Political Ground Hog Day
“Change” Is Coming...... Again!


Bill Murray’s movie Ground Hog Day has him waking up in the same nightmarish morning, relentlessly, until he learns a greater lesson. The Groundhog “Punxsutawney Phil” has predicted six more weeks of winter, and it takes Murray that long to become a clear thinking well balanced judge of what in life is really important.

In a similar way, much political hay has been made of the word “change” in this year’s Presidential nomination primaries. As if the electorate has never heard the word before, they have flocked to it, regardless of the lack of specifics attached, and no matter how many times the same scene has been repeated with them inside of it.

Senator Obama was the first to jump on the message of change, and the rest have followed. Obama is the most charismatic speaker since Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan. The change message for changes sake alone however, can prove to be a hollow one.

President John Kennedy’s ascension to the Presidency hailed the wave of change in America at the dawning of the 1960’s. That change which started with so much promise however quickly unraveled into perhaps the worst decade of the entire 20th century.

In the 1960’s the U.S. citizenry lost its moral compass, trust of government officials, and trust of each other. The “try anything generation” was given free reign in the form of radicalism, brotherly love, and the hippie movement. The nation also, became militantly violent. That is not quite the change that Camelot promised at the outset of the decade, but then again change is an imperfect thing even when specifically defined.

When Jimmy Carter’s wide toothed smile donned living room television sets in 1976 promising a change from the Watergate era and offering a distraction from our global economic woes, it might have seemed like a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately the oxygen quantity filled the volume of a thimble. A case can be made that Carter, the world’s most compassionate man, was the worst President in history. Energy prices soared, interest rates hit 20% or more, and people lost faith in the country, and themselves.

Ronald Reagan brought a promise of change too. His tough old world Americanism brought the John Wayne swagger back to America. It lasted for six years, while seeing the children of the “hippie generation” coming into their own. The “me generation”, no longer interested in helping their fellow man, sought to line their own pockets, and advance their own agenda; the competition be damned. By the end of the 1980’s brought George H.W. Bush to power, and a slide back in awareness.

Bill Clinton, another southerner with a fresh face and voice for change, came to town, and overcame a troubled economy with compromise. He embraced Newt Gingritch’s conservative movement as if he had invented it. It was a forced form of cooperation that was really closer to venomous. Clinton neglected to recognize the global threat to America, and act on it in such a way as to offer enhanced security even after being attacked.

Finally George W. Bush offered change from the sleazy politics under the Clinton years. For the sake of defending the country the man has not wavered in his morals or scruples in dealing with common enemies. Like his father he has somewhat of an economic deaf ear, but has sought to give money to people as a solution. The war on terror has cost him dearly too, yet he persists.

The point is that each of these Presidents offered the olive branch of hope and change. It is as if Senator Obama was writing new speeches. For long time political stalwarts, we find ourselves trapped in our own little Ground Hog Day. The same story keeps unfolding, and the same electorate keeps falling for the manipulation.

Each President had a story that started out well, and then collapsed under the weight of our own gluttonous impatience for perfection. Each also gravely disappointed the masses in achieving what they set out to accomplish, except perhaps for Reagan and Clinton.
Now the newest squeaky fresh face on the scene is Senator Obama. He offers the same outstretched hand pitching the same tired rhetoric, and like each Ground Hog day before hand, the American people are responding with a tin ear and a blind eye.

If we as a people cannot discern our own past historical errors then this cycle of being unwittingly controlled into embracing the “change candidate” will never end. We will be stuck like Murray in an American Groundhog Day until we learn that words do not translate into action. Judgment therefore must be decided upon answering the question what are your accomplishments, not gee he makes me feel hopeful. While we continue to repeat this game, we get weaker as time passes. Our enemies however, gain strength, and that is unsafe for America, as much as is change for the sake of itself.

Abandoned!

One of the most popular refrains from conservatives comes from the fact that many of them were once Democrats. “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it left me”, is an often overheard motto that Republicans cite regarding their transition from one party to another. It is most likely true. Given the fact that President Kennedy was a strong defense Democrat, an argument can be made that he would today be a fiscal conservative. Given the times in which he lived he would likely be considered a liberal on some social issues, but might be considered a socially conservative on some as well. There is truth that as the 1960’s preceded the banners that Democrats once carried and the electorate with them was abandoned.

Over the next fifteen years those displaced Democrats, true conservatives, gravitated toward the Republican Party. By the time Ronald Reagan came on the Presidential scene in 1976 the formerly displaced, found a home. When Reagan became President many the folks who still considered themselves Democrats sided with the Gripper. They too joined in the Reagan Revolution.

The original Kennedy Democrats and Reagan conservatives flourished; reaching a zenith when Newt Gingrich stormed Congress with “the Contract with America.” There in print for all American’s to see were conservative Republican’s own principals in a blueprint declaration as to how the country should be governed, and what accomplishments were left to be achieved.

Unfortunately, for that traveling band of conservatives, it was the last time that their core values were in the limelight, enjoined by action. Over the next fourteen years the conservatives were cajoled into service by the notion that supporting another Bush in the White House would assure maintenance and strength of those core values. However, President George Bush governed much more from the political middle than from the political right, where most of these purists reside. They have been disillusioned over the past four years by some Bush policies. Immigration amounting to amnesty,, abandonment of Social Security reform and privatization, along with exponential governmental growth, fiscal irresponsibility, and an attempt to place Harriet Meyers on the Supreme Court, have illuminated the “Bush conservative credentials” fraud.

The conservatives do like Bush’s strong stand on defense, though most probably have trepidation about a preemptive strike foreign policy. The 30 percent of support that remains for the President is from those strict hawkish conservative Republicans that believe in a strong national defense.

2008 brings John McCain to the front of the political race to succeed President Bush. This may be the last straw for those out of sorts conservatives. The talk shows scream it, the media takes advantage of it, and the Kennedy conservatives turned Reagan Republicans are now left with no place to go!

McCain has an even worse record than Bush on abundantly more issues that threaten to push executive governance to the center, or even left of center. True conservatives cannot abide that occurrence. The nomination of John McCain will likely move these conservatives to some other coalition if he does not act in the manner that they see fitting. Someone needs to tell Senator McCain that even “strait talk is cheap.” It is his legislative actions that have him in trouble with his own party. That is not likely to change unless a President McCain governs from the right, not the middle.

McCain is not likely to beat Barack Obama in his Presidential bid. The first black man with an actual chance to win the Presidency is a fresh face with a silver tongue that can seduce many. He is a unique flirtation with Americas own ideals, however that reality is marred by politics, which is in the way!

Standing side by side on a debate platform will look worse than the Kennedy-Nixon debate. A fresh vibrant Obama standing aside an old grumpy wrinkled McCain gives a clear visual to the electorate. March forward with youthful abandon, or creep along with aging obsolescence. Giving rise to hope, Obama could become the next John Kennedy. That would happen if his record did not reflect his absolute liberalism at every corner. He might win those homeless conservatives based on hope were it not for his polar opposite views on so many things. Too bad the Illinois Senator isn’t a centrist, because then he would win election in a landslide.

McCain however, could beat Senator Clinton. She is a polarizing force; much stronger than the distaste for McCain in the mouths of conservatives. Mrs. Clinton’s nomination as the Democrats choice for President is the only thing that could make enough conservatives stay and vote for McCain. Reduced to voting as the anti-Hilary bloc the conservatives will not be a true constituency for McCain. Barring that outcome the conservatives will once again find themselves abandoned by their own party. This time it is the Republicans that have erred. Perhaps after an eight year stint of liberal policies, higher taxes, bloated social program expansion and international respect at the sacrifice of American sovereignty, the Republicans will learn their lesson. Likely then, it will be long too late. The conservatives will likely have forged a new home outside of the Republican party, or have rebuilt it with what really works to win Presidential elections; true conservatism.