Presidential hankerings

(For those of you who notice a change in tone, it is becuz this is the rough draft of what will be submitted to the local university magazine, where the quality of the submissions is low enough that accepting my work actually be a step up.)

Aah, February, when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of . . . politics.
Well, unfortunately so. Now that the two great commercial events of the season, the superbowl and Valentines day, (that crassest exploitation of humankind's nobler sentiments,) are nearly out of the way, CNN is at last free to focus on what it does best: Pointless recycling of clips of political candidates lusting for Presidential office, years before it is even available.
So far in the race, we have Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Hilary Clinton, and Barak Obama. Oh, and some other people.

With so many interesting candidates so early on in this race, one might ask why we had such shoddy candidates in the last two races. With such a plethora of talent on the roster this year, how did we end up with Gore/Kerry vs. Bush for the last two elections? The answer, I fear, is not encouraging.

Put quite simply, last election we suffered from a dearth of good options because there was an incumbent in the white house during a "war". What this means is that short of accidentally bombing his own country, Americans will re-elect him. Americans are funny that way - longstanding tradition dictates that we will not change horses midstream. Even if the horse we are currently riding has all the aquatic characteristics of an anchor.

Because there was an incumbent in the White House, the Democratic party knew it was a lost cause, (though they musn't actually say so) and kept their heavy hitters back so they would not be tainted with failure when 2008 rolled around. Sure, a few brave souls ventured out, (John Edwards, et al,) but I would speculate they did so mainly to raise their name recognition for 2008.
So what went wrong back in 2000, when there was no incumbent, and no "war"?

A quick look back at the presidential field in 2000 is instructive: at the beginning of the primaries, (the process by which the Democratic and Republican parties begin their selection process for the eventual nominations) there were a number of interesting candidates, just as there are now. Notably, Bill Bradley, former NBA star and Senator, who, perhaps too honest for his own good, publicly declared American politics "broken," and decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1996. In his presidential run, he campaigned on universal health-care, campaign finance reform, and gun control. On the Republican side was John McCain, who also focused his campaign on removing the money from politics. Both of these men had dynamic styles, proven records of statesmanship, and reputations as honest, independent-minded men.

The other two mainstream candidates, the acting Vice President Al Gore, and then Governor of Texas George W. Bush, both had serious difficulties in a number of areas. Both were handicapped by their pasts, Gore by his association with the Clinton administration and its public scandals, and Bush by his Savings and Loan scandal in Texas, where his business mistakes cost the American taxpayers dearly. Both were also handicapped in public speaking, one doing a fair imitation of a wooden-puppet, the other making mistakes in wording his sentences that caused many people to question his clarity of thought, and some of his utterances to lose meaning completely. Witness just these few:

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

"It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas."

"Actually, I—this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about—when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me."

"I was raised in the West. The west of Texas. It's pretty close to California. In more ways than Washington, D.C., is close to California."

"I do not agree with this notion that somehow if I go to try to attract votes and to lead people toward a better tomorrow somehow I get subscribed to some—some doctrine gets subscribed to me."

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."

All sources, with full documentation, can be found here:

http://www.slate.com/id/76886/

Yet, these men, both associated with scandals in their pasts, significant problems in interpersonal communication and less than inspiring public personas, were selected by their respective parties over other, better qualified and more eloquent candidates to possibly lead the world's superpower. To find out why, we need only consider the money.

Both of these candidates were well-connected to financial sources. Al Gore, as the Vice President, was well-established with his party's financial machine, and Bush had long-standing contacts with the deep pockets in the oil industry, as well as his family's roots in politics. What this implies for both of them is that they would be signficantly indebted to their political masters once they reached office, and would be subject to the manipulations of those who provided them with funding.

On the other hand, both McCain and Bradley had publicly declared that money was the number one corrupting force in American politics, and had promised to reduce the role deep-pockets would be allowed to play in formulating legislation and foreign policy. Could these men be trusted to protect the global interests of large, multinational oil companies? Clearly not.

Fortunately, the American republicans were spared the difficult decision of having to choose between George Bush and John McCain. McCain was leading the polls stongly when the Republican primary entered South Carolina, where a telephone poll was conducted which asked voters,

"Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

This completely baseless innuendo, in a region of strong racial sentiment, combined with the fact that McCain's family photo includes their adopted child from Bangladesh, was sufficient to undercut McCain's support to the point that he was forced to drop out of the race shortly thereafter.

Bill Bradley hung on longer, but lacked the funding necessary to compete with Gore. The rest is history.

So the lesson which emerges from all this is simple. Sure, the field is fast filling with interesting candidates. But how many will survive the political mud-slinging and defamation sure to follow? Only those with deep pockets. And those with deep pockets are not those with the common man's interests at heart. So don't get excited yet. 2008 is still a long ways away.