Aquarian Weekly 7/19/00
REALITY CHECK

THE GREAT DEBATE
ON DEBATES

“My opponent totally misapprehended the great principles upon which our government rests.” - Stephen A. Douglas - 1858 Debates

“It is most extraordinary that Mr. Douglas would so far forget all the suggestions of justice to an adversary that the slightest investigation would have shown him to be false.”
- Abraham Lincoln - Rebuttal

By any poll you’d like to subscribe, Ralph Nader (Green Party Candidate) and Pat Buchanan (Reform Party Rebel) have barely 10% of the national voting attention between them, which by normal democratic standards has reached all-time lows in the past decade. The two men who represent the power parties are, at best, boring puppets, at worst, dangerous dupes of special interests and corporations. Most Americans do not care for politicians and treat the privilege of voting like diseased meat.

To these harrowing facts we offer up our plea: Open the debates wide!

Run by the bag men for the Dems and GOP, the planned debates that will decide the outcome of this egregious abortion of a presidential campaign have put a 15% bottom line for independent party popularity. Nearly destitute in campaign-fund speak, the Green Party and the Reformists have no way to gain the proper motivation to get in the ring with G.W. Bush and Al Gore. These men have taken the riches of King Herod and pissed it away before the second leg of the primaries. And there is a boat load more that says that Nader and Buchanan have as much chance of manning a debate podium as Chuckles The Incontinent Clown.

But if this was truly a democracy, and anyone with a modicum of energy for this damaged political system gave half a shit, those two wacky love bugs would be chewing up television ratings and putting the whole charade into serious mind-numbing perspective.

And that’s what we need now, folks...perspective. Time to pull G.W. out of the rich-boy mothballs and kick that lying sack of horse manure, Gore off the Washington pedestal and get them at the corner of muck and mire with extremist crazies who will strip facades and make the bad boys bare their fangs.

Nader is already Gore’s worst nightmare. He knows all-too well the vice president’s vacillating two-step with the unions, WTO ass-smooching and the panic appointment of NAFTA poster child, Wiiliam Daly as campaign guru is another in a long line of smoke screens. And Nader is a wild man when it comes to hellfire in the face of phony fundraising scandals, to which Gore is sloughing off like a blushing debutante, while smelling like a rat in a garbage heap.

But that’s a handbag of trouble compared to what Patrick Buchanan would do to the insulated confidence that permeates the Bush camp these days. At least Gore moved to the obligatory middle to paint Bill Bradley as something akin to George McGovern meets Adlai Stevenson at a Commie rally. Junior ignored the middle while he leaned as far right as Barry Goldwater’s ghost would allow in his attempt to embarrass the remains of John McCain.

Bush went right, but now goes the way of “compassionate conservatism” while presiding over the 135th murder by the state of Texas under the always lovely guise of “capitol punishment.” But he gains in the polls because people see Al Gore and think of a jabbering political mannequin willing to sell his soul at a craps game for any vote anyone will give him at any time.

But if Uncle Pat gets across from G.W. it will force him to signify his cloudy thoughts on naughty things like abortion and taxes and gun-weilding, flag-waving Bible zombies wanting to know exactly what the hell he thinks of gay marriages and vigilante border patrols in his home state. Bush will have to fend off both the lefties and their youth-minority-women vote and the radical right who feed him hordes of obscene campaign money. Now we have an exciting battle.

Now we get the voter base. It’s Monday night wrestling and bimbos marrying rich dolts on FOX. We get Regis Philbin cranked on java holding wads of cash and put all four candidates in a cage with dead deer carcasses and photos of nude women. Kid Rock can sing the national anthem.

This is what we want; the real deal. Bush and Gore debating would be like watching some sissy slap-fight, highlighted by sad references to Junior’s loser dad and everything Bill Clinton has denied since he was four years-old. Bad television. Bad politics.

Gore claims to be a great debater. His victories include Dan Quayle (a moron), Jack Kemp (ambushed moderate), Ross Perot (half-mad troll with a bank account), and poor old Bill Bradley (who thought running for president meant having a conscience). All lay-ups. And Bush is a dunk waiting to happen.

Boring.

Bush has a lead now. By the time of this writing it isn’t even Independence Day. Other notable poll leaders in early July include Jimmy Carter in ‘80, Michael Dukakis in ’88 and Bush senior in ‘92. All losers. Very bad losers with one thing in common, a summer of confidence and good poll numbers that lied terribly when the real polls opened. Plenty of time for Bush to blow this. Plenty of time for Al Gore to re-re-invent.

But digression has become the better part of valor here, and although this is only the beginning of 2000 campaign coverage for this space, this reporter will be completely brain-dead by the conventions if some clairvoyant savant doesn’t rescue this abomination and allow maverick psychos like Nader and Buchanan into the arena for a world-class, singsong, salute-my-dog bloodletting.

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas are long dead. They were debating heavyweights with a grudge and a barb.

Bush and Gore? Not mistaken for quality with any measuring stick.

Wake the echoes.

Open the debates!

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