Infinite Monkeys

Schizo-centrist Confession: Why Vote for Kerry?

My blog-mate believes that a Bush landslide is inevitable. Perhaps, but for most Americans, politics is something you start paying attention to, oh, about now. There are two things that impact the the late-comers' votes: (1) the conventions and (2) the debates. Several debates have turned around or vastly accelerated the trajectory of past elections: Nixon/Kennedy, 1960; Reagan/Carter, 1980; Kerry/Weld, 2000. In the case of Kerry v. Weld, Kerry turned a sorry looking campaign to a solid winner. We should recall that during Howard Dean's hay-day Kerry's upset was, well, an upset.

For my part I sat the fence on this one until a little over a month ago and until I decided to cast my chad for Kerry, I actually leaned towards Bush. People do not always make their decision based on the issues. The way political consultants seem to function, it would seem that very few people actually do - vote based on issues that is. The inestimable Prof. Marianne Jennings offers some compelling non-issue-based reasons to oppose Kerry. With those in mind, I'll list the reasons, in many ways tangential to issues, that I am making the call for Kerry.

Schizo-Centrism, the ACLU and the Right-wing Cabal

No one believes it once I make up my mind to vote after one candidate or another, but I am a centrist. Given my federalist credentials (gasp! that right-wing conspiracy!, that evil cabal), many may pidgeonhole me as a "right-wing wacko". Fortunately I am also a dues-paying, card-carrying member of the ACLU, so my schizo-centrist credentials remain intact.

It's Not the Man, It's the Herd

When it came down to it, just a few things ended up mattering to my centrist mind as it regarded who to cast a vote after:

1. Voting for president is not voting for a man, it is voting for an office and an administration
2. In voting for an administration, you are in part voting for a certain ideology, but you are also voting for a team
3. The Republican "team" is in a poor state -
- The GOP platform called for constitutional amendments banning abortion and gay marriage
- Neither of these is actually electorally feasible
- Both of these pander, cynically (see last point) to the right-most wing of the party
- Given the extreme right-wing nature of these two positions, the GOP considered a clause in their platform assuring that those with alternative positions are welcome in the party
- On consideration, the party rejected that clause
- The starlight speakers at the GOP convention, those for whom the GOP wished to put up as its "face" were: McCain, Schwarzeneggar and Guiliani, three of the most popular Republicans in America today
- These three are so popular with middle (centrist) America - people like me - because of their centrist qualities - because of the ways that they do not reflect the GOP platform and that they do not reflect the current posture of this administration
- None of these three actually discussed their own positions, since their own positions are so at odds with the party platform and the sentiments of most of those in attendance at the convention

What we are left with is a Republican Party veering hard-right, while putting on a centrist face.

Meanwhile, the Democrats:

1. Fielded seven serious candidates, ranging from Kucinich on the loony-left to Lieberman on the could-be Republican middle-right
2. With positions as far apart as those represented by the seven candidates, Democrats have managed to come together as a solid, inclusive coalition

What Team Would You Want to Join?

What do I receive from this: in the Democratic Party, there is plenty of room left open to think, debate and dissent, even if you are as far to the right as Lieberman. In the Republican Party, power is being consolidated on the far right and dissent is most unwelcome unless it is there to act as a friendly "moderate" face to swing-voters outside the party's base.

As a centrist, I feel increasingly shut out of the Republican Party.

The fundamental problem with this is that no one has a monopoly on reality. Leadership functions best when it has several information feedback loops, not one prism into the universe. Excellent positions, exellent execution, these both flow from a vigorous exchange of ideas. The more closed we become to ideas, the more narrow and distorted our concept of reality will become in consequence. Eventually ideology collides with reality.

What Would Churchill do in 1941? Roosevelt in 1942? Lincoln in 1863?

The disturbing reluctance of the Bush administration to either articulately defend its actions and inactions in Iraq against the back drop of increasing violence and decreasing local Iraqi support, together with its ongoing refusal to ask that Americans sacrifice for the rightness of its own cause there, both serve as frightening collaborating coincidences with this closed-loop perception of the administration.

Facing Reality Like a Hard-headed American

If the Republican convention, with its strict ideology and tow-the-line participants, is a reflection of how this administration is working, then the administration is at risk of believing its own rhetoric. Support for the U.S. in Iraq is said to be at 5%, Iran and North Korea are both seeking nuclear WMDs and the People's Republic of China has upwards of 600 missiles trained on Taiwan. Things are not well in the world for a superpower stretched so thin. We cannot afford to believe rhetoric. Reality is too scary.

Democrats, meanwhile, in fielding their seven candidates and in forming such a diverse coalition, are clearly still functioning as if all parts and persons have a legitimate and valuable link into the top. In other words, they're functioning like a well-honed team of mutts, not a dysfunctioning team of purebreds. Americans can only face today's terrifying dangers if we do so the way we've successfully faced the horrors of our past: that would be as mutts that somehow cobble together, and function, with the best ideas and the most accurate perceptions of reality reaching and thriving at the top.

Selling the GOP Ticker

Whatever Kerry's merits and demerits, well, Bush has them too. But in party-to-party terms, the indicators bode badly for the GOP this time around. A sharp sell-off in the party's electoral stock may be just what's needed for the long-term health and viability of the party if the current leadership is as hollow as it now feels.

Posted by Dan at September 30, 2004 07:03 PM | TrackBack