Return
A return to politics while we wait the outcome of my dear friend's valiant heart struggling to stay ahead of her filling lungs.
A friend who is as partisan a Republican as I am a Democrat, recently emailed me his woe that there are no statesmen (or women, but it would be unmanly of a Republican to give in to non-sexist language) on the horizon, in either party. He says that Democrats are so busy hating Bush that they are blind to the many acheivements of his tenure.
Putting aside for the moment my belief that Bush has set us back in almost every way - with the possible exception of thoughtful compassion about the vexing matter of immigration - I said that it is amazing to me that, after the treatment Bill Clinton received at the hands of his political opponents, any Republican could whine about personal attacks on George Bush.
When I lived in Washington, 1969-1973, I was surprised to see how politicians who vilified each other in public were often close personal friends. I believe the last remnant of that is the friendship of Senators Orin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy.
Deomcrats and Republicans have always attacked each other, often personally in public, but the end of cooperation and personal friendship may have come with Newt Gingrich's nasty campaign that returned the majority to the Republicans in the congressional mid-term elections during Clinton's first term.
The real issue, I believe, is money. Campaign finance money. So long as the sums of money are as astronomical as they have become, it is too tempting for ordinary humans to resist a chance to get in on the big feed.
Although it violates the Republican canon about unfettered free enterprise - a myth in practice anyway - the answer is public financing of political campaigns. I sign off on a dollar when paying my taxes, which goes into a public pot from which candidates who qualify with sufficient support can draw. Once the candidiates have equal amounts of money, instead of pandering to a few rich donors, they will be able to focus on why, besides filling their own pockets, they want to be elected.
A friend who is as partisan a Republican as I am a Democrat, recently emailed me his woe that there are no statesmen (or women, but it would be unmanly of a Republican to give in to non-sexist language) on the horizon, in either party. He says that Democrats are so busy hating Bush that they are blind to the many acheivements of his tenure.
Putting aside for the moment my belief that Bush has set us back in almost every way - with the possible exception of thoughtful compassion about the vexing matter of immigration - I said that it is amazing to me that, after the treatment Bill Clinton received at the hands of his political opponents, any Republican could whine about personal attacks on George Bush.
When I lived in Washington, 1969-1973, I was surprised to see how politicians who vilified each other in public were often close personal friends. I believe the last remnant of that is the friendship of Senators Orin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy.
Deomcrats and Republicans have always attacked each other, often personally in public, but the end of cooperation and personal friendship may have come with Newt Gingrich's nasty campaign that returned the majority to the Republicans in the congressional mid-term elections during Clinton's first term.
The real issue, I believe, is money. Campaign finance money. So long as the sums of money are as astronomical as they have become, it is too tempting for ordinary humans to resist a chance to get in on the big feed.
Although it violates the Republican canon about unfettered free enterprise - a myth in practice anyway - the answer is public financing of political campaigns. I sign off on a dollar when paying my taxes, which goes into a public pot from which candidates who qualify with sufficient support can draw. Once the candidiates have equal amounts of money, instead of pandering to a few rich donors, they will be able to focus on why, besides filling their own pockets, they want to be elected.
posted by Blayney at 9:07 AM
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