When Good Men Run in the Other Direction

Part of John Bolton’s inability to get through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is the result of opposition from Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee.

Chafee, who lost his re-election and is considering whether to leave the GOP altogether, said he has not changed his reservations about Bolton nor does he think now is the time for a fight.

“The American people have spoken out against the president’s agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy,” Chafee said. “And at this late stage in my term, I’m not going to endorse something the American people have spoke [sic] out against.”

May he indeed indulge his pout and leave the GOP, the quicker the better for all concerned. Then the GOP won’t back him anymore. The party political machine is ruining the party. Had they backed the contender in the primary against Chafee, they would have been seen as putting principles above politics-as-usual. But — in the same way the machine took Specter over Toomey in Pennsylvania — the better man didn’t win, the party machine won and the people lost another opportunity to make a real choice.

As both party machines begin more and more to resemble The Robots from Hell, more and more voters are going to start claiming independence from their respective parties. Oh, not that the unions will ever be other than what they are, but their members will grow increasingly disaffected with the corrupt hierarchy, which lines its pockets at the mandatory expense of the rank-and-file.

And we are witnessing the slow erosion of a previously solid “African American = Democrat” equation as people begin to grow up and grow away from a defensive, victimized view of the spoils system in a country of abundance. African Americans are too diverse, too conservative in their social views, and too successful financially to stay within the victim rôle they’ve been squeezed into by academia and the MSM. That scam no longer has the grip it once did. Age will do that, and this monolithic myth of the African American vote is definitely old… and about as useful as predictions about the Lithuanian-American vote.
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But I don’t see union members or African Americans joining the Republican Party anytime soon. The ’pubs have betrayed too many of their own principles to attract those who have grown disaffected with the current political choices.

Third parties haven’t accomplished anything but Democrat victories, which turn into ever larger tumors on the body politic. So, for the moment — that is, for the next two elections — there is no hope for a third party. Not without a co-coordinated terrorist attack, anyway. If that happens, all bets are off.

But suppose CAIR and its fellow travelers really are bright enough to realize that the worst thing that could happen to them is their co-religionists blowing up parts of America? Suppose they merely keep up their non-violent, immensely well-funded erosion of American culture and self-confidence? In other words, suppose there are no more attacks?

Will it then be a repeat of the same incredibly short-sighted American foreign policy that has held sway almost since the moment Jefferson got chummy with the French? That may have been the biggest mistake the US ever made — sending Jefferson to Paris. Will we simply go down the same road as the French? Of course the path the French take is never paved with good intentions; it's peculiar how France always winds up in Hell nonetheless.

Is there a way to do an end run around that third party problem? Can a rump group start flapping the Republican tent? Can they field someone who follows through on smaller government ideals? Someone who conserves what is whole and principled in the American character? Someone who could attract once more the better angels of our nature? I don’t see anyone on the horizon.

As for the Dems, except for the extreme left and the professional, opportunistic victim-whores like Jesse Jackson and cardboard suits like John Edwards, or strange attractors like John Kerry (who has a permanently wind-chapped finger from holding it up to test which way things are going), there aren’t any spokesmen for the Dem base. At least not any who look human. And is the Dem base ever base — just look at George Soros and Michael Moore. Not to mention Jimmah. If Yasser Arafat were still alive and had American citizenship, he'd be a Democrat.

So is there room anywhere for someone who refuses to be pigeon-holed, who has a record of principled service, who has not spent his whole adult life on the public dole (as Clinton did before he “retired”)? Can anyone be found who is willing to run for office based on his beliefs, not on what he believed after he saw the polls? It sure would help if he could speak effectively, too — not a professional speaker, just an effective one. Lincoln had a high whine in his voice, which journalists made fun of, but Lincoln's words moved his listeners.

It’s a long, sad road back to Hubert Humphrey, and the way is blocked by relentless time and tragedy. But you get the idea from the names I’ve mentioned: Lincoln and Humphrey — different parties, but the same firm hold on what they believed and were willing to act upon. And the same ability to get people to cooperate in a common task. In other words, someone who can lead.

The most “attractive” candidate to most of us would be someone who —

• believed in the sovereignty of the United States,
  
• was willing to defend that sovereignty,
  
• had the qualities of leadership to unite the center of this country,
  
• was able to build bridges to the disaffected,
  
• viewed our current tax system as a counter-productive, hideous beast,
  
• and galvanized us to demand sacrifice from our public servants, rather than more sacrifice from the citizenry.

I have no idea who that might be. So far, the only people we are permitted to see are the ones who are able to elbow their way onto the MSM stage and shout the loudest, shortest sound bites.

At the moment, those most willing to serve exist in a bubble inside the Beltway. Some have been able to look less-than-hideous, some have kept their hands clean enough not to get caught naked in the middle of the street taking money from the Mafia, and some have enough staff to keep them in a vertical position with sufficient sound bite material to prevent them from looking grossly impaired. Mainly, though, the shenanigans in our capitol seem to be par for the political course… and a pitted, bald, and snake-bitten course it is.

Seems like the only people who want to play this game anymore are either the kind your mother warned you to stay away from, or the ones who fooled your mother, like Eddie Haskell or Hillary Clinton.

The good ones don’t run for office — they run in the other direction.


Cross-posted at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.