Two Candidates Do Not A Dictatorship Make
Heard Ted Strickland speak the other day at the Chamber of Commerce gubernatorial candidate breakfast at the Holiday Inn on the Lane in Columbus – best moderate Republican political talk I’ve ever heard. American politics runs in cycles. We’ve swung dramatically to the right since the appearance of Ronald Reagan and his CIA sidekick George the Elder. I walked out before I was condemned to the rhetoric of J. Kenneth. I wasn’t invited anyway.
Part of the problem with inviting third party candidates like Bill Peirce and I, is that there would be actual debate and innovative ideas. The next thing you know, a marketplace of ideas would flourish. There would be real political debate and, heaven forbid, democracy might break out. By merely having Strickland and Blackwell, you can span the political spectrum from theocratic Christo-fascism a la Blackwell, to modern 50s Republicanism a la Strickland. I suppose you could make the argument that having two candidates constitutes one more than a dictatorship.
If we are to change the disastrous course the Bush regime is on, Strickland cannot make arguments appealing to the right. He must feel the heat of the progressive forces to his left. If Strickland wins the governorship of Ohio by embracing Republicanism, the people of Ohio will lose. If you really believe in democracy, you should fight for democratic principles. That includes all certified candidates in the debate.
Bob Taft understood this. Why doesn’t Ted Strickland?
Your argument that denying you to the debate harms the marketplace of ideas would have merit if you actually ever expressed any of these allegedly “innovative” ideas.
It’s less than 80 days until the election, and neither on this blog or on your campaign website have you expressed your plan on health, job creation, urban renewal, education, making college more affordable, agriculture, crime, or really anything other than your war against President Bush.
And which part of Strickland’s platform makes him sound like a Republican? His plan for universal health care? Or his early childhood education initiative? Or his energy policy to promote more energy efficient and green technologies?
As always, you offer only empty platitudes, name calling, and no ideas of your own. Frankly, I don’t blame you’re exclusion since you have yet to articulate your own platform while you insist on criticizing everyone elses. The only thing you have publicly promised “bringing Ohio’s National Guard troops currently serving in Iraq” Ohio has been revealed to be a disingenious and empty promise.
You aren’t the only candidate running who is against the war, either. Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown voted agains the war. Strickland has been a vocal critic of the Administration regarding the war. Within the past week, he applauded the federal court’s decision to declare the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program as unconstitutional. So for you to post that it’s not clear where Strickland stand on the war is yet another lie you’ve presented to the Ohio progressive community.
It is all very pragmatic isn’t it?
The point is “modern” is that we as a “democracy” are limited nowadays to the corporate exclusion of alternate candidates. There is no mention of anything. Not even as a public service, the MSM (mainstream media) has a virtual blockade on all but the Dems and Repubs.
So essentially, we have a Corporate Dictatorship, catering to and denying access to anyone outspoken about the truth (both present and historical) and the powers that be.
American naivete, like nostalgia, ain’t what it used to be.