Meanwhile Back at Campaign Headquarters

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We interrupt this discussion of substantive issues to take another peek at the Presidential Election, still in progress. Virtually all surveys show the President marginally ahead with only the traditional red states safe for Romney. These same polls indicate that the number of undecided voters is fairly tiny and includes mostly those who are chronically ambivalent and unlikely to show up at the polls Election Day. No surprise. This contest has been going on for almost four years.

Romney has been as inept a campaigner as any presidential candidate I can recall. He makes Barry Goldwater, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry look positively slick by comparison. It now seems obvious that his strategy all along was just to blast away at Obama’s shortcomings, offering little of substance of his own, and hope he would woo voters by default. The problem with that strategy is that anyone who whines and complains endlessly about everything gets pretty tiresome, and he has been fairly tiresome for some time.

The problem for us is that the discourse on health care has gotten no further than Repeal Obamacare versus How do you like having your kids on your policy for two more years? On top of that is “Who is really the villain threatening Medicare?” The AARP delegates seem to have made up their minds. It is hardly an in-depth dissection of the challenges we face as a nation in Health Care. And it seem unlikely to change before the Inauguration.

The debates loom ahead, but with so few people undecided it is likely to be one side versus the other with everyone rooting for their candidate not to slip up. It is possible one of the four might say something spectacularly stupid, but frankly that does not happen very often. Kerry clearly outscored Bush in the debates, but it had little effect on the outcome. It would have to be a real lulu of a comment to changes votes this year.

The big concern then is that we will return to some form of what we have been experiencing the past two years in Washington. I heard David Axelrod predicting that if Obama is re-elected, the Republicans will come around. He is more optimistic than I. They won’t have Obama to campaign against anymore, but their hopefuls will certainly start jockeying for position in 2016 the morning after this election. They will also want to please their biggest contributors, so don’t expect much give and take. If Romney pulls off an upset, Democrats will be the ones stonewalling and resisting, a strategy where they have proved less effective than the GOP, though the end result may be largely the same.

That’s why election reform is so important, and no one is talking about it. No one I talk to wants a repeat of this year’s process over the next four years. What can prevent it? Reform will have to come from the grassroots. That means you. If you have a moment, please email your congressional representatives to let them know how vital election reform is to our well-being as a nation, and your support for it.

Tom Godfrey

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