As my childhood hero, Popeye, used to say: "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"
I suppose that, with the looming advent of 2012 -- and not much actual faith in the December 21 Mayan deadline for the ending of the age -- I'm going to have to make a decision about the presidential election.
Along with many other Democrats in America, you can color me "depressed, disappointed and disillusioned." Whatever euphoria may have briefly arisen in 2008 seems to have dissipated like so much swamp gas in the bayou. (Along with, evidently, any hope that BP and the Feds were actually going to do anything to "make things right" along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the Deep Throat...I mean, Deepwater oil disaster.)
Actually, I am not registered with any political party here in my "home" state of Florida. I am staunchly and fiercely independent in my political views. The son of a fervent Goldwater Republican, it is sad to see what the GOP of my father's generation has become. Their agenda seems to me to be anything but Grand these days.
Lacking any true option for a viable independent candidate, that leaves the Democrats. I'll go ahead and confess, I voted for William Jefferson Clinton -- and I thought Slick Willy did a pretty decent job. Will he have a place in the pantheon of "great presidents" in US history? Doubt it. But judging by the quality of his successors, he sure looks better all the time!
I read a nice little opinion piece today by Canadian journalist Bogdan Kipling, who writes about America's political scene from no less a lofty peak than our nation's capital. (Reminds me of a popular bumper sticker from my youth, seen plastered on a toilet tank: "Flush Twice -- It's a Long Way to Washington!")
In his essay, Run, Hillary, Run, Mr. Kipling was addressing the perplexing dilemma facing many Democrats for 2012...should the donkeys run somebody besides President Obama -- most likely Hillary Clinton -- if they hope to derail whichever Republican candidate emerges from the goof-fest that is their primary season?
Mr. Kipling writes:
Increasingly the question of whether President Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination is surfacing among disgruntled Democrats worried about a solid Republican victory next fall. They’re right to be concerned: the crises facing the United States and the world deserve better than Obama’s permanent floating re-election campaign....
Obama’s priorities seem to be governed more by his re-election timetable than the demands of the national interest and reflective responses to the galloping changes in the global order. Contrary to mainstream opinion, Obama is a mediocre politician. Were it not so, surely he would have known that people get wise to polished repetitive, but empty speeches — and know the difference between bread and butter now and pie in the sky later. (full article text here)
I'm no Obama-hater; I have plenty of friends who can fulfill that role for me. I begrudgingly granted him my vote after his emergence in the 2008 campaign; I did (fleetingly) dare to hope for a change in the way Washington was working. I've tried to be supportive of the office, the man and the policies the current administration has enacted.
But I think I'm with Mr. Kipling on this one: "the Democratic Party should bite the bullet and jettison the nation’s one-term Senate orator and try to elect the nation’s first woman president."
I'm pretty sure he ain't talking about Michele Bachmann, by the way.
I suppose that, with the looming advent of 2012 -- and not much actual faith in the December 21 Mayan deadline for the ending of the age -- I'm going to have to make a decision about the presidential election.
Along with many other Democrats in America, you can color me "depressed, disappointed and disillusioned." Whatever euphoria may have briefly arisen in 2008 seems to have dissipated like so much swamp gas in the bayou. (Along with, evidently, any hope that BP and the Feds were actually going to do anything to "make things right" along the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of the Deep Throat...I mean, Deepwater oil disaster.)
Actually, I am not registered with any political party here in my "home" state of Florida. I am staunchly and fiercely independent in my political views. The son of a fervent Goldwater Republican, it is sad to see what the GOP of my father's generation has become. Their agenda seems to me to be anything but Grand these days.
Lacking any true option for a viable independent candidate, that leaves the Democrats. I'll go ahead and confess, I voted for William Jefferson Clinton -- and I thought Slick Willy did a pretty decent job. Will he have a place in the pantheon of "great presidents" in US history? Doubt it. But judging by the quality of his successors, he sure looks better all the time!
I read a nice little opinion piece today by Canadian journalist Bogdan Kipling, who writes about America's political scene from no less a lofty peak than our nation's capital. (Reminds me of a popular bumper sticker from my youth, seen plastered on a toilet tank: "Flush Twice -- It's a Long Way to Washington!")
In his essay, Run, Hillary, Run, Mr. Kipling was addressing the perplexing dilemma facing many Democrats for 2012...should the donkeys run somebody besides President Obama -- most likely Hillary Clinton -- if they hope to derail whichever Republican candidate emerges from the goof-fest that is their primary season?
Mr. Kipling writes:
Increasingly the question of whether President Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination is surfacing among disgruntled Democrats worried about a solid Republican victory next fall. They’re right to be concerned: the crises facing the United States and the world deserve better than Obama’s permanent floating re-election campaign....
Obama’s priorities seem to be governed more by his re-election timetable than the demands of the national interest and reflective responses to the galloping changes in the global order. Contrary to mainstream opinion, Obama is a mediocre politician. Were it not so, surely he would have known that people get wise to polished repetitive, but empty speeches — and know the difference between bread and butter now and pie in the sky later. (full article text here)
I'm no Obama-hater; I have plenty of friends who can fulfill that role for me. I begrudgingly granted him my vote after his emergence in the 2008 campaign; I did (fleetingly) dare to hope for a change in the way Washington was working. I've tried to be supportive of the office, the man and the policies the current administration has enacted.
But I think I'm with Mr. Kipling on this one: "the Democratic Party should bite the bullet and jettison the nation’s one-term Senate orator and try to elect the nation’s first woman president."
I'm pretty sure he ain't talking about Michele Bachmann, by the way.
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