Al Gore stands up before the Democratic convention in the summer, and asks the question:
Are you better off than you were eight years ago?
For most of the population, the answer is "yes", for many the answer is, "yes, a lot", and inevitably for a few the answer is "no."
What was wrong with the way we were governed the past eight years? Well, the main thing was symbolic: our government was headed by a perjuring serial pants-dropper who brought us embarrassment on an international scale and left our legal system with a chief executive who believes that the oath to tell the truth is meaningless. Those are not small harms inflicted on the greatest country in the history of the world. Those harms represent the central flaw of the Clinton years.
But Al Gore didn't have women under his desk servicing him. He didn't have bimbos in every town in Tennessee emerging from the woodwork to tell reporters on Hard Copy about his sexual exploits. He's just a dull, boring guy from Tennessee who actively helped craft the policies of an Administration which, though deeply flawed, managed to preside over the greatest economic boom in the history of capitalism without screwing it up too badly. The biggest scandal I have heard him connected to is an alleged failure to observe hypertechnical campaign rules which require shakedowns of contributors to occur across the street from one's main office. That kind of rule is BS, and everybody knows it.
In the other ring we have the prodigal son, who seems to step in it at every opportunity, but who more importantly, represents a risk that through change he will inadvertently bring the good times to a premature end. And besides, Bush is on the ballot due mostly to his fund-raising prowess, so he can hardly take the moral high ground and convince people that he is not bought and paid for too.
In the past, when faced with situations like this, American voters have preserved the status quo as best they could. That's why I believe the election is over.
Oh, and one more reason. Those that know me think I am conservative for the most part. And if the election were held today, I would have a hard time justifying voting for Bush over Gore, though I don't feel strongly about either. My rule of thumb is that any Republican candidate who has difficulty getting my vote is toast.
Get used to the sound of it: "President Gore." |
