Next year we get a new president. There's a whole lot of empty suits running for the presidency, none of them worth mentioning because they're hacks and liars and most of them are obviously deranged. Then there's Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, two strikingly different Presidential candidates. With Hillary the only difference from the hacks and liars is her gender, having shown herself to be just as sneaky and two-faced a political operator as the big boys. Big deal. So now we should elect a woman because she's learned to be just as odious as the gray men in the gray suits? I don't think so. Does it matter where your politics as usual comes from? Cold, calculating and manipulative are what we've been dealing with in our leaders for too long, so changing genders in the oval office is like changing the hood ornament on a wrecked car and putting it back on the street. Outside of Barack Obama I don't detect an ounce of passion for leading America.
The others are all running simply because they want to be President. Not good enough. Any positions they adopt are merely means towards that end, not a reflection of strong convictions or a meaningful vision. Barack Obama is the only different candidate out there. He's running because he wants to make a difference, not supply more of the same old same old. He's intelligent , charismatic and driven by the need to change the cynical way political business is done in America. He's the only candidate out there calling upon the American people to live up to our potential and become once again the America that counts for something noble and good. He also wants to end the insane war of aggression and the rapacious occupation Bush the Younger forced on Iraq. For that alone he should win in a landslide.
In these cynical times too many people are saying his message is naive. Was Kennedy's? FDR's? Those guys ran campaigns asking Americans to stand up for their fellow Americans and make this country the beacon of freedom and opportunity it was always meant to be and the changes they implemented in our society are still with us and still benefit every American. Without these two naive dreamers, there would be no Social Security, no Civil Rights, no Peace Corps, no workers compensation insurance and no man on the moon to name but a few of their accomplishments. These were men who saw possibilities, not limitations. Men who were not afraid to show their passion for America and their compassion for Americans. Men unafraid to dream and to act on those dreams.
I'm not saying Obama is in that league, but he just might be. It's certainly worth finding out. Hell, we gave a bumbling executioner eight years as President and he screwed it up in every way a president can possibly screw up. The Republic survived his venal assault on all things American and now it's time for a radical change if we want to reclaim who we are. You say we cannot afford a dreamer? I say we cannot afford not to dream. Where would we be without dreamers like Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Adams, Paine and Franklin? We'd be a commonwealth of the British Empire most likely. How about that hopeless idealist Abe Lincoln? Did he make a difference? Ask Obama's supporters who are hoping to elect a black man as president of the United States.
Let's elect Barack Obama our next president and vote out the entire Congress while we're at it, really send a message to Washington that we're sick and tired of their entrenched power and automatic reelection. Over 90% of the Congress gets routinely reelected. Why? Are 90% of these bozos effective leaders who care about the people they represent? You tell me. Have you ever seen a map of some of the Congressional districts some of these people represent? They have been stretched and twisted and jerrymandered to the point where they resemble the snakes that represent them. Congressional districts are created only to reelect the incumbent, not to effectively represent the people living in them.
So since the Congress has been taking us for dopes for so long, why not turn the tables on them and toss them all out? That's the only thing that will get the attention of the business as usual politicians, put them out of business and elect somebody else. It will also serve notice on their replacements that they have no license whatsoever to build their little power bases and stymie progress with their patronage and pork barrel scavenging of our treasury. If they don't respond, kick them out too in the next election. They work for us, not the the way around so let them know who's the boss in no uncertain terms. Senators and Congressmen are our employees and if you're not satisfied with their on-the-job performance, well, let them enjoy one of the fruits of that dreamer FDR: unemployment insurance.