I sign up at all legitimate political web sites regardless of party affiliation. This way I get to see what they’re all up to. I’m a Conservative but I voted for Barack Obama and I’m registered with his web site.

 

As a result, I receive regular emails. The most recent came from Ms. Natalie Foster, News Media Director, asking me to phone the folks in New Jersey to urge them to vote for Jon Corzine. Here’s my reply.

 

Ms. Foster, I understand your concern here. Truly, I do. But, perhaps you may not realize that I can stand outside my house and see New Jersey as clearly as I can see my own hand 5-inches from my face. In fact, I can get into my automobile and be IN New Jersey in under 10-minutes.

 

So, you AND the President need to understand that I don’t trust either of these people as far as I can throw them. I won’t be making any phone calls to New Jersey on either of their respective behalves.

 

As a Delawarean, I can’t turn on my TV without hearing an endless litany of political drivel from New Jersey about these two politicos—living saints or devils incarnate, depending on which of their respective ads are running at the time.

 

And, I’ll bet a fair amount of money that the folks in New Jersey get just as annoyed at the political hot air coming from Delaware during our election cycles, which begin (it seems) about two hours following the previous ones.

 

I have a great deal of empathy for the ordinary citizens of New Jersey. Like the rest of us, they’re trapped within a political environment that seems to foster an alarmingly obvious political mandate to get-elected/reelected-at-any-cost.

 

The behavior coming out of the Beltway in Washington portrays itself as a force for elevating convenience to the exalted status of an imperative, while demoting truth to a mere option.

 

Not to be outdone, though, many states have raised this practice to an art form. And, nowhere in this nation is this more blatantly obvious than in New Jersey politics.

 

Ignoring the political hot air coming from the President concerning Jon Corzine, people around here are not lined up for a chance to nominate him for sainthood. He’s done little to change the political status-quo and almost nothing to change New Jersey’s image. But, there’s no line to nominate Chris Christie, either.

 

Other than his never-ending insinuations that he’s able to leap tall political hurdles with a single bound, dodge political scandals faster than a speeding bullet, and imply that his opponent has committed every crime in the book, including some that “may” have been against humanity, he’s accomplished nothing important.

 

No matter which of these two win—assuming a third-party candidate does not emerge and ruin both of their political lives—the citizens of New Jersey lose.

 

Both have been selling odoriferous political fertilizer for years; they’ve just done so under different brands. And, just as in my home state of Delaware, the partisans are standing in line to buy all they can get.

 

Even if an honest third party rides in at the last minute to “save the day” for the people of New Jersey, the most optimistic outcome I can garner is that it probably won’t work, and for the most obvious of reasons.

 

Whether in the nation’s capitol or any of the states’ capitols, the dilemma is the same. It’s not a Chief Executive’s deficiency causing the problems; it’s the child-like befuddlement of the PEOPLE’S elected representatives: in BOTH, the House and the Senate.

 

In the aggregate, our United States Congress could not hit the water if the lot of them fell from a cruise ship straight into the ocean. And, with very few exceptions, neither could the majority of our States’ Assemblies.

 

Most people are not drone-like, foaming-at-the-mouth partisans. For a majority, political campaigns have become a quandary of negatively charged perceptions.

 

It’s why people are voting against candidates rather than voting for them in ever-increasing numbers.

 

Crudely paraphrasing, the standard message seems to be, “As did Jesus, I walk on water; my opponent, however, merely floats. So, elect me. I won’t raise your taxes.”

 

And, the motivation for seeking public office implies—especially the first time they run—that they’re inherently altruistic, driven purely by the sheer honor of public service.

 

They’d also like us to buy into the idea that they don’t even think about all the hard work and long hours with precious little thanks they’ll have to live with in delivering legitimate constituent services that are consistently in the best interests of this country.

 

In other words, like McDonald's, they want us to believe that they do it all for us.

 

RIGHT… how positively Mother Theresa-like. Now, if only we could discover a way to turn bovine fecal matter into gold, we’d have enough money to end our national financial woes, not just for NOW, but also for centuries to come.

 

PLEASE, a break! Yes, there is no doubt that the industrialized world’s love affair with gadgets that produce co₂ emissions faster than rabbits reproduce has contributed to a dismally bleak future for the world’s grizzly bears.

 

But, its effect is minor compared to the rapidly increasing volume of hot air coming from the Beltway and a multitude of states capitols as relentless 24-hour cable news outlets on both sides feverishly stir the ratings pot for profits.

 

This and sheer stupidity combine to define negative campaigning as a most effective means to elective success.

 

And, admittedly, a growing multitude of complexity-shunning, single-issue voters intent on anointing the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, and Wolfe Blitzer as their intellectual guiding lights does nothing to make me think things will change for the better during the rest of my lifetime.

 

I’m not totally pessimistic, though. I’ve always been an inherently positive person. Given the increasingly negative state of things in this country over the past 30-years, a quick but painless fatal coronary does not seem so bad.

 

Apologizing in advance to whomever I may be with at the time, I’d have but ONE caveat: that it occur following an intensely pleasurable sexual climax, um… preferably just prior to the afterglow wearing off.

 

And, at 67-years of age, not only is this not out of the question as a NICE way out of this rat race, it would be TONS more enjoyable than letting the dummies carry me to hell in their custom-made hand basket.

 

Finally, Ms. Foster, if you have the President’s attention, would you please give him some advice from me?

 

I’m one of a cadre of lifelong Conservatives that voted for him. Even though my political party affiliation has always been Republican, I’ve never been a dogmatic partisan about it.

 

I voted for Mr. Obama for two reasons. The first one was that I believed he could change all the rancor and incivility going on in the U. S. Congress and get people back to talking TO each other rather than AT each other.

 

The other one was, and still is, because I believe, as he does, that adequate healthcare is NOT a relative right based on people’s ability to afford it, but rather an absolute right based on their membership in the human race.

 

I know that I’m not the only Conservative that believes this, but it seems that all of those in a position to make this a reality do NOT believe it.

 

Or, if they do, they are more occupied with making sure that some Liberal-minded President does not beat them to it, even though the argument has been going on for close to 65-years now.

 

Regardless, he has yet to accomplish the first one. Not even close! But, I don’t blame him for it.

 

He’s had precious little help, even from his own party, and, as Anna Quindlen stated in Newsweek (and I’m paraphrasing it); “The people who elected him have stopped acting like the voters who voted for him last November.”

 

However, I do hold him responsible for failing to accomplish more regarding healthcare reform. He needs to understand that the Republicans in the U. S. Congress are not his friends.

 

They have no vested interests in helping him achieve anything other than an ultimate reelection defeat, hopefully taking a large number of Congressional Democrats with him.

 

In fact, the prime directive for BOTH parties has always been the defeat of the other side’s agenda and making them look as silly as possible doing it. After all, what’s there to lose? We voters have consistently proven ourselves easily conned for the past 30-years… at a minimum.

 

Even so, many of our past presidents were able to accomplish a few well-chosen goals, both foreign and domestic, while some others failed miserably.

 

He would do well to remember, however, that all of the success stories realized early on that obsessing over consensus building to the exclusion of agenda accomplishment was a bad idea.

 

Quickly, they began demonstrating their skills at effective assisted political suicides by clearly demonstrating their willingness to dispatch party disloyals to political oblivion.

 

The President’s party is in the political preponderance. Perhaps it’s time to stop kissing butts and start kicking them. He may still lose in the end, but he will not be the only one battered and bloodstained. And, he’ll feel better, too!

 

 

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.