Talking A Friend Off The Ledge To Vote For Obama

Last night, a friend of mine called me. He was in Berlin, Germany.

It was very early on a Saturday morning there. He had been up all night enjoying the Berlin nightlife. He said that he was conflicted. He was thinking of the upcoming Presidential election. He said he might vote for John McCain, even though he was troubled by the notion of doing so. Let's just dub him undecided.

I had to talk him off the ledge. A vote for John McCain, for most Americans, is a willing admission that they don't care about the outcome of the jump so long as their concept of the American Dream stays in tact.

Now, I wasn't always a Democrat. In fact, I voted very much like the Very Conservative Right wanted me to vote...for God-fearing American Republicans who attended church, had Norman Rockwell image families and didn't go about being vulgar or intemperate.

Fortunately, I got better...because I started paying attention.

The highlight, as I see it, for the resurgent Republican movement since the aftermath of World War II was the 1994 mid-term Congressional elections. The Republicans swept into the majority in Congress based on the tenets of a document known as the "Contract With America". The Contract, in short, was a blueprint of ten bills that were to be brought to a vote in the House and Senate with the promise of "reforming government". Many of the bills were enacted or were passed after negotiating compromises with President Bill Clinton.

Part of the underlying problem with "The Contract" is that it purported to change government as America knew it. Yet, 14 years after "The Contract" promised such change, America still has a government that is loaded with waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy. In those 14 years, the Republicans have been in majority control of Congress for 12 and the Presidency for 8. For 6 of those years, the Republicans controlled both concurrently. It was in those years that the Republicans could have really led the country and imposed their will for the benefit of the American people instead of to the benefit of government largesse.

It was in the years between January 20, 2001 and January 20, 2007 that the Republicans did...nothing...

...to reduce the size of government.

...to reduce the National Debt, which has spiraled out of control and has left America subject to the mercy of a foreign entity in the Chinese.

...but relax economic policy to the point of allowing banks and lenders to permit the approval of thousands of irresponsible loans that have single-handedly propelled a massive scale default on home mortgages and have left millions of Americans in irreparable debt.

...but allow policies to be enforced easing the exodus of millions of manufacturing jobs out of the country and giving tax breaks to the same corporations allowing said exodus.

...but launch an offensive attack against a sovereign government, while cutting taxes on the richest of Americans causing an already perilous economic situation to worsen as they have allowed tens of billions of dollars every month to be spent to prosecute a war that promises to bankrupt the remainder of this century and the great-grandchildren of those who will be born today.

All of this was caused by George W. Bush and the so-called leadership of the Republican Party...people like John McCain.

Barack Obama, no doubt, has an unenviable job ahead of him assuming, as the polls suggest, he is elected. The chances of him, or Mr. McCain, turning the tide on the mess of the federal government in a first term are not good.

George W. Bush has done more to promote national disunity and division that any other president in American history. He has allowed America to become the butt of the international joke. John McCain voted in support of President Bush's policies over 90% of the time. That is a problem.

To my friend, who was raised in the reliable, Republican, western suburbs of Cleveland beyond the Rocky River this is the truth as I know it. It ain't pretty. I don't have to like it. But it is history. The Republicans, led by John McCain would like to extend that truth into the future, with probably disastrous results.