"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Where Do I Fit?
Posted 3:15 p.m., May 23, 2004
|
Kevblog note: This letter, from the owner of a small Minnesota business to the Kevblog, received Sunday, poses such a central and pivotal question that I am taking the relatively unusual step of publishing it on the home page. My response follows.
Dear Kevin: I am a small businessman and confused politically. I feel there is no niche that I fit in.
I am conservative fiscally. I favor lower taxes and less spending in government. I do not believe in deficit spending. I also believe that small companies should get the same tax benefits that large companies do. Small companies employ more people than large companies and have a bigger impact employment in this country.
I have no problem with the free trade agreement and having products from overseas. The more money people make outside of this country, the more potential customers we have.
I supported the war based on the idea of WMDs in Iraq, but always felt we could have waited until we were ready. Saddam seemed to be fairly well contained and had few ties to terrorists, other than mushy ties to a few countries that included some of our "friends." I feel the Bush administration has badly mishandled the "post-war" war.
Certain parts of the Patriot Act are necessary. Allowing our internal and external intelligence and law enforcement to work together is a good thing. Gutting the Bill of Rights is a bad thing.
Star Wars is a waste of money.
I am Pro-Adoption and Pro-Choice.
I believe that the environment is worth saving, but we need scientific and rational thinking when it comes to control. Limited drilling for oil in ANWR is OK--with proper controls.
I could go on forever and detail my positions, but why? Nader, Kerry nor Bush, none seems to represent what I believe in or feel. My liberal friends call me a conservative because of my feelings toward business. My conservative friends feel I am a flaming liberal because I do not follow their bible to a tee.
Where do I fit?
A. John Peters
Browerville, Minn.
...
Kev responds
Dear John: Here's the painful answer: You don't fit anywhere. Ask Minnesota state senator Sheila Kiscaden.
You might as well stay home on Election Day.
I don't say that lightly, John. I have never espoused such a thing in my life. In fact, I've railed against people who refused to vote. And I may not be able to stay away in good conscience this time, either. As my dear girlfriend points out, if I drop out, I would lose my right to complain. It would necessarily be the end of the Kevblog, among other ramifications.
But here's my quandary: I want to carry out my civic duty, to vote my conscience and share my input into the public-policy process. But how can I do that? Who can I vote for that represents my conscience? And how many more times can I continue to vote for "the lesser of two evils" before I decide it is perhaps better not to lend support to "evil"--or more accurately, partisan irresponsibility--in any form?
I am in the quandary that the two major parties have set up for me, and if you believe Bill Hillsman's book, they've done so purposefully. They have squeezed me out of the process because I am an independent-thinking person, my vote is unpredictable to them and thus difficult (and expensive) to obtain, and it is more efficient for them to simply dump me over the side. I'm left with a bitterly unsatisfactory choice, left to gripe--as folk singer Phil Ochs did so memorably after the '68 contest: "If that was an election, I'm a Viet Cong."
I voted for the first time as a young man in 1984, throwing my vote at Walter Mondale. In those days my vote was more reflexive than thoughtful. Mondale was not Ronald Reagan. He was, like me, a Midwesterner. And he was a Democrat, like my folks in Wisconsin were.
However, if that were the choice today, Mondale vs. Reagan, I might stay home. I've changed. And while I personally like Walter Mondale very much, admire and respect him tremendously, just as I admire and respect what was attempted by Mondale and Carter in what turned out to be a fairly centrist Carter administration, I wonder if he could escape the tag applied to him in '84: a liberal's liberal.
Anyway, would a Mondale address the kinds of concerns you discuss? Key concerns that affect the viability and continuing health of the United States as a whole? I think his party would not allow him to do that and the opposition party would stymie him even if the Democrats went along. And I think John Kerry's party is even less likely to allow him to do it. They smell Republican blood now because of the war and seem to think that means they have a new opening to reinstitute the New Deal. That is clearly on the agenda of the only alternative voice in the campaign, Ralph Nader, who apparently doesn't realize that the phrase "progressive tradition" is an oxymoron.
And Kerry is likely to be even more stymied than Mondale would have been by the Republicans, who over the last generation have grown quite literally more devout. Their issues are down to just a few, and they're all social. What's fiscal responsibility in the face of God's will?
Man of Reform?
As has been reported lately, Kerry recently has begun reaching out to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, talking at a San Diego meeting this month about reforming the political system and renewing our democracy. The DLC promotes free trade, fiscal discipline and governmental efficiency and it provided the blueprint for the Clinton presidency. (With a little shove from Ross Perot.)
But how can we believe Kerry is serious about "reforming the democracy?" He has floated a fairly crazy idea about refusing to accept the Democratic nomination until weeks after the convention so he can keep raising money--so much for campaign finance reform.
And it was the Kerry camp, as the Center for Public Integrity recently pointed out, that helped run "a street rumble after dark" to anonymously undermine the Howard Dean candidacy. How? Bear with me, here's the story:
A pressure group called "Americans for Jobs and Healthcare" was formed on Nov. 7, 2003, and began a million-dollar operation that ran political attack ads against Dean in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
"The commercials ripped Dean over his positions or past record on gun rights, trade and Medicare growth. But the most inflammatory ad used the visual image of Osama bin Laden as a way to raise questions about Dean's foreign policy credibility. While the spots ran, Americans for Jobs--through its then-spokesman, Robert Gibbs, a former Kerry campaign employee--refused to disclose its donors."The Dean campaign cried foul, but no one, including the news media, could figure out exactly who was behind 'Americans for Jobs.'"
-- Charles Lewis,
the Center for Public IntegrityThe mystery was partly solved--after Dean got trounced in Iowa--by the Washington Post, which reviewed Internal Revenue Service records filed under Section 527 of the federal tax law. The disclosures were filed on Jan. 30, 2004, after the Dean campaign was all but a dead issue.
The disclosure forms showed that the disgraced Sen. Robert Torricelli, admonished for his shady campaign finance practices and forced to leave the Senate, had donated $50,000 to the Americans for Jobs from his old Senate campaign account. Torricelli reportedly remains a Kerry campaign fund-raiser.
Who else was involved in this shadow gang?
"Donors or fundraisers for the major Democratic presidential candidates then overshadowed by Dean--Kerry, Rep. Richard Gephardt, and retired General Wesley Clark--all piled on. Labor unions that had publicly endorsed Gephardt accounted for a fifth of the money--the International Longshoremen's Association ($50,000), the Laborers' International Union of North America ($50,000), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ($100,000), the International Association of Ironworkers ($25,000) and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers ($5,000).A former Dean donor, former Slim-Fast Foods businessman S. Daniel Abraham, gave $200,000. Past Kerry donor Bernard Schwartz, chairman of Loral Space and Communications--the tenth leading donor to the Democratic Party, giving $5.3 million over the years--chipped in $15,000. A top money chaser for Wesley Clark, Alan Patricof, also donated to this shadowy group."
-- Charles Lewis,
the Center for Public IntegrityDid someone actually say Kerry is going to reform our democracy?
I'm a Centrist ... No, Seriously ...
Now that the primaries are over, Kerry is trying to burnish his centrist credentials. So he recently has delivered a series of education speeches in New Mexico and California touting plans to add 500,000 teachers over four years and help a million additional students get diplomas over five years, according to the Associated Press. He has borrowed the DLC line that new education benefits and opportunities should come new responsibilities. Terrific. Does he mean it? And, by the way, the money comes from where?
Whatever, apparently the Democratic Leadership Council membership is buying.
"I wasn't originally a Kerry supporter, but I certainly do like his message now because it's a lot better message than the alternative. I think former President Clinton showed us that to be successful you have to govern from the center."
-- Toni Atkins, San Diego City Councilwoman, DLC memberAl From, the DLC's founder, was quoted saying it doesn't bother him that Kerry is sliding to the center only now that the primaries are over.
"In the primaries, you have an audience that's all Democrats and your job is to energize them. In a general election, you have an audience that's a third Democratic and your job is to persuade those who are persuadable and you do that with ideas."
-- Al From, DLC founder and CEOWell, it does bother me. And I'm guessing it bothers you, John. Because it's frankly hard to believe. Where does the guy stand? What would he really do if elected? Who would he represent? Us, or all those Americans for Jobs donors?
I've espoused the plan that a lot of hard-core Democrats now are ganging up on; draft John McCain for vice president. That would assure that I'd vote for the Kerry ticket. I've heard hard-left types like radio shouter Ed Schultz ordering us to get off it: "The Democrats can do this all by themselves. We don't need McCain." (Again, it's about what the Democrats need or don't need, not what the American people need or don't need. And the Dems clearly don't need me. Neither do the Republicans.)
Still, now that I know about this Americans for Jobs and Healthcare scam and the Kerry camp's part in it, I see why the Kerry-McCain marriage can never happen. McCain has been absolutely serious about campaign finance. And it's clear that Kerry is not.
So what's the answer, John? Taking a powder? Well, that's what the major parties want. Voting the lesser of two evils? Well, they're fine with that, too, because they know no critical mass of voters is going to go that route, not enough to swing things one way or the other.
I don't know what to do. I only know the answer to your basic question. Where do folks like us fit in?
The sad answer is: We don't.
Kevblog note to my readers: Please folks. Help us out. Write in and convince me that I'm wrong.
