Really, is that really all it is, just politics?

By Jack Stapleton, Jr.

Super Tuesday seems a century ago, or maybe it never really happened at all. The day that was to provide the first credible evidence of voters’ preferences for November’s presidential nominees in both parties. It ended as a funeral wake for the two least likely candidates and a less-than-enthralling victory for the two predictable winners.

Followers of Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush found solace in their victories. Visions of Bill Bradley and John McCain were mostly just that, visions of how campaigns should be conducted. Lord knows, Bradley and McCain had the right idea, even if their techniques sometimes left something to be desired.

I still find myself wishing the two losers were still around. The political dialogue, that seem to have been going on since the Johnson administration needs to take on more substance than a Twinkie. Even before they carried off their Super Tuesday coups Gore and Bush displayed an arrogance that seemed to be based on the cynical belief that in the end they would out-beg and out-spend their opponents.

Toward the end of the campaign, as McCain and Bush debated in South Carolina, the governor of Texas accused his opponent of “abandoning” his fellow Vietnam veterans and other assorted acts of personal depravity. Following the exchange, George W. excused himself by saying, “John it’s politics.” McCain’s response was classic: “George, everything isn’t politics.”

For Bush and Gore, “politics” is something artificial, a language one adopts to campaign for the highest office in the land. It’s a way of addressing a public that repeatedly shows its contempt for both parties by not showing up at the polls, a way to exploit the silent but very real fears of an electorate that sits silently before TV screens to watch former models marry bogus multimillionaires. Such tactics are born of desperation to divert public view from the jaundiced and cynical, even if the methods employed take on these same characteristics.

Gore and Bush were able to convince their party generals that they considered spontaneity while talking to the general public the most dangerous form of free speech, that they would abstain from the slightest bit of candor while on the campaign trail and that each would be tough on the opposition regardless of the importance of the office they were seeking. In other words, the tacit promise that each would do whatever it took to win was fundamentally all their parties asked of them.

Bradley and McCain campaigned as if they believed the public had a right to hear honest views on subjects that were of interest and concern to thoughtful citizens.

I have this horrible feeling that come next November, we will know George W. Bush and Al Gore no better than we do at this moment. This vacuum will not be accidental; it will be a premeditated, purposeful tactic designed by the best political minds money can buy to reveal no more than is necessary to win and to win by doing all that is necessary. Each will attempt to build a victory on the back of his opponent’s weaknesses.

Nothing personal, you understand. As Bush told McCain, “John, it’s politics.” We shouldn’t forget the senator’s reply: “Everything isn’t politics.”

[Missouri News & Editorial Service, Inc. Copyright (C) 2000 MNES Corp.]