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.