Opinions Worth Roping -

THIS ISN’T YOUR DAD’S REPUBLICAN PARTY: (November, 2004)
[printable]

The choice in November is not between two people, but between two visions. It’s not about whom you’d rather have a beer with or whom you’d rather have on your Scrabble team. No, it’s the difference between the politics of optimism, hope and the future and the politics of fear, cynicism and despair. It’s the difference between a nation and a state that gives people a level playing field and opportunity and a nation that says that where you are born is where you are going to stay. None of us expect things to end up equally. We just want to have a fair chance. But not the way things are going now. Most of the people in charge now are working for big corporations and are beholden to them. We have to remind them on election day that they may get spending money from the corporate fat cats, but we give them their jobs with those nice pension plans and health benefits.

This is not the Republican Party that I grew up around in the 1950’s. Eisenhower was a reassuring guy who played golf and kept us out of Vietnam, warned us about the threat of the military/industrial complex, and grew our economy. These rad cons are scaring the beJesus out of everybody all over the world. Garrison Keillor says they are the reason that the rest of the world thinks “we are deaf, dumb and dangerous.”

This Republican Party is not your father’s Republican party. This Republican Party sticks to its tired old tax cuts solution for everything. They follow the old adage that a “rising tide raises all boats.” But neighbors, when that tide is coming in --it might be nice to HAVE a boat. The way these guys are running things is that if you don’t have a yacht, you are shit out of luck. You and I are going to be bobbing in the water. And I don’t see any of those people I saw in Madison Square Garden at the Republican Convention offering any of us a life jacket or even a tow rope. Until this party gets its bearings back, please ask your neighbors to vote Democratic because if they just happen to get the last seat on That Good Ship Lollipop, they may also be the first one to get tossed overboard.

This Republican Party looks like a Russian Oligarchy or Mussolini’s Corporate Facism and this year’s Democratic Party looks like the old fiscally responsible non empire building Republican Party. That leaves Progressives without a party at all, so we’re just hitching a ride with the Dems this time around. Even in the state, things are topsy-turvy. For Governor, we have a fiscal conservative businessman running as a Democrat and a career politician running as a Republican! Whoa Nelly! This is bizarre. Talk about Flip Flop!

So Vote with the Democrats, moderate Republicans, just this once… and then get your act together and find a less crazy or lazy bunch to run against us in four years. Chuck Hagel, Arlen Spector, George Pataki, Libby Dole, John McCain, Arnold…..

Diane Kamp Clayton

Big Timber, MT

This Isn't Your Dad's Republican Party