Countdown to Oops
In less than a week, we should know who will be the next president of the United States, and which party will control the House and the Senate. Those are the larger questions. Still, what will command more attention are the myriad local races and ballot measures which usually involve zoning matters, pitting developers against environmentalists, though those lines are well blurred these days. There are also a whole bunch of state and local marijuana questions, which fly in the face of federal law and will have varied effect, depending on the attitude of local enforcers, until the matter of federal authority in the area is finally resolved in the courts.One who promises still to be a spoiler — and you thought I was going to say Ralph Nader — is Slick Willie, who’s supposed to go on the campaign trail Thursday, five days before the balloting begins, presumably to benefit his Veep. Consider that The New York Times in their editorial supporting The Wooden One talked about his being his own man, untainted by Clinton. If you were Gore, would you want Clinton campaigning in your behalf? And that’s not a rhetorical question, because apparently a number of Gore’s team have opposed asking Clinton to campaign for him.
The fact is, however, that Gore has run a terrible campaign, at best, while his oleaginous boss enjoys stratospheric approval ratings. The answer for Al is that he should want Clinton beating the hustings, so to speak, to get out the vote for his erstwhile progeny. That is, if Gore truly wants to win, a question we’ve discussed in the past. Surely Gore supporters used the argument that it would be easier for the Veep to separate himself from The Ozark Zipper once he was elected in his own rite. Because if he loses, Gore will be consigned to the trash bin of tainted wannabes, never to resurface.
You’d also have to think that Billy Jeff would want Gore to win; it would ratify his presidency in a way that losing to Bush would not. And for a shameless trollop like Clinton, who after eight years is still searching for his legacy, being seen as helping Gore to get elected would be better than nothing, albeit barely. So why, ya gotta ask, would the Boy from Hope do an interview with Esquire that could only serve to raise anew questions of Clinton’s morality and competence? He claims he thought the magazine would come out after the election; though I wouldn’t believe the man if he swore on a cigar box. In the interview, Clinton called on Republicans to apologize for having put the country through his impeachment; he redefines chutzpah. Also, the cover photo shows Clinton sitting on a stool with his knees wide apart.
The question boils down to this: neither is currently up to the job, so which one is more like to grow in it? We have a choice between a wussy, emasculated intellectual and a folksy, low-brow distillate. Yes, the Supreme Court nominees the next guy will make are important, and if you want clean air to breath, you’re likely to be better off with Gore’s "enhancements" than Bush-Lite’s stumbledom. Can you really vote for a man who’s inevitable response is that while he is admittedly clueless hisself, he will surely be surrounded by some of his father’s top advisers. It’s a grand idea to have a kitchen cabinet, but we should elect someone who at least knows how to cook.