Election 2012 - The Decision

My first recollection of an awareness of the American political process was in 1956.  I sat on our den floor with my father sitting in his chair nearby as we listened to the election returns coming in through our oversized floor-model radio.  In a rematch of the 1952 election, President Dwight Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson by a landslide to win a second term.

By four years later, television had come to our city, giving us access to Ed Sullivan, Gunsmoke, and Walt Disney.  The big radio had disappeared in favor of one large furniture cabinet that housed a television set, radio, and record player behind its doors.  On that TV set I watched the first televised presidential debate – indeed likely the first debate ever between two presidential candidates sharing the same stage – between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.  I was now thoroughly hooked by this quadrennial piece of Americana.

Subsequently, I incredulously watched the nightly unfolding of the chaos of the Democratic 1968 Chicago convention; saw Gerald Ford stumble over whether or not Eastern Europe was dominated by Russia; heard Lloyd Bentsen take down Dan Quale by observing, “Senator, you are no John Kennedy”; and was entertained by 3^rd-party Ross Perot’s graph charts in the 1992 debates.

I was there with good friends to watch the 1980 election results when the news media announced Ronald Reagan the winner before the appetizers even got out of the oven.  Conversely, in 2000 I went to bed late in the a.m. understanding that it would be a long time after election day before the winner would be known.  All told, I have been there listening to election results 14 times, and I expect to be there again on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.  Even though the vote is likely to be so close it will no doubt be well into Wednesday before “the decision” is known.  And it is also probable that an army of Republican and Democratic lawyers will be standing by to file lawsuits over close voting results.  I fear we may yet again hear from the Supreme Court in a replay of the 2000 election.

After all of the debates, TV ads, mailing literature, and news reports of this most ugliest of campaigns are digested, it becomes decision time.  Some past years have been difficult decisions; some years have been stark contrasts.  But this year has been overwhelmingly characterized by three really big lies.

1. Principles: What has been shown time after time in this campaign is that Governor Romney’s core beliefs and principles are simply a mirror image of the individual person Romney is talking to in that particular moment.  Then it is on to the next person and a whole new set of beliefs unfettered by truth.  It seems as if every time he expresses an unscripted thought, within 24 hours a legion of handlers seeks to clarify what he “really” meant to say, what his position actually is (today).  Which is why Romney has avoided like the plague any free-wheeling interviews with the news media.  The beliefs the former governor has stated the last two months bear virtually no resemblance to the last four years.  To vote for this candidate us to vote for an empty darkness, a void framed by lies well beyond the usual “political exaggeration” we are accustomed to.  If I were a Republican Tea Partier who voted in the primaries, I would not even recognize the Republican candidate who is speaking today.

2. Recovery Not Working: The whole focus of the Republican establishment’s campaign has tried to center on the economy.  More specifically, that “the President’s economic policies are not working.”  The second big lie.  From fall 2008 to summer 2009, the country was in an economic free-fall from Republican fiscal irresponsibility and deregulation by the Bush administration.  However, since that summer as Obama response actions began to kick in, the economy has in fact been working.  It has been consistently going in the right direction, albeit expectedly in slow steps given the low starting point.  By almost any measure used – unemployment rate, net jobs, export growth, reduced oil imports, record corporate profits, stock market levels, housing prices and construction startups, auto sales – virtually all are moving in the correct direction.  Are we where we want to be yet?  No.  Getting there on a steady and solid foundation?  You betcha.  Which is why consumer confidence and spending have been consistently moving upwards.  The President’s policies are working just fine, thank you very much, and should not be put in peril.

3. Social Terrorism: For the Republican Radical Right, the economic argument is simply a smokescreen hiding a larger agenda.  The third big lie is that in the name of “cutting expenses” and “fiscal responsibility,” the fiscally-irresponsible Right is bent on upending established social programs and human / constitutional rights that have required so much effort to achieve.  The political and religious antagonism to these issues was there long before the Great Recession hit.  But we have seen this economic scare story blamed for the attempt to undo the social progress made.  As I have seen very clearly in my current state of North Carolina and elsewhere, it is happening at both the federal and state levels – a consistent chipping away in order to try to send American society back to a fictitious image of the 1950s.  True “American Family Values” are not to be found in this false “conservative” agenda.

It is said that, in the end, after all the talk about issues, principles and position papers, Americans wind up making their voting decisions based upon intangible criteria.  Because in reality we have no idea what this country is going to face over the next four years.  Any more than George W. Bush could foresee the defining moment of the 9-11 attack; or Barack Obama could predict the depth of the economic pain awaiting his inaugural.  So we cross our fingers and vote for the intangibles, hoping they will give us the right leader for the approaching unknowable times.

They are intangibles of: honesty, that our president will speak the truth to us of what s/he believes and what is happening to us; understanding, that s/he can relate to and appreciate the varied circumstances of the very differing lives of our citizenry; kindness; a respect for each human being and their worth, treating each with the dignity and consideration they deserve; leadership, the skills to see the breadth of America, the potential of our future, and to lay out genuine and well-reasoned steps for how to get there.

On the basis of these intangibles, this year’s choice is both clear and easy.  In 1992, the focal point was, “It’s the economy, stupid.”  In 2012, the point is, “It’s about character, stupid.”  I will skip over the chameleon who has no beliefs, has built his campaign on continual and expanding lies to a level never seen before, and has no idea of the experiences of how most Americans live their daily lives.  I will stay with the seasoned guy, whose core principles today are the same as four years ago.  Whose smart and well-reasoned ideas have steadily and re-assuredly led us continually forward against seemingly overwhelming and unconscionable political opposition.  I’ll go home with the guy who brought me to this dance.  With Barack Obama.  Where both hope and the right kind of change – to the future – still reside.