Varifrank: All elections come down to one question

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All elections come down to one question

All Presidential elections boil down to one essential question, and the nation votes on that question.

It's taken until tonight for us to get a clear distillate from the fermentation tank of American Politics on this election. The question of this election comes down to one clear thing that you have to answer when you go into the voting booth:

"Is this really a good time for risk?"

Face it kids, Obama is a nice guy and has the ability to tell us all about his vision of the future of America, and his future is a future with surprsingly little Soylent Green in it, but theres just no way you can say hes not a risk.

John McCain is a lot of things, both good and bad, but he is not a risk. John McCain is the dean of students at the school of "Been there- Done that", He's been there, got the T-Shirt and mailed home a box of the locally grown, organic "kissmyass" for the folks at home to enjoy and he repeated this fact over and over again tonight.

It's clear that John knows that the threat of Russia towards Georgia is aimed squarely at Ukraine. I have no doubt that John McCain knows the situation with Ukraine, because he was able to clearly say what the issues were in under a minute. Obama, mentioned lots of states out of the area of contention with Russia, but he skipped right over Ukraine. Does he understand the situation there? Maybe, and then maybe not. Its a risk for us to assume one way or the other. It's a risk that if it turns out well, then good for everyone, but if the risk fails, then its could be very bad for everyone.

A misstep on something like the Russian stance on Ukriane is not insignificant.

Those of us who have a memory of the days when another Russian president decided to take advantage of a young unproven President remember just how close it came to not working out well. The people of Cuba remember, because they have had no hope of gaining their freedom since that event. Yes, we didnt all go up in a flash and thats good, but Cuba became a prison for its people. They paid the price for John F. Kennedys youth and inexperience.

Everyone talks about change like its a good thing, but you know what, cancer is change, so saying "we want change" to me is not exactly going to help you close the sale with that line. To me the word "Change" is a lot like "Community Organizer", it has no definite meaning, I cant find that title in the HR manual at work, I cant find the test you take to get the job and I cant really tell how to tell if you did the job, good or bad. Do you mean "Cub Scout Den Mother"? Thats a community, and its usually needs organizing. Do you mean "button man" for Don Corelone in the process of "getting out the vote" for the Barzini and Tataglia families on the east side? What?

Community Organizer means nothing to me and niether does "Change". To me, "Change" is what happened when I got divorced. It was the change I was looking for, but if I had the choice, I would have rather skipped the whole awful marriage process first and not had the need for the divorce in the first place. To be fair, Change is what also happened when I graduated from college. Again, change often depends on where you stand and what exactly you are standing in at the time.

For me, this election is not about "change", its really all about "Risk". One of the things I have a hard time with for a very long time is explaining this idea that all of what we have here in our lives today, is not in any way, guaranteed or permanent. It can, with just a few twists and turns, all fall away. Your rights, your property, your very lives all twist like leaves at the end of a very long branch from a very old tree.

Modern humans, and Americans in particular have so rarely experienced any privation that they simply dont know what it looks like or what to watch out for to avoid it. Its a situation that reminds me very much of those dangerously deluded people who wont vaccinate their kids because they "heard a guy, who knows a guy" who said that "vaccinations give kids autism". People who do this have almost never seen what happens when there is a major disease outbreak like polio, where just the word "polio" made my grandmother audibly gasp and cross herself.

Unlike my grandmother and her generation, these people today who wont vaccinate, havent seen death or the wages of disease, they simply dont know what it is so they make up a fake fear to take its place. Polio, which they have never seen, has become a rather sick fairy tale, while autism, which they have seen, becomes the thing to be feared and avoided.

The problem is that if you get enough people who dont immunize their children, it makes the entire populace at risk for an outbreak of a disease that can kill and disfigure.

There's a tipping point where once enough people decide that polio is not a risk, but autism is, that the entire population becomes at risk for an outbreak of polio. But if no one in the population has ever seen polio, they simply dont know how to evaluate that risk so they ignore it as something that is not worth bothering with.

Did I just say that Senator Obama is the same as Polio or that people that vote for him are as irresponsible as people who dont vaccinate their children?

No.

What I did say is that the human mind has a problem with collective memory and the assesment of risk. Our current generation has never experienced an actual economic "Depression". The current generation has hardly even seen a recession, they have no idea what those words mean or what the real impact is to their lives. They read about it books, but they dont know what it is. They see bank closings in the news and wonder if they still have to pay their credit cards.

In their experience, Washington is a never ending fountain of money and source of help for all things bad, and all you have to do is ask for it and someone up there will get it to you. They cant imagine a day when someone stands up and says "Sorry oliver, you cant have any more". They only know Americans as the winners in war, they dont know what military defeat looks like or how it changes everything at home. They have no knowledge of being deprived of anything. Most people in the United States think that having only two cars, a TV in every room but no plasma screens and sadly no "cable", is the definition of "poor".

Americans and specifically this particular generation of Americans, have no idea what a thing like conscription is, or what it means to give up two years of your life for the "good of the country". When the country is a war, and we have decided collectively to do that, sure, but when its used to suppress the population? no. Americans cant imagine that happening because they have no experience with it at all, but ask any immigrant from south or Central America and they will tell you what it means.

This is a country that thinks that a "month to month" pay as you go phone plan is an burden and a hardship. This is a country that has lost its collective memory of true hardship. I fear that having lost this memory it may very well have lost its ability to see a risk for what its is and evaluate it accurately in the correct context.

I'm not much for putting risk into the Office of the President. I've read too much history to know just how badly things can go if the wrong person is in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the President of the United States answers the phone at 3:00 am, he aught to be asking "where" are the carriers?, not "what" is a carrier?

I just dont need that sort of stress in my life.

Posted @ September 26, 2008 08:46 PM | Current Affairs

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I agree with many of your statements, but I had to read your post three times because I thought I was missing something. There's no reference to the candidates' running mates. Do you not agree that McCain himself is taking an incredible risk in his willingness to have Gov. Palin be our president to deal with all of the threats you mentioned? He lost credibility with me when (knowing he would be our oldest president ever, knowing his past health problems), he chose someone with a severe lack of understanding of the world around her. I'd be okay with McCain on foreign policy issues. I wouldn't with President Palin. That's why I can't vote for McCain.

Posted by: Mark at September 27, 2008 07:31 AM

Whatever concerns I might have had with McCain went away with the choice for Palin. I picked her in March, but said there was no way he would pick her. Had Bobby Jindal been Gov. of LA. for a couple of years rather than 6 months, I would have picked him.

My reasons for Palin:

1. Shes not a lawyer.
2. Shes not a Senator.
3. Shes not a coward.
4. Shes happy to be an American and proud of the country for all that it has given her.
5. You can talk reform, but shes actually done it.
6. Shes got an excellent record as Governor of Alaska, a state while small in population goes into every winter in a state of emergency. Alaska does not tolerate wussies and she has managed herself very well in a league that plays very rough.
7. She genuinely irritates all the right people for all the right reasons.
8. She is a leader.

As a candidate who is running on a program of being a "Maverick" I cant see how he could've picked anyone else. Its a genuine smart, good, solid, choice and he and his ticket have benefited for it.

McCain shows again and again that he follows his own star and this is just another example of that.

Is she a risk? sure. Shes the Vice President, the player to be named later. The office exists for one purpose, to insure that the government doesnt collapse because of the death of one person. She doesnt have to do much but watch and wait. If she was running for President I would have to weigh her risk against Obama, but she would never have made it past the primaries(and neither did been-in-office-since-1974-Joe-Biden, who got wholluped at the very start of the primaries). She still wins in my book but it would be a closer match between Obama and Palin. In my book, McCain is in another weight class from Obama. Also in my book, Govenors always outrank Senators. In my book Senators would be restricted from running for the presidency by constitutional restriction. They are as a whole, gasbags and I dont like them.

Governors on the other hand, even small states like New Hampshire are far more competent and capable on their worst day than any Senator on his best day.

McCain is old, but his mom is still alive and quite spry at 92. Given that People magazine gave "sexiest man alive to Sean Connery at age 65, then it doesn't really mean anything to me except that age is relative. You might not know this but in March, McCain went camping for three weeks in the Grand Canyon with his sons. If I'm 72 and I can still get around in the Grand Canyon without a colostomy bag or a scooter and can still manage to camp outdoors for two weeks, I dare you to tell me "Im too old".

Palin is a great pick. McCain will make a great President.

Posted by: Frank Martin at September 27, 2008 12:21 PM

You just made by point by acknowledging that Palin is a risky VP pick. She's not ready to be president, and McCain picked her strictly for political reasons. Don't listen to me. See what Karl Rove, George Will, and other longtime conservatives are saying. A Palin presidency would be disastrous to our country. McCain knows it, and he is jeopardizing our future by selecting her. Thanks, but no thanks.

Posted by: Mark Miller at September 27, 2008 03:52 PM

So, youre not voting for McCain because his Vice President is someone you consider risky, but you are voting for Obama for president because hes what exactly?

You're going to give the executive branch over to an avowed socialist, while his party holds both houses of the legislature and you consider Sarah Palin as VP to be the deciding factor in your decision because she "might" be president if McCain were to die?

Your reasoning completely escapes me. If Palin isnt capable of being Vice President, then how can Obama be capable of being the President?

Posted by: Frank Martin at September 27, 2008 07:58 PM

> I wouldn't with President Palin. That's why I can't vote for McCain.

What, as opposed to Biden?

And you'd rather have a complete NEO like Obama **in** the office, while you are concerned over McCain's *backup*?

That makes NO SENSE OF *ANY* KIND.

The despiccable tyrants of the world will EAT OBAMA'S LUNCH.

I think they'd find it much tougher to steal a bone out of Palin's bowl -- even if it wasn't her bone yet...

Posted by: Vootie at September 27, 2008 10:45 PM

I'm not voting for Obama because of Palin. I'm voting for him because I am a Democrat and he reflects my priorities. That's my reasoning, and and he's going to win.

Posted by: Mark Miller at October 9, 2008 08:27 AM