Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. What that means is that tomorrow, the American public will choose one Democratic representative and one Republican representative, who will then go on and battle it out for the position of the President of the United States of America — the most prestigious and powerful position in the entire world.
The first question on your mind is obviously this. Which candidate am I supporting? Fine. I will lay it out for you. If I had the opportunity to vote, I would vote for Hillary Clinton. More on that later.
The worst democrat is a better choice for me than the best republican. (Ron Paul is perhaps the exception to this rule.) For some reason, this is deeply rooted in my mind. It is not so that I reached this conclusion after giving it deep thought. Call me a liberal, but this was just the only way it could be for me. I cannot imagine myself siding with the republicans, given the enormous differences in ideology.
It is curious that America is almost equally divided between democrats and republicans. But I am yet to meet a person who calls himself a conservative republican. Every single person that I have asked in my office has confessed to being a democrat, or to being even further to the left than the democrats. (Left, here, refers to liberalism, not communism as it would mean in India.)
The answer to this, I was told, is the pervasive dichotomy between the city, representing urban liberal values, and the vast interior of the country that bases its value system on the Church.
It is true of most Americans, as it is of me. Democrats cannot seem to understand the republicans’ thinking at all. And the republicans cannot believe that the democrats think in the way they do. Why does this happen? If you are interested, you can find one answer here: Morality 2012
As an outsider, my view was that the United States always represented the ideals that I now attribute to the democrats. I always thought of the United States as a progressive, secular and liberal country. But things are slightly different in reality. There are just as many conservatives as there are liberals. There has not been a clear majority in recent presidential elections — it has consistently been a very close call.
But civilized values, it seems, tend to be fragile. Under the Bush administration’s propaganda and the perceived need for “national security”, a majority of Americans stood by Bush in his decision to attack Iraq. Conservative values held sway for the vast population of Americans, who went on to rapidly shed their civilised veneer and back the government for this reason or that. By the end of the first term, Bush has so much “political capital” that he not only won a second time, but continued his misled war in Iraq.
Today, Bush’s “approval ratings” are at about 40%. But that is still a large number of people who condone his actions. The rest, as Hillary Clinton puts it, “know now what they hadn’t known back then.”
Liberal feelings are taking grip of this nation again. And the democrats seem stronger than ever. But this is not to say that they would actually win. (Or that they would do anything if they won. But I digress.) The democrats have two strong contenders in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. On the republican side, things are colder – they don’t seem to have very strong contenders. But the republicans would still vote for a republican and the democrats would still vote for a democrat. So it is going to be close, as always.
There is one line of thought that since the democrats are so charged up, more of them would come out and vote. This would presumable tilt the balance towards the democrats. There are also those who believe that Obama would make a better democratic candidate than Hillary because he can attract more republican votes.
Now to the question of why I support Hillary, and not Obama. I might add here that every single person that I respect seems to support Obama and not Hillary. Now, I don’t know the history of these two candidates. I judge them purely based on the various (endless) debates that are held between them. To me, Hillary seems more poised, to-the-point and succinct. Obama seems less eloquent and even childish in the way he responds in difficult situations. This I say, only having recognized that they both are great speakers and have the potential to inspire people by their oratory. The general opinion, however, seems to be that Clinton is a “politician but not a leader” or that she is overly aggressive and “ruthless”. I can’t say anything about that.
Although I feel that the campaigns waste a lot of money and do a lot of propaganda, and yes – organize a lot more debates than necessary, I still appreciate the fact that such debates are being held at all, and that people are engaging in discussions about things that matter to them. This is in sharp contrast to what happens in India, where the whole system is in danger because the people are so indifferent to what happens.
Out of these debates, there may not emerge a candidate that I concur with. A republican whom I despise might win. But this will be the voice of the people of America.
If at the end, Americans elect a bad leader, they would still have spoken their minds. Which is what this is all about. This is not about ending the war in Iraq, or getting the economy out of recession, or reducing the fiscal deficit, or making immigration reforms, or even universal health care. This is about the people of America making their choice (and unfortunately, choosing the fate of the rest of the world too).
But I sure do hope that it’s also about all those things.
politics
