This is a response I posted on Jeff’s blog. I just felt like sharing it here too.
Jeff asked:
“Who do you want to be president?”
Obama. McCain. You. Me. The corpse of Anna Nicole Smith. A christams ham. A nice hat. Whoever.
It doesn’t matter. I honestly believe that.
If you want my take on the players:
- McCain is a shell of the man who should’ve been nominated over Bush in 2000.
- Obama is little more than charisma and goodwill and fuzzy bunnies.
- Biden strikes me as another faceless, white-haired career politician who I’m not even interested in knowing more about.
- Palin is a nutjob from Alaska who was in the right place at the right time and inspires dirty thoughts.
I wish I cared. I wish I believed it mattered. But I don’t. I’m only half-joking when I saying I think a ‘regular guy’ would be best. I think the only requirement to be president should be that you’ve never formally held office prior to election.
I’m not sure what my point is. As long as we keep doing the same old, same old – we’ll keep getting the same old same old. And three of the four names above are the same old, same old. The fourth is just kinda the same…and inspires dirty thoughts.
“You’re such a jaded poopy pants, Gonch.”
I have to defend this a lot, but I still insist I’m a realist.
Jaded
: made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience
Realism
: accurate representation without idealization
Ok, so maybe it’s a little from both columns. (smile)
I find the idea of ‘making a great team’ and moving into Washington to get things done to be laughable at best. It doesn’t work that way – it hasn’t since I’ve been alive – and it probably never really has.
The idea of being president, the campagning, the election, the whole process is pure pageantry. You get to be the hood ornament that sits atop the engine that does all the real work.
I don’t know… there was a time when I would have agreed with you, but I honestly do think that it can make a difference.
I never vote down party lines, and I’m not saying this as some bleeding heart pinko, but just to make a point: If Al Gore had been president for the last eight years, do you really think that there would have been no difference? Do you think we’d be stuck in Iraq while terrorists breed right next door? Do you think the country’s debt would have been run up over 10 trillion dollars? Do you think that we would have wasted all the good will that the world was showing us after 9/11? Do you think that the Jonas Brothers would be allowed to infiltrate our teenage daughters’ dreams unchecked?
I think there’s a lot to be said for goodwill and charisma. The guy we have in there now sure as hell doesn’t have either.
If the president is truly only a hood ornament and hand shaker, then I want the most appealing, charismatic one out there.