One of my sons --well, both of them, but one happened to be talking about it -- values the privilege of voting extremely much. He gets frustrated when an American actually talks about not voting for any reason whatsoever.
You remember when Mom told you to eat your string beans because there were children starving in India? Well, eating string beans wasn't going to make them any less hungry, but you'd think so from the way that people have an analogous response -- "I'm not voting, my vote doesn't count any more than those string beans would have helped little Rajesh, they're all the same, they're all politicians, blah, blah, blah ..."
I'm thinking there will be a veritable epidemic of that type of attitude, in the event that in the Fall of 2016, we have a second Clinton and a third Bush as the major-party candidates for President of the United States. We're already hearing it -- "wah, wah, if it's those two, I'm not voting, wah, wah."
Is that ballot actually likely? Well, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone but Hillary Clinton running on the Democratic ticket. Astonishingly, not a single person has risen to any conscionable level in the polls, not necessarily because of the inevitability of the nomination of the former first lady, but because, well, there isn't anyone intelligent and charismatic enough to have captured the interest of Democrats; anyway, charismatic, intelligent people know that contemporary Democratic dogma -- socialism -- doesn't work.
Additionally, Mrs. Clinton, as front-runner, has the backing of a slavish press. No, they have not been very kind to her in the email scandal -- actually, we should correctly say that "a few of the normally leftist media (kudos to Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post) have not been kind to her in the email scandal" -- but on the whole, the press is perfectly happy to save their slings and arrows for the contenders on the other side.
With a slavish press, Mrs. Clinton doesn't have to go through the "Oh, God, we have to destroy [leading Republican candidate X] before they can get their message out" gauntlet. That's the one Scott Walker is going through now. Without that, not only does no other conceivable Democratic contender get ink to get known, but the lead dog isn't continually jumped on to be beaten back to the rest of the pack. So, at least as a candidate, Hillary is inevitable.
Then there is the former governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush -- the son of one president and brother of another. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he actually has executive experience; like Mrs. Clinton, a significant part of public perception is that he would not be a candidate were he not related to someone who has been. Unlike her, his likelihood of gaining the nomination is far from certain, with a large cadre of equally likely candidates, especially here, a year before the primaries. He is also not universally popular with likely Republican voters.
Now, one could make the case that it's more likely that people who are married, like the Clintons (or like normal couples) have similar political views than relatives do. If I ran for office, and anyone expected me to hold views like my mother, who was quite liberal, or my father, who was almost as much so, well, they'd be pretty surprised. I have one brother, and conversely he is even to my right in a few things and we're both very, very different politically from our parents. Of course, the Kennedys were all pretty much ... you get the idea.
So how, then, should one react if that were the actual final ballot, another Bush vs. Clinton campaign? Well, in my case it would be very easy, as easy is it would be if it were Smith vs. Jones or Signorelli vs. Wojciechowicz.
I would simply vote for the candidate who matches the most of my views on the issues of the day, as I wrote in my very first essay here last September. I will vote for the candidate who, as president, will be harder to push from those views. I will vote for the candidate who will incorporate those common views into his or her platform more often than the other will, and press for legislation implementing them -- particularly fiscal sanity -- more than the other.
Whichever that candidate is, I don't care if their grandfather was president, their eleventh cousin once removed was, or their philandering husband was.
My vote is far too vital to be tossed aside.
Far too many people died to give me that vote and protect my right to it.
Far too many people around the world do not even have that right.
Come next November, I will be in line at the Broad Run Middle School in Chantilly, Virginia, with my ID in hand, to cast my vote, no matter who the nominees are. I will hold up my metaphorical inked thumb thereafter with pride.
Stay out of my way. I'm an American, and I vote.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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