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Ballot box may become a Pandora’s box

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Perhaps more than any other time in our country’s history, voters are searching for something drastically different in their primary candidates for the presidential nomination.

Washington and State House politicians have so greatly alienated the electorate that citizens are seeking the inordinate to lead them.

On the state level, people have seen infrastructure deteriorate and their public sector pension systems fail to deliver as promised in retirement. Schools are crumbling, and simple services are being restricted for lack of consistent funding.

The federal government has not fared any better.

Once called the world’s most deliberate body, the Senate and the House of Representatives have proven themselves to be filled with petulant and pugnacious schoolchildren seemingly incapable of compromise. For years, factionalism within these legislative houses has crippled the possible triumph of discourse and rendered the Congress inert in relation to solving our nation’s long-term problems. With our nation’s elected officials more concerned with lobbyist and donor sensibilities rather than moving the country forward, budgets go unresolved, continuing resolutions and other stop-gap measures have to be enacted, and even those devices are intractably argued.

With another continuing resolution needed to keep the government operating coming soon, an argument over federal funding of Planned Parenthood may thwart good sense and lead to another government shutdown. This conspicuous lack of effectiveness has prompted prospective voters to think outside the box in terms of who they would like to hold the mantle of their political party in the primary season.

Similarly, substandard performances have not generated confidence in presidential administrations in the last two decades. Examples of chief executive failings were evident, from the impeachment of Bill “Pants Down” Clinton – which impeded the nation from conducting its business by miring us in elongated legal processes concerning his randy exploits and his subsequent prevarications about them – to the missteps in foreign policy and waging of unnecessary wars by his successor, George W. Bush.

Add to those less than stellar presidential performances the succession of domestic and foreign policy mistakes of Barack Obama, and one can easily conclude that the executive branch of government has failed us for far too long.

Thus, the people of the United States are becoming unorthodox in their presidential paradigms. They are beginning to believe that in order to find a leader, they cannot pick a politician. No longer are they seeking the gravitas and portfolio of experience of a two-term governor or a three-term senator. They are seeking someone from outside the Beltway, and perhaps outside the governor’s mansion.

However, in this new way of thinking there is an inherent danger. Without the experience of dealing with three coequal branches of government, can a neophyte assume office and be productive? Or would the elected be hamstrung by their inexperience in government? Isn’t real government experience a necessary predicate to being chief executive, or are voters willing to roll the dice on someone completely different?

Seemingly, people are seeking a political savior who is not political. On the Republican side, the unlikeliest of candidates are currently leading the polls. New York real estate mogul and television personality Donald Trump leads pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and placing third is Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP). A stranger trio of frontrunners has never been seen in Republican politics.

“The Donald,” as he likes to be called, is a misogynistic billionaire who is the nucleus of his universe. He has repeatedly said on the stump that all he has to do is exhibit his mastery of striking business deals and apply that to the executive branch of our federal government and he will be a fabulous president. He has made assertions that would lead one to believe he does not understand how government works. For instance, he said that if the CEO of Ford Motors announced he was moving manufacturing to Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, he would threaten the company with a 35-percent tariff on any cars sold in the United States. He apparently did not know that despite his proclaimed strength of personality, in order to alter such an agreement a process that involves international trade organizations and the Congress would precede any decision a president can make. This is merely one of the erroneous statements by a man who believes he could rule by dictum as chief executive.

Also, in regard to his degradation of women, Trump has made horrible public statements in the past regarding his ex-wives Ivanka Trump and Marla Maples, as well as comedian Rosie O’Donnell, and most recently his political adversary for the nomination, Fiorina. As president, what would occur if he extemporaneously insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel or some other female leader?

Second in the Republican polls is Carson. A gifted surgeon, Carson is an evangelical who believes we should scrap the current tax system and replace it with a system of tithing from the Bible. He is endearing and low key in his demeanor. Although most of his policies are nuanced with religiosity, he appeals to Iowa voters due to his earnestness. What qualifies this doctor to administrate a government is beyond reason. Yet, he continues a steady upward trend in popularity while speaking in equivalent generalities to Donald Trump.

On the contrary to Trump and Carson, the former business executive Fiorina is heavy laden with specifics on every issue. She displays not only a keen grasp of the facts and the limits of the chief executive’s power, she often strikes vivid comparisons with the presumed Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton.

Whether or not her mixed business experiences at HP will translate when examined by the public is a question. When she ran for Senate in California versus Barbara Boxer, she was pelted constantly about her questionable record at HP. She ordered massive layoffs during her tenure and presided over a mistaken merger with Compaq. Eventually, these defeats led to her dismissal from the company.

The remaining Republican candidates who are current and former governors and senators are polling incredibly low. Even the well-financed former governor of Florida Jeb Bush cannot seem to gain any traction with the voters as he touts his respectable record as a chief executive. The same can be said for the arguably successful Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and the masterfully accomplished record of John Kasich of Ohio. These candidates are faced with an anti-establishment sentiment that may be impossible to overcome.

Consequently, this primary election cycle may not bode well for the politician with the best record of public service. For that is apparently not the criteria for choosing the nominee of the Republican Party this election cycle.

On the Democrat side, Hillary Rodham Clinton was thought to be the supposed nominee. However, the independent socialist senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is polling over 22 percent nationally and is neck-and-neck with Clinton in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Even though Sanders has been a politician all of his adult life, he is so far afield from a conventional politico that he is perceived as an outsider. His stated socialist doctrine would have little chance of passing through Congress, but his truthfulness in his expressed ideology is refreshing to those voters on the left – many of whom consider the frontrunner Clinton a practiced liar. If Sanders wins Iowa and New Hampshire, who knows who will be the eventual Democrat nominee.

The problem with picking nominees who are unorthodox is that without a true wealth of government experience or knowledge of how the executive branch operates, we citizens might be worse off than we are now, if that is possible.

With our government, we have realized such disappointment, such inadequate performance from our officials and such economic stagnancy over the past two decades that we are willing to try anyone who might rise above the status quo. But be cautious. The voters’ choice may be so outside the box that the ballot box may turn out to be a Pandora’s box!

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  • Wuggly

    There are 16, yes sixteen Declared Democratic Candidates, strange how we don't hear about them. There are candidates from 12, yes twelve different Political Parties, we don't hear about third parties though. During the 2012 Presidential election Rhode Island had 7, yes seven Presidential candidates to choose from, didn't hear about 5 of them on the nightly news or daily in the news papers. By the way, at least four of those candidates had there name on enough State ballots to win the Electoral College, in other words the Presidency.

    The media has the First Amendment to keep us informed, they have failed. We now have the internet, be smart use it, get the information and call the media out when they don't tell the whole story.

    Some will now complain that these "Third Parties" or other "Big Party but ignored" candidates can't win. I say to them only because no one knows of them. You want change look at the options you have and the ideas that are being missed because media refuses to do their job and report.

    Thursday, September 24, 2015 Report this