I didn’t watch the GOP debate. I’m just not that into them. A debate is not a test of every candidates qualifications to lead. It is not even a place to hear a lucid oration on their policies. It is a stage on which lawyers or quick witted con men will look best, and the media is permitted to frame them. I’d rather watch paint dry.
To be fair, living in New Hampshire, and being a political blogger with a shiny "new media" by line attached, I not only have access to most if not all candidates, I am encouraged to have access. I get to press the flesh, write about them, even do live streamed or podcasted interviews with them; and I can develop a comfortable disinterest after twenty or thirty in-box invitation to meet "so-and-so" at "such-and-such" house party, picnic, monthly committee meeting, or fundraiser. Not everyone has that opportunity, in fact most people don’t, so call it a luxury of New Hampshire convenience, one that I do in fact cherish. Small state, big Primary, so debates can be viewed at a distance (even DVR’d), and oh yeah, the Patriots were on that night as well.
This is not to say I do not scroll through the reams of coverage and commentary afterwards. That is the convenience of modern advancements. DVR, Internet, Facebook, Google +, Blogosphere, and so on. Why kill it yourself when you can get it shrink wrapped on the cheap? Did I mention the Patriots were on that night?
I am also privy to a stream of inter-party, partisan remarks, from people whom I respect, about why their candidate won "Best in show." Social media, of which email is certainly a slower participant, provides me an almost endless series of fly-in-amber declarations from every choir. Articles, opinions, personal commentary, coffee, mouse click, and go. Information, observation, and opinion are in abundance, and I horde them in neat little virtual folders like a squirrel collects acorns for winter.
Not everything the social media funnel sends my way is ‘expert activist’ opinion. There are also novice interjections from folks who stumble out of the political hinterland every quadrennial without having left a proper trail of breadcrumbs from the last go-round. (Though the trail keeps getting shorter and soon, I suspect, the inauguration will be doubling as a campaign whistle-stop/fundraiser for the re-election.) In any regard, lacking the necessary cultural immersion, these electoral equivalents of the dead-beat dad, when discussing their observations about a presidential debate, can sound like Kelly Bundy describing the modularity theorem for elliptic curves.
Their unfamiliarity with the left-leaning histories of otherwise above-average Republican orators comes to the fore. They suggest that people like John McCain or Mitt Romney are Conservatives which is only true compared to someone like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and only then if we’ve moved Overton’s window for the across-the-aisle-crowd over to where the blue dogs used to be. (Pelosi had them put down so there is some space available.) Moderate or even liberal (r)epublicans maybe, but conservatives? I have to guess that Russel Kirk and Edmund Burke might disagree. They say "who?" and off we go. I have to send them to search between the digital couch cushions with about as much promise for success as when I send one of my children, unsupervised, to clean their bedroom. In all likelihood the follow up will be one in which we debate the definition of "clean," or in the case of the drive-by voter, why CNN and Newsweek are the kinds of internet neighborhoods where they hide democrats under tiny little (r’s) and try to pass them off as what America is looking for until it is time for the general election, at which point they club them into unconsciousness and leave them to bleed out in a poorly lit alley. The only thing better to a leftist in the media than someone who is almost a democrat is the real thing. It’s basically an ideological honey trap.
But do not discount the occasional activist. They did not all come to the debate thinking that this was just another new reality television show to check out during the off season. Having lived outside the sausage factory they can bring fresh perspective and intuitive observations. I know, I used to be them. And hey, they want to vote.
But back to those debating (r)epublicans. This time around a few of the candidates–those with some left wing baggage in their not distant enough pasts–have decided to either admit to an indiscretion or two (where their actions ran to the left at a right angle to the Republican Party Platform), or are defending those mistakes despite the risks. It’s a refreshing strategy. And honestly, who hasn’t at one time or another caught the Georgetown flu at the local Target, in the wake of that emotionally charged Gay-Pride Flash-Mob musical you witnessed in menswear, (briefs half-off until Tuesday). You wake up with a hangover in some rhetorical rat-trap motel room of the mind, only to realize you have been ideologically unfaithful. You quickly grab your Smartphone to make sure you haven’t tweeted pictures of it to any Young Republicans. But it’s far worse than that. You are quoted in the press, or maybe you’ve actually passed something decidedly Marxist, just as an experiment. You know, to try it out. It happens. And everyone should be able to reflect on their infidelity to first principles. But does that drive by voter know it was a six month affair? Or maybe it just ended when they decided to run for the party nomination for President.
Whatever the rate or regress I’m happy to see them acting as if they are on the GOP 12 step program and happily in remission but I’m not declaring them converts.
(1) I admit that I am addicted to the power of government
(2) There is a greater power in my life than government.
(3) I will examine past errors with the help of my campaign staff…
(4) I will convince voters that I will make amends for these errors
Doh!
I am not suggesting that they are disqualified as competent to run the nation because they have dipped a toe (foot, both legs, gone swimming) in the progressive holy water. After Obama, my dog appears considerably more competent. and what we need to do can’t be done all at once and done safety with the consent of the governed. While I would prefer the most conservative executive available, just removing Obama, and all his bureaucratic courtiers and hangers on, would be such a huge step in the proper direction that I am willing to suffer with a less than perfect choice if I must; though I will do what I can to influence that. To that affect the political hinterlanders must be guided at all cost toward basic conservative ideas from which they might then view the policies of some participants as less than ideal examples of how best to run a constitutional republic. (And yes, you may have to explain what a constitutional republic is.) Every email, every comment, every curiosity is an opportunity to ask them questions about the relationship between the fruits of their own labors and property rights. We can compare real choices to those mandated by bureaucrats and politicians and ask if freedom suffers as a result? And would they feel more comfortable allowing those mandates, if truly necessary, to be managed closer to home or far away in some distant capital.
These are a few of the questions whose honest answers lead to introspection about your personal relationship with the super state you are being asked to pay for. I don’t happen to think a debate answers any of these questions, but if it serves as a gateway to a deeper interest in the process, then debate away. I’ll be watching something else, no worse for wear, waiting for the email to start pouring in.
