Election '06

Long time no post. I've decided I'm going to start again, for a few weeks anyway, and see if I can use my posts as a way to straighten things somewhat in my own mind as to this upcoming election.

While I haven't made posts, I have worked in my journal. Late this morning after I had my first look at the headlines I made this note:

Iraq is hot. Everything I saw in that quick look was Iraq. Of course, what do the Democrats have? Everything is going just fine.

Absent homeland terrorism or natural disaster, the only thing that immediately impinges on the voter is the economy and gas prices --"pocketbook"-- and gas prices are plummeting and the economy is good. Everything else is just an "issue", and an "issue", since it doesn't affect the comfortable American, doesn't exist unless it's talked about. So what's talked about? Iraq.

I want to note that talk does mean judgment. If an issue doesn't exist for you unless it's talked about that means that the pressure to make a judgment is not immediate or purely emotional. There are facts, there are opinions. However much individuals may vary, these things are weighed, and they're weighed fairly deeply in reference to values and the individual's greater life experience. This year there is nothing immediately pressing, that means positions are going to be based on reflection. I think that means that in this election you're going to get as smart a voter as you're ever going to get. Will they go Republican? Will they go Democrat?

Now, "smart", in my view, is any view I hold. I'm Republican. And I didn't say the American voter was smart --maybe yes, maybe no-- what I said was they're going to me as smart this year as they'll ever be. There are serious, worrisome things out there, but there's no pressure. These serious and worrisome things are going to be weighed. The act of voting is gong to be a judgement.

The economy isn't an issue, it's good. Gas prices not an issue, hurricanes not an issue; health care, education, social security, these aren't an issue because nobody's talking about them.

Judges are an issues, because judges keep sticking their nose in it. The border isn't an issue because we're going to get a fence and the only ones excited about this issue were the ones who wanted the fence. With the fence, immigrants, at least for the time being, aren't an issue.

Corruption isn't an issue because it cuts both ways. Besides, corruption, always, is individual. On this Americans are agreed. However much one party might try to smear the other in fact every American knows that the man he elects is either a noble servant or a crook, you just never know which but it's every one of them.

Katrina isn't an issue because that was a long time ago and there haven't been any hurricanes this year and besides everybody is getting sick of the whining of the "victims". So what's left? Only Iraq, only the War On Terror.

That's it.

I am speaking of course only in reference to national attitude, ignoring all local issues. But I am asserting that national attitude can tip things one way or the other and the tip is going to be based on Iraq. And I'm not saying that this "tip" is going to be objective or correct, only that it will be based on as much reflection as you're ever going to get from the American voter.

The issue is the Islamos. Republican? Democrat?