Arno,
Thanx for the response.
I think a little clarification is in order. The main thrust of my post on the other thread was to explain why I think Gore will win, not why I think the Clinton Presidency deserves an extension. I most certainly do not think that, if Clinton were able to run for reelection, he would be deserving of a vote.
The point I was trying to make was that most people pay attention to how the country is doing, and for a lot of them that is inextricably linked with their own sense of well-being, economic and otherwise. Gore has an opportunity to tap into that, take credit for it, and suggest that he offers the best chance for a continuation of that feeling. I don't necessarily agree that people should vote that way, but they do. The Washington Post article that was cited here is a more scientific journey to that same destination, analyzing past election returns in the context of measures of economic well-being.
if you think that only thing wrong with the Clinton presidency is that he was having sex with an intern, well........
I do NOT think that. In fact, in my post (which again was about what I think will happen more than it was about what I think should happen), I wrote that Clinton's misbehaviors were the "central" flaw of his Presidency, not the only ones. I also wrote that: "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."
I really don't care that he was getting serviced so much as I care about the utter lack of integrity he exhibited in misleading people (okay, lying to people) about it. That character flaw also came through in numerous other scandals and statements of the Clinton years, from the travel office and filegate and China export scandals to the "I didn't inhale" and draft statements from the campaign.
But even when you toss all of those things into the stew, few of them had much to do with Gore. Gore may very well be sleazy, but by comparison to Clinton virtually anyone will come out looking like an altar boy. So I believe that Gore will successfully deflect criticism about the personal lack of integrity shown by Clinton while also successfully taking credit for being on the bridge of a ship which undeniably sailed on higher seas without taking on water. And I still think that is a winning recipe.
And I fail to be impressed by what little I have seen about Bush. My mind remains open, but I just don't see this as a make or break election. It's like choosing between two brands of vanilla ice cream, the one you are used to and the new one you haven't tried yet.
MAD DOG |
