the forces that determine who will get elected have their self-interests all in alignment (including the current Bush Administration)
that is why HRC will be the DEM nominee, and the 44th POTUS.
watch it happen.
Posted by: muleboy303 January 8, 2008 11:59 AM
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the american people (especially independent voters) are demonstrating their desire for an end to the ridiculous level of partisan bickering and the level of US military forces in Iraq.
this is their season of "hope" (and like all of them before, 'twill not last, as events "conspire" to turn their attention back to 'pragmatic incrementalism' and known commodities)
the good feeling that comes from being pre-eminent, successful, and hopeful will endure and override the coming disappointment (that is the function of the current 'tidal waves'/'earthquakes') as those voting blocks historically at the "back of the bus" (on both sides) will resume their historic place during the next six months.
last week's "repudiation" of the politics of personal destruction is but a moment in what will be the longest, most expensive, and ugliest election campaign anyone alive in the U.S. has ever seen.
to borrow a phrase from the Carpenters, "We've only just begun"
Posted by: muleboy303 January 8, 2008 11:14 AM
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more food for thought...
on 9-11-2001, children who were as young as ten (who turned 11 before november 2001), and as old as 14, will be eligible to vote in the general election in 2008 for the first time.
the broadband internet, cell phones with music players and cameras built-in, and wars, have been a central part of the culture for all of their post-puberty lives.
they and their predecessors up to around age 22 have used the internet to relate to their peer groups, especially during the past few years with the advent of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. this new phenomenon may play a large part in getting the "youth vote" to the polls in larger numbers than ever seen before in American politics, though probably not as large as many predict or hope.
for young people see politics as a simple linear progression from the current point A to the desired point B, and when reality intrudes to create it's inevitable deviations from that simple line, young people react with disgust, disdain, and disappointment, and are more likely to drop-out of the process.
on the other end of the electorate scale, old people, by virtue of bitter experience, know that their vote has little effect, but it is the only way to have any impact at all. and in a small state's primary election, that impact can have larger, more amplified implications.
thus you have an experience like yesterday's Democratic Party primary in New Hampshire, where several thousand elderly women, who for the last week have absorbed a constant barrage of Barack O'mania threatening to eclipse their only realistic chance to have a woman President in their lifetimes, troop to the polls to register their "OH HELL NO!" reaction.
in ten more days we will learn if the AA vote in South Carolina has a similar reaction to the NH reaction to Iowa. i doubt it will, as African-Americans are conditioned to being taken for granted by the Democratic Party (as are Evangelicals in the GOP) and as the media blitz and other events unfold, they will set their sites on the VP slot, which will still be a history-making elevation for both.
i suspect the AA vote will split 60/40 one way or the other, but no monolithic block to either HRC or BHO. whereas the elderly vote in SC, especially female, now have their "eyes on the prize" to make history, compounding the NH votes effect. with the still small possibility that a third candidate, John Edwards will be the "agent of surprise" there and return briefly to contention.
during the next few months, the media's focus on the election campaigns will serve to diminish the electorate's attention on the faltering US economy. (the campaigns will comply by extending and continuing their current "no clear-cut winner" status, complimented by the addition of the "will Bloomberg, Nader, Paul, (or even Gore) run 3rd party" parallel theme)
ultimately, later this year, the season of "hope" and the "youth movement" will subside and the system will produce the longest known commodities as nominees, with possible historic surprises on the ticket as VP candidates. as one already disaffected young politico sarcastically phrased it last night,
"nothing screams "CHANGE" like John McCain and Hillary Clinton".
'tis gonna be a fun damn year.
stephenhsmith
9Jan2008
