RealCurrents

I’ve been intending to write something here about the upcoming presidential election. I can’t help but notice how many folks over 35 are really frustrated with their choices this time. The United States is desperately in need of strong, conservative leadership, yet the Republican Party seems about as bankrupt of ideas as the mortgage lenders are of money.

It’s pointless to try to record all my thoughts here, it would go far too long. Let me just state the obvious, the Republican Party has gone terribly astray, to the point that it’s hardly recognizable as a party for true conservatives, and nowhere is this most apparent than in the recent campaign strategy of the McCain-Palin camp. True leadership brings creativity to bear on difficult problems, getting people to work together in innovative ways to solve them. I’ve written a little about the need for such creativity in the pro-life movement, for example.

Sadly, the Republican Party, at least at the national level, instead keeps retreating to worn-out slogans that stifle real discussion of the serious problems we face. This isn’t any news to liberal Democrats or even independents. Rather, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not working with Republican voters either, yet the Republican leadership remains so frustratingly out of touch, unable to grasp that THEY are going to have to hold themselves to a higher standard, or else the Party itself is in danger of collapsing. Let me just repeat the comment I left earlier today on Carmen Van Kerckhove’s blog Racialicious, in response to “An Open Letter to White Voters“:

Hi Carmen, perhaps you will find my perspective interesting. Whites are such a huge voting block that it’s difficult to generalize, but I will say that as far as Republican demographics go, I should be right in the middle of their voter bloc. I’m a WASP from Texas who has voted a straight Republican ticket several times, & a Christian conservative.

Nevertheless, I’m very unhappy with the Republican congress, in particular, and was never very enthusiastic about voting for McCain, either. The Palin choice is kind of a wash, in my view, she has a lot of qualities I admire, but at the same time doesn’t seem ready to fill McCain’s shoes if something happened to him.

I had just about convinced myself to go ahead and vote for McCain-Palin before they started what’s been about a month of the most bone-headed campaigning I can remember. First they kept Palin off-limits from interviews for the most part (hardly a vote of confidence), then they started the ridiculous attacks on Obama that just seem to keep getting worse.

It’s disturbing to think that Palin may end up destroying her reputation and a promising political future. McCain should have never hired the campaign “experts” that have ruined a campaign that was really starting to connect with voters. We’ve all seen the worst of Republican rhetoric over and over in recent years, and I’m as tired of it as anyone. BTW, it really turns me off when they say “Barack *Hussein* Obama”, as if that’s supposed to imply something. THAT seems pretty racist to me, anyway.

Yes, it’s an insult to all voters to think this sort of campaigning will sway opinion. Barack Obama’s voting record is far too liberal for me to support him, but now I’m really having second thoughts about voting for McCain as well.

It’s sad to see the Republican Party basically falling apart from a lack of leadership. A true leader would never allow that kind of stuff to happen. The only slight hope Republicans have in capturing the White House is if Palin finally says enough, gives the McCain folks an earful, and strikes out on a different course. America is starving for leadership. Can’t any of these “experts” see it obviously isn’t working?!!

As long as the Republican Party sends folks to Washington who then start acting more or less like everyone else in D.C. politics-as-usual, Republicans will continue to fail at being a conservative influence. We need a Republican Party - or some replacement for it - that has an activist bent throughout the ranks and understands it’s fighting a battle and that sacrifices must be made. This is what all true leaders embody, and this is the only solution to America’s many problems: true leadership.