The International Writers Magazine: Opinion

---

La Deluge US Election Analysis 2008 • Dean Borok I’m not interested in Hillary Clinton’s lovability factor. She has already gone quite far enough to dumb herself down, thank you very much, to appeal to the women’s vote. She doesn’t admit to doing a lick of exercise and it shows. Her hair and clothing styles look as though they were pulled off the rack at Bolton’s without even a microsecond of reflection. Talk about not wanting to be ahead of the market!

Nevertheless, Clinton has the same appeal for me as German chancellor Angela Markel, not exactly a fashion plate herself. Clinton looks as though she will protect American interests in world markets, organize a coherent economic program and rationalize a chaotic medical system.

I don’t know what people seem to expect from her in terms of human warmth. What, is she supposed to stand up there like Sally Field and blubber, “You like me! You really like me!” Is that what it takes to assuage Americans’ comfort zone? Forget it! This is presidential politics, not Desperate Housewives, OK?

People are not taking this election seriously in terms of concrete consequences. All the problems we are suffering right now are the result of bad decisions taken at the top, but the electorate does not have the attention span to make the connection. Voting for a candidate on the basis of “likeability” is what got us into this mess (if you accept the election results, which I don’t. I still believe Bush got in both times on the basis of electoral fraud). Does anybody really believe we would currently be a national basket case if Gore or Kerry had gotten in?

I don’t blame the black electorate for supporting Obama on the basis of racial solidarity, though if he had happened to be a Jew the Jewish electorate would be regarding him with a much more critical eye from the standpoint of his viability. I blame the Democratic white male vote, which seems to conform to George Wallace’s long ago characterization of “pointy-headed professors who can’t even park their bicycles straight.”

Even if Obama were to snare the nomination, he will never win the election because the same reactionary elements that are currently fawning over him, like Pat Buchanan, yet, will immediately turn around and rip him to shreds once their true nightmare, Clinton, is out of the picture.

None of the current candidates has the prerequisite management experience to even run a pet store. When asked by Steve Croft of 60 Minutes to describe his management experience, Obama responded, “I run my senate office.” That’s not true either. He has an office manager and a chief of staff to run his senate office. The only person in national politics who has any management ability is New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and he is not currently running.

Take if from me, even as the Republican elite is soft-soaping the electorate with false praise for Obama, they are preparing a vicious electoral offensive to define him as a big-eared cretin in short pants wearing a Mickey Mouse hat. He’ll ending up spending his whole time fighting off accusations that he is a lightweight, like George McGovern and Michael Dukakis before him. When asked by Croft about his ability to fend off vicious Republican attacks, Obama retorted, smiling, “I’ve done OK against the Clintons.” That’s ridiculous. The Clintons have been going soft on him in the interest of party unity. The Republicans will not feel themselves bound by any such restraints of civility. They’ll bring up OJ Simpson, Al Sharpton, Michael Vick’s dogs, Pacman Jones and any and all racial bugaboos that happen to be lying around at hand.

They’ll raise the issue that Obama bought his family home in Hyde Park, Chicago, at a deep discount from a crooked mob developer who is currently in prison under indictment (remember Whitewater?). The Republican media and newspapers will hammer away with personal attacks and racial slander 24/7 right through the election cycle. They’ll bring up his admission that he snorted coke. “Hope” will change to “Dope.” Until finally, at the end, Obama will be grateful that the whole thing is over, as will we all.

Obama will have wrestled the nomination out of Hillary Clinton’s hands like a basketball only to have Fox News and The New York Post slam-dunk it right up his butt because he didn’t think the process through to its logical conclusion.
Or maybe he did! Maybe he calculates that by November the objective conditions in the country, with a collapsing economy, and endless foreign war, unemployment and house foreclosures will have reached such a lamentable crisis state that whomever the Democrats present will be an inevitable shoo-in.

Nevertheless, the nomination is still wide open. Hopefully the Democrats will have the kind of cold-bloodedness it takes to pick apart John McCain’s war record the same as the Fast Boat Veterans for Truth did to John Kerry, but I am not seeing that kind of resolve on their part.

Whomever the Democrats nominate, I will vote for him/her. But if the Democrats’ weakness and lack of unity permits the Republicans to regain the White House by the back door for another round of destructive mismanagement, then we shall all be staring into the abyss.

© Dean Borok Feb 12th 2008
deanyorkave@yahoo.com

Obama in SC
Dean Borok
It’s obvious after the South Carolina primary that Chicago politician Barack Obama has the lock on the African-American vote.
Sudden Death in Pakistan
Dean Borok
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto again throws US diplomacy into a tailspin

More Opinion

Home

© Hackwriters 1999-2008 all rights reserved - all comments are the writers' own responsibiltiy - no liability accepted by hackwriters.com or affiliates.