I must be psychic. Just this morning I was thinking I should be – instead of blogging about my youngest child going south for the weekend – blogging about my thoughts on which party is going to get wise first. I truly believe this is going to be the telltale sign of who will end up winning the general election in November.
The infighting and sniping at each other has become continuous in both the democratic and the republican primaries now that both are down to two people. The democrats, as the race seems so much closer by the numbers, are getting nastier quicker but the republicans – and that should be read the frontrunner, John McCain, as Mike Huckabee seems to be running a fairly clean campaign – are also getting in on it.
Does either party not realize this is not what voters want? I don’t think the voters mind a candidate – even one extremely behind like Huckabee – appealing a primary result when there may have been some irregularities. I do think that voters mind the constant personal picking that goes on between those whose policies are close to the same so there is little to differentiate between them.
It currently looks like the GOP is going to pull it together. Mitt Romney is going to endorse John McCain. He is going to tell the party to pull together behind the presumptive nominee. He is going to free his delegates to go to McCain. This is not something that a suspended campaign does. It is what an ended campaign does.
I find this particularly disturbing in that Romney had many problems with McCain when they were opponents. Is it necessary to endorse someone that you have already told the public that you don’t agree with? Is it necessary to back someone with him you disagree? Could Romney not just ask that his delegates be freed from their allegiance to him?
Whether I agree with Romney’s endorsement or not, I do agree that the GOP needs to rally behind one candidate and not have a conservative break when that candidate is not a true conservative.
Nicki's Nook 
A belated Happy Valentine’s Day! Woo Hoo! Something fun to discuss! 🙂
I am so with you. I have been disappointed in party politics for well over half my life, and that is what we are witnessing – not just with this election, but with all of them. Primaries seem to be the worst, don’t they?
Yes, the GOP seems to be pulling it together. Easy to do with a clear front runner. Huckabee will hang in there, and the RNC will encourage that to give the race a semblance of competition. But neither Huckabee nor Romney will have any choice but to throw behind McCain. To do otherwise would be professional suicide.
And yes, the Democrat’s race is getting tiresome. Just a precursor of things to come in the general election, I’m afraid.
I am not sure when we will have a candidate, with full party support, who is strong enough to stick to the issues and not get drawn into the brawl.Talk to any voter, and they are tired of it.
I want a candidate who will speak to the nightly news – and tell me, not just what they really think, but how they would address it.
Come on Hillary, Obama, and John – what would you do about the situation in the Congo? Can you help without military involvement?
Stop the war rhetoric, and tell me how you are going to bring our troops home safely AND avoid pissing off those we promised to help? Wasn’t it that perception of abandonment that so disenfranchised the Afghanis?
We ALL want a better health care system that has more availability. Got a model to base it on? Know how you are going to pay for it? Without disrupting the system that is already in place, so that there is no lapse of care?
Same with education. If you have a better idea, what is it? How can we let the cream rise to the top, pull up the ones at risk, and still not trample the kids in the middle? Can we find a happy medium that will all kids the opportunity for higher education, and still find ways to make those not college-bound successful? And not feel like failures at 17? Got a plan folks? I’d damned sure like to hear it?
Stepping away from the issues for a minute, I know who is tagging along on McCain’s coattails. I have a pretty good idea what baggage Hillary lugs around, and I’ve watched her handle the distraction – first as loyal party wife, and then as a determined professional woman. What’s in Obama’s closet? What, and who, is likely to cause distraction from the tasks at hand if he’s in office? Does he have the personal strength to make the necessary personal sacrifice?
I don’t know, Nicki. Maybe it’s time to restructure the whole thing. Take some of the power away from the National Committees, and put it in the public’s hands. Stop positioning for delegates and the Electoral College and start talking to the voters?
Even then, I’m not sure of the wisdom in that. DC voters consistently put Marion Barry in positions of power.
Perhaps what we need is a fully objective media that is bent on educating the public. Local elections are important. How many know that they actually elect their party committee members, and what powers those members and delegates actually have?
How many know what elected officials appoint which positions? Look at (May)Berryville. We elect our Mayor. He doesn’t get to appoint anyone. But he gets to hire the Town Manager. That good ol’boy gets to appoint a police chief from a pool of Barney Fife’s. Mr. Mgr. also gets to hire the Zoning Commissioner.
So poor Aunt Bea, who is upset with the unfettered building and no increased allocations for services, has NO CLUE that when she casts her vote for her cousin’s wife’s brother’s brother-in-law who’s cousin as been mayor for 30 years – and his father 30 years before that – that he is ultimately responsible. And that “new guy” who’s only been in town for 15 years has a new Town Manager in mind that actually has a vision – and no personal stake in letting the county build a new government office complex on a piece of his father-in-law’s business partner’s property.
Know who to put the pressure on, and we can enact that “change” that’s so elusive.