Cowboy Confessional

It has been a busy week, and I’ve been racing around while the political world appears to be racing to chase races and accusing racists motivations.

Say that ten times rapidly!

You will forgive me for pressing my tongue firmly into a cheek (though whose cheek I’ll leave undisclosed). Being raised color blind I find political haraunging over skin color to be alternately offensive or amusing. Since I’ve invested my quota of angst on politicians this week, I’ll have to resort being entertained by their unsubtle race-based maturations.

Before going much further, it would be impolite to not thank those who exited to presidential race — for exiting as well as for their contributions to the entertainment industry.

Dennis Kucinich has bowed out, though nobody noticed, believing he had been bowing low all along. Despite disagreeing with nearly every plank of his platform, I was grateful for Dennis’ candidacy, for it validated that the American Dream still lives. Where else on the face of Gawd’s Gray World can the leadership of an entire nation be sought by an criminally insane communist midget?

On the other side of the political farce fence, Fred Thompson also dropped out of sight, metaphorically speaking given that nobody in primary states ever actually saw him run. Claims that Thompson was a lazy man were put to rest once and for all given ample proof provided by his alleged campaign.

But those races paled against the simmering race wars fomented between the leading Democrat contenders. With the campaign trail heading south, and with 50% of Democrat voters in one primary being of African ancestry, the Clinton camp played the race card by not playing the race card.

Confused? So are most people who didn’t take notes during the previous Hill-Billy administration.

The Clintons have a number of tactics that are as repugnant as they are effective. One such tactic is the use of proxies (namely friendly pundits) to publicly say what no sane candidate would. Fearing that Barack would garner the black vote in the South Carolina primary, they sent subtle messages to the media that an Obama victory might result in a “white backlash.” The goal was to publicly raise the issue of a backlash, and thus generate it in an effort to negate Obama’s regional advantage.

The mechanics of divisive pandering are interesting. Obama has much to lose if race becomes an issue since his race could (in small minds) be an issue. Hillary loses nothing if her sex becomes an issue because even a subtle attack on it will be regarded as sexists — there would be no feminine backlash, in part because of her lack thereof. Score the advantage for Hillary even if she gets caught pitting whites against blacks.

Now, I have no truck with the Republicans, but I’ll note that race has not been a topic of discussion amongst them. The worst they can be accused of is the passive bigotry of indifference, which is a shade more preferable to active bigotry of pandering shown by the Democrats. Being a Southern Gent, I will note in passing that the term “dixiecrat” existed for a reason.

Ignoring Obama’s race (thankfully) bring us to the other oddity in the ongoing struggle between him and the Clinton Cavalcade of Contempt. Obama’s documentable lack of experience (exposed by his rather undocumentable voting record) correctly portrays him as a cardboard candidate — a man with no detectable record of committed positions on issues.

But how the man can talk! This seems to be his only draw, that he is an inspirational public speaker. Then again, so was Hitler, but I’d be hard pressed to vote for him either.

This attraction of voters to the insubstantial element of personality is depressing, and a clear sign that encouraging voting for the sake of high voter turn-outs is bad policy. When a person’s sex, race, or personality become the top issues in deciding the leader of the free world, then we must expect a government of the same composition – namely a superficial entity prone to legislating based on public whims.

Oh. Right. That’s what we have already.

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This entry was posted by Guy Smith on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 11:51 am and is filed under Culture, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.