By J.B. Williams
Monday, July 30, 2007
Although candidates will be forced to discuss a laundry list of special interest issues throughout the campaign season, abortion, gay rights, campaign reform, health care, social security, just to name a few, the 2008 national election is likely to be decided upon two issues that no candidate has offered a good solution for yet.
On the Democrat side, the mostly unpopular wife of a once party popular oval office playboy is running and leading in a vacuum void of any serious qualified challenger. But her campaign is far from safe. She has yet to attract even 50% support from her own constituents and she has not yet faced any real campaign opposition. If she survives her party primary with only 50% support from her base, she will be in real trouble in the general election where the other half of the country would rather vote for Satan himself.
On the Republican side, the conservative base is so angry with Bush and his compassionate conservative friends that they have largely stopped sending money to the national committee, rejected all RNC candidates at the starting gate and started drafting their own Republican candidate in hopes of reforming their party to conservative values before November 2008. Two thirds of the Republican candidates can't get above 2% in the Republican polls and the so-called "top tier" candidates can't even break above 30% among Republican voters.
Democrats wish the 2008 race was about social issues, where they shine for their eclectic base of special interest minority voter groups. Having staked out their claim on the defeat and retreat side of the War on Terror, they sure don't want a pro-American victory referendum on the war.
Republicans hope that the War on Terror remains front and center for the 2008 election because Democrats have not been strong on national security since Truman. But Republicans have a problem too. You can convince liberal voters that you are serious about national security and the War on Terror while leaving our borders wide open to unregulated invasion by God knows who or what, but convincing conservative voters is quite another matter.
No candidate is safe because no candidate from either party has yet stepped forward with a viable coherent solution to the two most pressing issues in America today, both of which were caused or at least allowed to exist, by previously elected Washington intellectuals.
Every American voter is concerned about border security, a growing immigration disaster and the unnecessary added risk to homeland security inherent with this dilemma. While strategies vary among voters, all would agree that this issue belongs at the top of the first-to-solve list for candidates hoping to lead the nation forward and that amnesty is not the answer.
Every American realizes that Washington DC is entirely responsible for our deplorable border insecurity and the out of control immigration situation. Most Americans watched as 64 senators, 40 Democrats and 24 Republicans, worked around the clock to ramrod amnesty for illegal invaders through congress against the overwhelming opposition of the American electorate and they no longer trust any of these 64 senators to solve this problem.
Unfortunately for Democrats, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are among the 64. Republicans have already written off John McCain, Sam Brownback and Chuck Hagel, who were also among the 64.
Democrats simply don't have a candidate who is concerned with border security, national sovereignty or legal immigration enforcement. But Republicans are hard pressed to find any of their candidates overly concerned about these things either. Until a candidate steps forward from one of the two parties with an acceptable solution to this problem, neither party will hit that 50% approval mark, even with their own voters.
The other issue is, of course the ongoing world-wide War on Terror. National leaders are all over the board on this issue. Some believe that the War on Terror is just some fancy campaign slogan used to drive voters to the polls out of fear alone and that no such war actually exists. (Insane, I know, but they actually believe it, or at least hope that voters will.)
Others believe that the war exists, but that it is all America's fault and quitting is the answer. Still others know that the war is real, but fail to confront the evil in any serious way for fear of political reprisals from the politically motivated but otherwise ignorant.
In the end, Washington DC is far from united on the War on Terror and not even remotely committed to winning it. As a result, sooner or later, America will experience another successful attack on the homeland, quite possibly one that will dwarf the events of 9/11.
If that happens between now and November 2008, the electorate will react by voting against Republicans who had an opportunity to protect the nation and failed to do it. Voters will hold Republicans accountable even though Democrats have worked around the clock to undermine the war effort since the moment they voted to send American troops into battle.
Democrats demanded the administration adopt every recommendation from the 9/11 Commission Report, which went far beyond authorizing "wiretapping" and "torture" in search of terrorists operating in the homeland, most of which had already been implemented. But Democrats have sought to criminalize every Bush administration initiative aimed at rooting out terrorists at every opportunity since. Bush has been forced to spend more time defending his staff from Democrat designed perjury traps, than defending the nation from terrorists…
Still, if the next successful attack happens on Bush's watch, an ill-advised electorate will interpret it as a failure of Bush policies, not a failure by Washington to unite in defense of the nation. Bush has tried unsuccessfully to separate these two issues and the result is an approval rating below 30%. No candidate will be able to successfully separate these two issues either.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have demonstrated a general lack of respect for the average American voter. But the fact that no candidate can garner even 50% support from their own team is a strong indication that voters are not as stupid as politicians tend to believe.
Voters are looking for true American leadership now, not just partisan victories that will leave the nation divided, unprotected and still in a war that our soldiers are not allowed to win or leave.
Hillary Clinton is leading her party, but 60% of her party is opposed, despite having no real challenger. Believe me, this is a problem.
Nobody knows who is really leading the Republican race one day to the next, but none of the "top tier" candidates is even at 40% support within their base. Republican Party fund raising is at an all-time low and running more than $100 million behind Democrat fund raising. A man not even in the race is leading in some polls. What does that tell you about the conservative comfort level with RNC candidates?
The nation is searching for a leader and so far it appears that the nation does not see an acceptable leader from either party. Maybe the average American voter is coming to his/her senses and realizing that the partisan back-stabbing of the past has brought us to where we are today, divided, unprotected, under attack and uncertain, at the direction of politicians clearly more concerned with their own power than the future of the greatest nation on earth?
If so, it's been a long time coming and it's happening not a day too soon. One can hope, yes?
In my not so humble opinion, the candidate who best deals with these two issues on behalf of the American people rather than the standard quest for partisan power will win the 2008 election.
If no such candidate comes forward for 2008, the election will be yet another national anti-incumbency referendum and the nation will hope to survive another unwanted president until they can try again in 2012.
Would a real true pro-American leader with old fashioned backbone please step forward! I'm not sure we can afford to wait until 2012 for a real American leader.
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