is emphasizing her experience while playing down the vision thing.
Some critics, both within the United States and without, believe its problems are intractable, signs of an empire in decline.
Nonsense. Who is ready to supplant America? China? When has an authoritarian power ever defeated a free people of equal power? From Louis XIV to Leonid Brezhnev, the answer is: never.
The European Union? Ask the Europeans, who will tell you about their far deeper divisions and economic malaise. Russia? Its population is declining by 700,000 people a year.
India? Now that's a possibility. But the day that India becomes first among English-speaking democracies will be a good day, for America as well as the rest of the world.
In the meantime, as Joel Achenbach observed in a bullish essay in Sunday's Washington Post, "Americans are blessed with a durable constitution, cultural diversity, abundant natural resources and an open society." And nine Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which is nine more than anyone else.
America's problems are manageable, especially compared to its competitors'. All that's needed is an administration and Congress committed to repairing the social and physical infrastructure while containing terrorist threats.
Given the challenges this exuberant people have already met and surmounted, from slavery to the Cold War, it should be a piece of cake. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:47 am Post subject: |
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BJWD:
Good article and thread topic.
| Quote: |
Speaking about her experience in the White House and Senate, Ms. Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd that audacious visions are all well and good, but delivering 60 votes in the Senate is what matters.
"You bring change by working in the system established by the Constitution," she reminded them, and us. That sort of message is going to get someone elected president. |
I think we are seeing the unveiling of the Clinton camp playbook here. They want to paint Obama as an idealist and Hillary as a realist. It just might work too.
But I harken back to what Di-ck Morris once quipped, after falling out of favor with the Clintons:
"Bill is a moderate who can be a liberal when he needs to be. Hillary is a liberal who can be a moderate when she needs to be."
Right now she's being a moderate, hoping to lure the undecided voters and those who want to break ranks from the Republicans.
I concur with the theme of the article, however. America does need a leader that will aim at consensus, I'm just not sure any is in the running this time around. I would dearly welcome Colin Powell but he won't run, burned as he was by Rumsfeld and loyal as he is to his limelight loathing wife.
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| And nine Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which is nine more than anyone else. |
Yeah, bruddah, tell it like it is. (I might add having fighter pilots and an air armada second to none). |
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