The Home Stretch

Can any of us remember back to the time the debates for this election season began? I'm not talking about the debates between McCain and Obama but the debates in general for presidential nominees. It seems like a lifetime ago. Wasn't it around the time Bush started his second term? I can't recall for the life of me but it seems like this election began shortly after the previous one concluded. I suppose it makes sense seeing as how unless there is some rapid fire change to the Constitution that leads to an extension or additional term for the sitting President, this will be the first time in 8 years that someone new will be occupying the White House. But if one is to listen to the nonsense being bandied about by both sides our choices are limited to an out-of-touch old man or an 'Arab'. Both descriptions are off but that's what the images have been reduced to. And whose fault is that?

One could argue that the stakes for this election are much higher than the previous ones. Of course that's something that everyone says during every election. But the next President is going to have to deal with some very major issues in the coming four years and that's where my interest lies; in how the candidates plan on dealing with the problems. We have a fiscal crisis that the country has not really seen since around the time of the Great Depression, we have wars going on in two countries with other countries around the world beginning to show signs of boiling over into potential problem areas as well, and we have the greatest schism in political views since... well ever. I can't help but think back to the first campaign George W. Bush ran against Al Gore. During that time the Monica Lewinsky scandal that rocked the end of the Clinton administration's second term. Bush ran on a platform of bringing change and creating bipartisanship that had become fractured in the wake of Clinton's trial.

Bush pledged to work both sides of the aisle in Congress in order to bring the government together and until September 2001, nothing much was working right in that regard for the President. Then, as is a popular rejoinder with one of my conservative family friends, "9/11 happened." Sure, the attacks of September 11th were horrific and tragic and they set our country on a course that would define the following 7 years but what it also caused was a polarization of people that I have not really seen in the span of my relatively short life. Suddenly it became an us against them mentality and it has only gotten worse. I remember statements being made by Bush to the effect that 'those who don't stand against us with terrorists will be seen to be standing with them.' That also seemed to apply to Congress and anyone else who didn't see eye to eye with the moves being made either.

If you disagreed with the war or felt strongly that we should have focused on capturing or killing Osama bin Laden then you were considered an unpatriotic and foolish person who harbored terrorist tendancies. I'm sorry but that's not what I felt at all. I felt that we should capture the one who has clearly masterminded the attacks on our country. We had worldwide support and there was no better time to do it than when we first entered Afghanistan. But focus shifted and now we stand with one foot in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan and still, both sides argue for and against this move and still people are so emmeshed with the 'with us or against us' mentality that it's hard to have a rational discussion.

For once I would hope that the candidates would finally get down to discussing how they would deal with these issues and how they would want to bring the people together. I think the problem is only going to get worse until after the election. So much mud has been slung in this campaign so far that one wonders whether we are in a pig sty or if we are seeing the reality of a democratic nation in which insulting and badmouthing the other guy is the way in which you win and show your superiority. Admit that your record stands the way it does due to your beliefs or those of your constituency. Don't tell me about heresay or make accusatory remarks. Talk about the past because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Admit that mistakes were made and that we've got to make improvements. Perhaps then the closedmindedness that has taken control of our country will finally loosen it's grip and then we can finally work to help our country.