With the spectacle that is the Tea Party Beauty Pageant – errr, or is it the Race for the Republican Presidental Nomination? – in full swing now, it’s become almost unavoidable to see adverts, punditry and all other sorts of ballyhooing about some as of now entirely hypothetical face-off nearly a year away. I say almost of course because it is in fact avoidable if you’re willing to forgo television for two years out of every four, a price I think most of us would prefer not paying.
All this political pontificating about which currently occupies the 24-hour newsperson’s hard-core, wet-dream fantasies has got me thinking about the matter at hand, the matter that I think most people at least have on the back of their mind as election day all too slowly approaches:
Just who the fuck am I going to vote for?
A valid question, if at the very least somewhat premature, considering the Republican candidate is far from set in stone, let alone even a single primary vote been cast on the matter. Yet still, despite the so-called “intense primary race” between Romney and a bunch of idiots1 – not to imply that Romney isn’t an idiot, he just happens to have sold his soul to a far less ignorant set of ideologies – the tactic seems pretty clear to the that used by the Democrats in 2004. It’s the so-called “Anybody But [Current Incumbent]”, and it played out well for the Democrats in their subsequent ouster of Bush and election of, wait, who was that guy again?
…
Crickets. As in only crickets could even bear listening to John Kerry speak.
So let’s just assume for a second that the Rupublican candidate is “Anybody But Obama”, since that’s how every candidate seems to be running2. That leaves the Democratic party – sorry, Independents, but I’d like to think my vote at least might count – which means, unsurprisingly Obama.
So the question is Obama, or no Obama? And I think that question itself is a little harder to answer, because I think the answer really depends on how you ask the question. If you compare him to the standard set by most other modern presidents, and account for the context he’s been placed in – struggling economy, unresponsive congress full of bat-shit insane people – he stacks up pretty well, though that’s not saying much.
The issue, in part, is that he came into office with a lot of help from a little four letter word - Hope. And if anything’s disappeared from the White House, Congress, and the American Political Machine in general, it’s hope. Naturally people are disappointed because he hasn’t changed anything. My disappointment is a bit more pragmatic. I wasn’t expecting change; after all,the President can only do so much when he has to rely on a stable full of America’s pompous unintelligent jack-asses to get things done. What’s truly been disappointing in Obama’s first-term is the uninspired manner in which he composed himself. Perhaps he too, understood that just being elected would do little to get things done. But his actions in his four-year term were downright cowardly, especially since the Republicans have taken back some power.
All that aside, the promise of having a second-term president is extremely appealing, especially in a time like this. Having someone in office who isn’t immediately thinking about re-election presents the genuine possibility of getting some of the issues and trouble spots that Obama initially campaigned on truly resolved. Unfortunately, a large part of the decision has to go down to that. It’s not about choosing between Obama and the “Not-Obama”. It’s about choosing between a leader made ineffectualy because of an upcoming election, or a leader that can no longer be elected.3
Pick your Poison, I guess.
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