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Title: The Least Important Election of Our Lives
Source:
Politico
URL Source: https://www.politico.com/news/magaz ... t-election-of-our-lives-400075
Published: Aug 23, 2020
Author: JEFF GREENFIELD
Post Date: 2020-10-14 10:36:06 by hondo68
Keywords: Bud Drole, Mitt Romney, Juan McCrazy, Donell Trump
Views: 1216
Comments: 14
With four more years of Donald Trump on the ballot, and the nation spinning into a recession, and an unprecedented global pandemic, it’s a more or less consensus judgment that the coming election will be a very big deal. “The presidential contest alone will represent perhaps the starkest choice between two competing visions for the nation’s future since the elections of 1860 that set the Union on course for a civil war” writes Reid Wilson in The Hill, with a breathlessness that’s become familiar this year. Then again, it’s also familiar from four years ago. “This is by far the most important vote you’ve ever cast for anyone at any time,” said Trump, in what was surely one of his few points of agreement with Democrats. It’s what conservative commentator Dennis Prager said of 2012: “The usual description of presidential elections—‘the most important in our lifetime’—is true this time.” It’s what liberal columnist Michael Tomasky said about 2008: “In 2004, many Americans, particularly liberals fearful about a second Bush term, took to calling that election ‘the most important of my lifetime.’ And it was, for a while. Now this one is.” Rewind the tape and you’ll hear Nancy Reagan in 1980 (“This is the most important election of my life … The outcome will affect the nation and the world”), Harry Truman in 1952 (“This is, my friends, the most important election in your lifetime,”), and even the Atlantic Monthly describing the 1868 Grant-Seymour race (“It would, indeed, be no exaggeration to say that it will be the most important election that Americans ever have known”). That was just 12 years after the New York Times called an 1856 election for the Pennsylvania Legislature “by all parties conceded the most important election that has been held since the organization of our Government.” So if you’re feeling nostalgic for a time when it seemed like less was at stake, you may be mostly out of luck. Except for one year. While there may be a platoon of contenders for the Most Important Election of Our Lives, there can be no doubt whatsoever about the prevailing contender for the Least Important. By every reasonable measure, the election of 1996 stands alone as the least suspenseful, least intriguing, least consequential election of my lifetime, your lifetime, anybody’s lifetime. It is the campaign equivalent of Andy Warhol’s “Empire,” the eight-hour-long film of the unmoving Empire State Building, or the Christmas Yule Log video, or the line at the New York City Department of Motor Vehicles. Search for memorable moments, a dramatic shift from one candidate to another, a history-changing result of the outcome, and you find yourself in a haystack where there is no needle. What was it about 1996? Start with the terrain. In 1996, America was a hotbed of … rest. The economy was in the best shape in decades: a jobless rate of just 5 percent, inflation under 3 percent, real growth at a more or less steady 2.5 percent and a budget that was approaching balanced—and on a clear path to future surpluses of several hundred billion dollars. A debate among economists was seriously focused on whether to eliminate the national debt entirely or keep it alive just for credit purposes. Abroad, Boris Yeltsin was winning reelection as president of Russia; Vladimir Putin was a relative unknown who had just moved to Moscow to assume the lofty position of deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department. Even terrorism wasn’t a front-burner issue: Al Qaeda’s attempt to bring down the World Trade Center Towers with a truck bomb in 1993 had ended in failure, and Osama Bin Laden was a name known to a relative handful of government officials. As for intense political combat? The government shutdown of 1995-96 had ended with the more militant Republicans in Congress conceding defeat; indeed, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the White House were in negotiations for a series of bipartisan efforts, starting with welfare reform. In his State of the Union address, which marked the unofficial kickoff of the political season, President Bill Clinton, still chastened by the 1994 midterms that had delivered both houses of Congress to the GOP, proclaimed: “the era of big government is over.” As fierce as Gingrich’s early fights had been, both parties had tacked to the center, and by modern standards it was the Era of Good Feelings in Washington. But every race still requires an challenger, and the primary season began with a clear Republican favorite: Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, a veteran of 35 years in Congress, one of World War II’s great heroes, with the soul of a great legislator who lived for bargains, compromise and the middle ground. The instincts that had made him a distinguished figure in the Capitol did not make him a compelling presidential candidate. Legend has it that when a child asked him what he would do to make schools better, Dole’s answer was: “That bill’s in markup.” (In this case, the legend is true.) His chief competitors were arrayed along a moderate-to-conservative axis. Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander, whose campaign signature was, with unconscious irony, a plaid shirt; Steve Forbes, the novelty flat-tax advocate whose principal asset was his family’s wealth; and Texas Senator Phil Gramm, who began his campaign with the inspiring observation that “I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.” The only frisson of the entire campaign was provided by Pat Buchanan, the speechwriter-political strategist-columnist-commentator who had embarrassed President George H.W. Bush four years earlier with an impressive 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, running a campaign that presaged the nationalist message of Donald Trump. He ran with the nothing-to-lose approach of Senator John McCain—he was so transparent that when I interviewed him in his hotel room, he paused for a few moments to write a campaign ad. He managed to win the primary again, with 28 percent, finishing one point ahead of Dole while garnering the smallest plurality in the history of the state’s GOP primaries. In the wake of Buchanan’s victory, a New York Times report declared the race was “wide-open.” Well, not exactly. Spooked by the prospect of a Buchanan nomination, the party did what people might have expected it to do in 2016 against Trump: It quickly closed ranks, and Dole won 41 of the next 42 contests, losing only the Missouri caucuses. This made things easy for the GOP, but did not make for compelling Tuesday nights in front of the TV. That Buchanan victory, it turned out, was the dramatic high point of not just the primary, but the whole election. The nomination fight had left Dole bereft of money—he could spend no general election funds until he was formally picked by the GOP—while President Clinton and his allies shelled Dole with a series of ads linking him to the unpopular Gingrich. Long before the conventions, the election cake was essentially baked. In mid-March, a Gallup Poll had Clinton with a 10-percentage-point lead, and, except for a brief post-convention bounce that brought Dole within 9 points, Clinton kept that double-digit margin until the very end of the campaign. And it wasn’t just the peace-and-prosperity mood of the country that made it so sleepy. Dole himself was not the kind of figure to wage a Manichean “battle for the soul” campaign. True, he’d had a reputation as a hatchet man in earlier times—as the GOP’s 1976 vice presidential nominee, he’d talked about “four Democrat wars in my lifetime.” But his truer nature was on display when in June he resigned from the Senate to pursue the campaign full time. It was a 50-minute farewell, with Dole strolling through the Senate, recalling the great work he’d done with Democrats like George McGovern, Mike Mansfield and Tom Daschle. An equally revealing moment came during Dole’s acceptance speech at the convention, when he contrasted himself with Clinton’s “bridge to the future” theme by literally offering a bridge to the past. “Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth,” he said. “Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith and confidence in action.” In drawing distinctions between himself and Clinton, Dole said: “That is not the outlook of my opponent—and he is my opponent, not my enemy.” It is a generous sentiment, one almost unimaginable in today’s politics. But is not a sentiment designed to get the blood rushing as a call to political arms. Every year, we’re told this is the big one. One year, it just wasn’t.
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
A what??? Pandemic? What on earth is Greenfield talking about? Is there a pandemic going on? _____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡ "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson
You mean on top of the 593 we were already under???
_____________________________________________________________ USA! USA! USA! Bringing you democracy, or else! there were strains of VD that were incurable, and they were first found in the Philippines and then transmitted to the Korean working girls via US military. The 'incurables' we were told were first taken back to a military hospital in the Philippines to quietly die. – 4um
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
I told my boss at work after she told me she was fast friends in High School with the woman who manages the group home I used to live in, "You lie, cheat and steal since that is the only way to get ahead." That is how that manager at the group home was. :)
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
Maybe we would prefer a good go round of Cotton Eyed Joe. ;) "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke
FBI/RNC antifa, Fake News special. are you doing better in your new group home? wow, is your obama phone crapping out? She might get one electoral vote from an unfaithful elector. That means you are voting for Kamala Harris gun confiscation and malicious prosecution of white male conservatives by the DOJ.
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
#NeverWahhabi A vote for Trump or Biden, is a vote for Wahhabi Law. Wahhabi false god - Donnell of Jerusalem. As I said, your only choice is 1) Trump 2) Kamala Harris who has the support of George Soros and 3) Wasting your vote.
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
Waste your vote on Bibi, Sheldon Adelson & Boy Muhammad if you like. Maybe your GOP communist Secretary of the Treasury, Stevie Mnuchin will give you more stimulus bux than the other commie. The only choice in 2020 is who do you want in DC when Civil War 2.0 starts in 2021 or 2022. The only choices are Trump or Kamala Harris. The Zionist Lobby and George Soros are cool with Harris.
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
an unprecedented global pandemic
#2. To: NeoconsNailed (#1)
#3. To: ghostdogtxn (#2)
#4. To: hondo68 (#0)
BS. This is my answer. People like this guy could get hold offederal police agencies.
#5. To: Horse (#4)
(Edited)
#6. To: ghostdogtxn (#2)
pandemic of bullshit
#7. To: Horse, Federal Agent, FBI (#4)
(Edited)
Ron Paul - Lake Jackson Texas Values
#8. To: BTP Holdings (#5)
I told my boss at work after she told me she was fast friends in High School with the woman who manages the group home I used to live in, "You lie, cheat and steal since that is the only way to get ahead." That is how that manager at the group home was. :)
I used to be in a hurry, then I figured out I was just getting nowhere fast.
#9. To: Horse (#4)
BS. This is my answer. People like this guy could get hold offederal police agencies.
I used to be in a hurry, then I figured out I was just getting nowhere fast.
#10. To: hondo68 (#7)
#11. To: Horse, Wahhabi Law (#10)
Ron Paul - Lake Jackson Texas Values
#12. To: hondo68 (#11)
#13. To: Horse, OK, waste your vote on evil, Goldman Sachs approved (#12)
Ron Paul - Lake Jackson Texas Values
#14. To: hondo68 (#13)
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