It’s come to this – while 40-year Alaska Senate incumbent Ted Stevens fights to maintain his recently re-elected seat amidst federal corruption felony convictions former GOP vice presidential candidate and current Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is finagling her way into the potential opening. Personally I could care less.
Stevens and Palin embody everything the Republican Party has come to represent – scandal failure and single-mindedness. Whether these classifications are justified or not is beside the point.
I for one refuse to sit and deliberate over what the Alaskan Senate seat could mean for congressional Republicans because what Palin decides to do with her career will have virtually no effect on our country’s new political tide. In the words of her former running mate John McCain “The American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly and the last thing on their minds is the political party that allegedly destroyed their nation.
As an Independent voter who both worked for and supported McCain, I have watched the liberal backlash resultant of the Bush administration from a front-row seat. McCain never stood a chance in this election, and the same can be said for Republicans running for Congress. Republican” might as well be deemed one of the seven dirty words in today’s culture and I think it’s safe to expect a fairly long stretch of Democratic hold on both the executive and legislative branches of our country.
So while liberals rejoice about the positive affirmation of their party and conservatives mourn the ruined reputation of their party I find my sanity cemented in the prospect of political centrism – something the United States as a whole finds far too difficult to grasp.
The fundamentals of the American society are rooted in the concept of competition and the politics that have come to govern the country prove no exception. Partisanship – typically to either the Democratic or Republican Party – allows Americans to become politically active in a way that complements their lure to rivalry. The problem is with parties prescribing issue platforms to their names too many people get lost in upholding their partisan expectations rather than considering options from both sides.
Behold the bias that envelops the American political system.
Making recent headlines alongside Palin’s Senate pursuit – albeit much smaller headlines thought potentially more ramifying – are Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman’s talks with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Lieberman defeated in the 2006 Democratic primary Senate election was reelected as an Independent and has since faced abrasive criticism from the Democratic Party for his support of McCain and the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Yet his loyalty to the Democratic Caucus has given it a decisive 51 to 49 edge to maintain control of the chamber.
With the recent influx of Democratic representatives to Congress however the Caucus is no longer dependent on Lieberman’s support and it is consequentially considering stripping him of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee – a maneuver that could “exile” him to the Republican party thereby depleting any chance he would have of reelection on the historically liberal Eastern Seaboard. Being punished for maintaining moderate ideals is a disturbing notion and it exemplifies the unwillingness of Americans to accept bipartisan beliefs.
Many point to the Sept. 15 economic collapse as the ultimate fatality of McCain’s presidential run. It is a widely held stereotype that Democrats handle domestic issues such as the economy better than Republicans. Yet what Americans failed to account for is that another hot-button issue is also critically affecting our nation – the war in Iraq – and Republicans have long been believed to excel in foreign policy.
It’s the ideological barrier at work – Americans cannot feasibly accept multiple facets of the political spectrum. Even on Facebook users are asked to label their “political views” on their profiles so as to be pigeonholed accordingly. “Moderate” seems like a safe option but even that tag carries a type of partisan burden.
In the pursuit of political centrism and the need for national bipartisan cooperation I proudly boast my proclaimed Facebook political views to be “open-mindedness and I hope that other Americans will find the courage, especially in the wake of a partisan takeover, to do the same.