Lincoln-Douglas this isn't. Once again the issues being debated in this
year's presidential campaign are of the greatest importance - war or peace,
freedom or slavery, national unity or a house divided against itself. But
today's debaters do not rise to the stature of the questions facing the
country and the world.
Both major parties have platforms and policies and soundbites to offer, but
neither yet offers a clear vision. Their leaders are adept enough in the
give-and-take of political repartee, but the object of the game has become
how to echo the voters' concerns, not shape them.
It's as if our leaders were waiting for We the People to lead them - and
only then will they choose a direction. What's missing is what Bush I, in
his clipped way, used to refer to as The Vision Thing. Let this much be said
for Bush the Elder: He seemed aware of what he lacked even if he had no idea
of how to attain it.
The current crop of contenders in the '08 campaign, which is in full gear in
'07, may not even be aware of what they lack. They occasionally light on
some insight - blind hogs and acorns and all that - but then the usual murk
descends.
Nor does the current, foreshortened campaign for the presidential
nominations leave enough time for the candidates to be tested through a long
series of primaries, or for the public to get to know them before the
nominations are decided. Things happen too fast, as they do in much of the
rest of American life.
It long has been fashionable to lament the length of American presidential
campaigns, overlooking their educational value for both voters and
candidates. After this year, we may lament their brevity before the nominees
are chosen.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is waging a classic Clinton
campaign, not taking a position unless she's absolutely forced into it.
Eventually, when the opinion polls are in, or her rivals back her into a
corner, as on the issue of drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, she may
finally come down on one side or other of an issue - but not before. Even
when she does take a stand, does it matter? Since it can safely be assumed
that, if public opinion changes, she'll change with it.
It's not Mrs. Clinton's changing stands on specific issues - free trade, for
example - that bothers so much as a hollowness at her political core. How
Clintonesque. Like husband, like wife. A this rate, Clinton fatigue may set
in before the next Clinton administration does.
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