Monday, November 06, 2006

We must end one-party rule for the good of the country

The midterm elections tomorrow are not about choices between individual candidates. These elections are a referendum on the one party rule that has dominated our national government during the past few years. The Republican dominated Senate and House of Representatives have abdicated their responsibilities of oversight of the executive branch. The Bush administration is working hard to run our country into the ground as the leadership of Congress sits idly by doing nothing.

Therefore, regardless of what we may like or dislike about individual candidates all that matters is their party affiliation. If you approve of what the Bush administration has done to our country then you should vote Republican. However, if you disapprove or think we can do better then you should vote Democratic in order to put the votes together to change the leadership in Congress. Only this way can oversight begin to check the rampant corruption and incompetence. Only this way can the country start to put the skids on the recklessness of this administration.

This includes Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee. Senator Chafee is a great Senator but he has made his deal with the devil and remained in the Republican Party. He’s got to go.

Here are Paul Krugman’s thoughts why we should vote to end one party rule in Washington:

President Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow. But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office.

There are still some people urging Mr. Bush to change course. For example, a scathing editorial published today by The Military Times, which calls on Mr. Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld, declares that “this is not about the midterm elections.” But the editorial’s authors surely know better than that. Mr. Bush won’t fire Mr. Rumsfeld; he won’t change strategy in Iraq; he won’t change course at all, unless Congress forces him to.

At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all of his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.

In other words, he’s the sort of man who should never have been put in a position of authority, let alone been given the kind of unquestioned power, free from normal checks and balances, that he was granted after 9/11. But he was, alas, given that power, as well as a prolonged free ride from much of the news media.

The results have been predictably disastrous. The nightmare in Iraq is only part of the story. In time, the degradation of the federal government by rampant cronyism — almost every part of the executive branch I know anything about, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been FEMAfied — may come to be seen as an equally serious blow to America’s future.
*****


… here’s the thing: no matter how hard the Bush administration may try to ignore the constitutional division of power, Mr. Bush’s ability to make deadly mistakes has rested in part on G.O.P. control of Congress. That’s why many Americans, myself included, will breathe a lot easier if one-party rule ends tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For me, voting is always about checks and balances, and I have always voted against one party domination in the three branches of government at the federal and state level.

For example, at the federal level during the last presidential election, (besides me not liking Bush) the legislative and judicial branches were dominated by republicans, therefore, I voted democrat. At the state level during the last gubernatorial election, I voted for the republican candidate because the legislative and judicial branches were dominated by democrats.

No matter what your party affiliation, it is a pretty scary thing when one party dominates all three branches of government because there are no checks and balances upon that ideology. When you have one party rule, typically the legislative will enact it, the executive will sign it into law, and the judicial branch will uphold it. Therefore, we at least need one different party dominating one branch of government to impose some checks and balances upon the party dominating the other two branches.

Anonymous said...

I have no problem with voting against the status quo, but I would urge you to consider the fact both the Democrats and Republicans have lead us to where we are today, and they are not interested in sharing power with anyone else.

What do the Democrats stand for exactly? I don't know except they hate Republicans. I can understand the strategic vote, but I urge to keep thinking Green. Look at the GP's key values and press releases on gp.org

Compare this to the moral vacume left by both Republicans and Democrats. Where do they list their key vaules? And, why should they be allowed to continue their duopoly when IRV and other reforms offer the chance to create real refrom and real debate?