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Editor's Corner - Nov 9, 2006 - Printable Version
- A Winning Ticket for 2008 (Redux)
by Mark Faulk
(Editor's note: After this week's stunning victory by the Democrats in the mid-term elections, I thought it might be fun to look back at an article that I wrote shortly after they botched the 2004 election. Yeah, I know, I know....they were robbed, yaddayaddablahblahblah....but the truth is, had they stood up for what they supposedly believe in and shown the least bit of backbone then, we wouldn't have to celebrate the possibility that we might be bringing the country back from the brink of disaster. So here's a piece I wrote in January of 2005, called "A Winning Ticket for 2008," looking ahead to the next presidential election. So far, this one has played out pretty much as I called it then, and we can only hope that the Democrats have learned their lesson and will continue to look for new leaders and send the old ones out to pasture....for the sake of America.) The Democratic Party is in a shambles.....just ask any Republican, they'll tell you. If the Democrats don't abandon their immoral, secular ways and run headong to the right soon, the entire party will become obsolete. The Democrats are out of touch with "Mainstream America", they have become "extremists" and the "elite". The Democratic Party is the very embodiment of that dirtiest of dirty words, "liberal".
Wait a minute.....liberal a dirty word?
Let's take a look at the word that Conservatives have been so successful in demonizing over the past four years, and that Democrats have been shying away from to the point of renouncing the very tradition founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and championed by John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in the 1960s:
First, the word itself:
lib·er·al:
ADJECTIVE: 1a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
"Not limited by authoritarian attitudes, free from bigotry, favoring reform, open to new ideas for progress, tolerant of others, broad-minded". These are the qualities that Conservatives despise, that they're working so diligently to convince America to abandon?
Okay, now that we know exactly what it is that Conservatives DON'T believe in, let's take a look at the "C" word:
con·ser·va·tive
ADJECTIVE: 1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. 2. Traditional or restrained in style: a conservative dark suit. 3. Moderate; cautious: a conservative estimate.
"Tending to oppose change".....there it is in its purest form. Conservatives oppose change, and Liberals are open to new ideas for progress, free from bigotry, and tolerant of others. Let's be honest here, if someone were to take one of those "polls" that the major media is so fond of, would the vast majority of Americans want their country to be run by political and moral leaders who are open to new ideas, free from bigotry, and tolerant, or would they prefer the opposite qualities in those in positions of power?
The real problem is one that we have addressed many times on these cyberpages, one that permeates throughout every aspect of the Republican Party. The real issue is not whether Americans are truly liberal or conservative in the literal or traditional sense of the word, it is how those on the Far Right have redefined the term itself.
It's time for the Democratic Party to look beyond "Old Guard" politicians who have controlled America for the past 35 years, who have sold our country piece-by-piece to the corporate interests who would destroy our world in order to build up their own private Shangrila. Howard Dean? Just another old rich white guy in a business suit. We need fresh blood, we need new voices, we need passion in politics.
It's never too early to look ahead to the next election. Assuming, of course, that Bush and his cronies don't get us all killed, Democrats need to reclaim the moral and political high ground, they need to say, "Guess what? We ARE liberal, we DO believe that America should stand for something besides corporate greed, political corruption, and global domination." We need to do what MY generation did, we need to support a ticket that instills America with a message of hope and inclusion, not fear and elitism.
At the Democratic Convention in 1968, after the tragic death of Robert F. Kennedy, a young Congressman named Julian Bond electrified the nation with his passion and integrity. This election year, another first-time Congressman reminded me of that day so long ago. In his keynote speech at last year's Democratic Convention, Senator Barack Obama from Illinois said things that most old-guard Democrats can barely remember ever believing, and said them in a way that inspired trust and instilled faith. Imagine that in today's political climate. It is said that even his rivals respect him....another first in the search and destroy politics of today.
So why not? Hillary Clinton in many ways represents the same old guard politics that she decries, and most other rich white Democrats are tainted with the same smell of corruption that has rotted the Halls of Congress for years. Senator Obama is young, he's black, and he's a politically savvy person who has awakened passion in America for the first time in decades. He would take office at the age of 48, an age that (once again) most Washington insiders can only dream about during their afternoon naps.
And he is the Republicans' worst nightmare.
The Democrats need fresh blood, they need a presidential ticket that restores trust from their constituents. As one political observer put it recently, "The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt. They are accepting money from the same corporations. And of course, that is going to corrupt you."
And that brings me to my choice for a running mate for our next president. Those words were spoken by a Kennedy....no, not the shell of a legacy that now sits in Congress. Teddy Kennedy is older than old-guard, he's practically petrified. The Kennedy who uttered those strong words has been busy changing America for the better from outside the Beltway, fighting corporate greed as an attorney, suing those who have polluted the Hudson River beyond recognition. He wrote a book called "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy" that should have opened more eyes then it did, had America been paying attention.
He is Robert Kennedy Jr., the son of the last person to give hope to an entire nation when it needed it the most, during the height of the Vietnam War. He is the only...living...Kennedy who has the charisma of his father and the vision of his uncle (again, I'm talking about JFK, not Uncle Teddy). And he's the perfect running mate for Senator Obama.
So there you have it:
OBAMA/KENNNEDY IN "08.
A winning ticket for 2008. Will either of them even want the job? Who knows, but one thing is certain. Politics as usual is no longer good enough for America. It's time to look ahead, and find the leaders of the future, instead of clinging to the failed politics of the past.
And that's the Faulking Truth.
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