Not an issue

I was watching C-SPAN yesterday, and some expert was being interviewed,
and callers were calling in, adding comments, asking questions. One
woman from Louisiana said that she was a Republican so disgusted
with Bush that she voted for Kerry. But, though most of the Republicans
she knew were also disgusted with Bush, they all voted for liar and
bonehead. Why? Because they were afraid of electing a liberal Democrat,
a Big Spender, to office. The woman not unreasonably asked if this
factor played a part in the re-election of Bush.

The expert said that this was an old issue, but not a live one this
election. He didn't think it played a major role.

But I wonder, did it not play a major role because the Bush campaign
couldn't make it an issue because it was horribly vulnerable on government
spending, and because the press, dominated by big-spending "liberal"
ideologues, avoided asking the question?

I mean, if you don't ask the question about Big Spending in your
multiple-choice polls, it is unlikely to show up in your answers!


I suspect that this was an important theme held by the people, but
not by the elites. The elites are utterly unreliable on the issue.
The Democrats, because they want to revive Big Government and its
popularity, and the Bush Republicans, because they've become worse
than Democrats in many ways in actually enacting larger and larger
government and greater and greater spending, yielding to ever-increasing
debt.

But the people themselves? They still have deep reservations about
profligate living and increasing debt. They know how dangerous it
is in private life, and suspect it might even be more corrupting
in public life.

And the people would be right.

Democrats still pretend this issue doesn't matter. It was, they like
to think, "not an issue" this past election. But it may be on this
issue that they've lost the country.

Designations   |   November 8, 2004   |   Wirkman Virkkala


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