Vol. 2, No. 82 Feb. 1, 2008
The Bogus Economist
Got Change?

As Iowa and New Hampshire's caucuses and primaries become history, South Carolina and Florida's pass into the past and the February 5 “tsunami” looms large on the horizon, I have to confess – I'm confused.

I'm not confused about the Democratic candidates. Their aims seem to be pretty clear, i.e. be whatever George W. Bush isn't. If that fails, they can summon up the image of Dick Cheney, contrast his horns and tail with the wings and halos of the nearest Democrat, and move on. It's the Republican candidates who puzzle me.

Every G.O.P. hopeful, from Rudy Guiliani to Ron Paul, is calling for change. If the political campaign were to have a slogan, it could be “Got Change?” There are more appeals for change than you get walking through downtown Portland. I can understand Democrats yelling for change, but I don't understand the Republicans.

Change, just in case I'm missing the point, implies that something needs to be fixed. If something needs to be fixed, it has to be broken. If it's broken, someone broke it. Democrats agree the breaker was George W. Bush. What confuses me is who was the “someone” for the Republicans?

One doesn't expect anybody running for office to come right out and say the leader of their party was flat out wrong. The Democrats didn't say it for Lyndon Johnson and the Republicans didn't say it for Richard Nixon, although history shows both of them definitely were. But here we have McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, Paul et. al. calling for a “change of direction,” a “change of focus,” and a “change of strategy.” Whose strategy needs changing?

In the last seven years, during six of which they controlled Congress, Republicans have been marching side by side with Mr. Bush in his efforts to implement his version of compassionate conservatism. They've praised his strength of character, singleness of vision and unwillingness to compromise. They've strenuously backed his tax cuts for higher incomes, fewer regulations for corporations, increasing government surveillance of private correspondence in the name of national security and his conviction that bringing American-style democracy to the world would be greeted with cheers and celebrations. In the face of an obvious absence of cheers, we also had a curious absence of boos.

In the words of Mr. Bush, you're either for him or against him. Therefore, anyone still backing the Bush policies should have the intestinal fortitude to say so, as John McCain is doing in the case of the Iraq war. The same goes for opposing them, as Ron Paul does. Merely bleating for change doesn't mean beans. In the words of Shakespeare, it's “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

So how about the Democrats? During the years the public approved of the Bush policies, Democrats were quiet as mice, with occasional exceptions like the 2000 and 2004 elections, which were bad years for mice. Now, since 2006, all the Democandidates (new word) have been dogfighting about which one was against Bush's policies first. Suddenly we have roaring mice.

Meanwhile, confusion deepens. No fewer than three Republican candidates have called for “restoring American prestige in the world.” Using the Bogus argument, before you can restore something, you have to lose it. If American prestige has been lost, who lost it? It's not only the mice that should be smelling stale cheese.

Explanations are called for, but I'm not hearing any. Instead, I'm told to consider Clinton's teary eyes or whether Obama did drugs when he was a kid. A group calling itself Vietnam Veterans Against McCain is accusing the Arizona senator of collaborating with the enemy during his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam (sound familiar?). O.K. Do we want a robot who doesn't cry? Should doing drugs disqualify a president? (Oops) Would McCain have been better off with five Vietnam deferments? (Oops, again) Enough nastiness. Let's talk about issues.

If we want change, let's point out what led to the need for change. For instance, if globalization is threatening jobs and putting U.S. workers into a race for the bottom, let's figure out where it started, say, with Clinton's NAFTA proposals and how it continued unchecked through Bush's CAFTA and so on. This is strictly bi-partisan stuff.

We should find out whom globalization is benefitting. Are the workers or the companies getting the most out of the deal? Are the countries trading with us coming out better, or are we? Is globalization responsible for lowering our national standard of living? If we don't like the answers, we can move on to the next item: elect someone who can figure out how to change it.

To me, the main issue is getting back to a world where we're looked up to and respected for what we represent. We're certainly not there now. My personal opinion is this is mostly because we've had inferior leadership. Therefore, I'm planning to campaign for a change in that leadership.

If we're willing to work toward the kind of government we want, we might get a set of people in Washington who can put the country ahead of political party or special interest cash and legislate for the people who elected them – for a change.

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The Bogus Economist © 2008