Monday, February 04, 2008

Close Enough To Steal

NPR was reporting this morning that, while generic Dims still beat generic GOPS, McStain's out-polling HRC, and within the MOE with BHO. Both Dims beat Romney, by somewhat larger margins.

President Bush's approval ratings remain low. Among poll respondents, 38 percent approve of the job he is doing, unchanged from the previous NPR poll in October. In the new poll, 56 percent disapprove of the president's performance compared with 60 percent last fall. But Bush's record low ratings apparently are getting better--with the promise of a $500 going-away present--and this is NOT going to much effect the strength of the GOPuke nominee in November.

Either/both HRC & BHO are such lightning-rods that their candidacies are going to be electric, of course. It is possible that one or the other of them will get 'elected.' But if they are, it will be because the Bosses want to use them to destroy what's left of the "naive" belief and trust to which the people have clung for the efficacy of their democratic republican system. It is ironic that candidates who seem to represent such hope will--in my view--inevitably become the tools to the destruction of all they say they represent (if you believe them; personally, I'm agnostic).

On the other hand, in national polls, now, McStain beats HRC and is within the moe with BHO. If the bosses just wanna go ahead with the wholesale, public destruction of democracy--just skip the subtle stuff and go straight for the kill--then they're already positioning themselves, cuz if it's close, it can be stolen (cf, 2000, 2004).

I am sorry, truly, if this causes distress. I wouldn't do so needlessly, I hope you know. But it just seems to me to be so transparent, once you get past the appearances--the bright, shiny promises, the hype--the 'hope', the 'change agenda' (which has no agenda other than the maintenance of some version of the status quo ante), etc.--to the realities of wealth, power, influence, etc, which are, it seems to me, these: that no subsequent President will not endeavor by any and every means to add to and expand the powers that the Busheviks appropriated from that oh-so-willing Congress. In all history, no Congress has ever won back from the Executive any power they have delegated, even once; and no President has ever willingly conceded any power to the Legislative. The balance has again shifted, definitively, and nothing ever goes back to the way it was.

2 comments:

Dirk Gently said...

i believe you are being overly optimistic.

Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!) said...

Yeah, I worry about that, too...