Meanderings on the US Presidential Primaries

Hi all

I am breaking my recent silence (ill health and real life interrupting my flow of bile and vitriol) to chat about the US Presidential primary campaign.

First of all, I am highly amused at the level of coverage that the race is receiving so much coverage over here in the UK. US elections are always covered of course, as you would expect since they are the richest, most powerful nation in the world. But never have I seen such enthusiastic and extensive reporting during such an early stage of the bizarre and convoluted American system for electing their highest office holder.

Why the interest? To my mind there can only be one answer - It is a symptom of what an arsehole GWB is and how much the rest of the world is looking forward to his leaving office, and hopefully dropping off the face of the Earth completely.

That comment may surprise some of you. I am in favour of “humanitarian intervention” and big power interference in the affairs of the global community. I am a self confessed Islamaphobe. I am also totally indifferent to the stamping on the rights of individuals and alienating the communities that present a clear and definite danger to our Western way of life. Being this way, GWB should be one of my idols should he not?

Well, no. The man is a moron, a liar, a hypocrite, a coward, and the worst president in many many years – worse than Nixon in my opinion. I could wax lyrical about the depths of my loathing of the man and the reasons why, but will just leave it at this – he fucked up the whole concept of “humanitarian intervention” and divided the West with his heavy handed ineptitude when we should be united behind the cause of protecting our civilization and our way of life against the insidious influence of the crescent.

Which brings me back to the primaries, and his replacement. Now, I am very politically erractic and mixed up. While I can comfortably hide behind the label of “very conservative”, there are elements of my beliefs that touch socialism, fascism, libertarianism, liberalism and many forms of “-ism”. I male no apologies for this, and in my mind they all form things up the way they should be in an ideal world. Read my manifesto below for an example of this. But what will surprise many of you is that, if I were entitled to, I would almost certainly vote Democrat.

Why? Well, I support a lot of “big government” issues and actually do have a soft spot for the common man (as long as said man doesn’t sit on his arse collecting social benefits for all eternity just because he cannot be bothered to do anything else). I also am rather suspicious of big business and the cabal of oligarchs that often seem to run everything (especially in the bloody EU – but that’s a rant for another time). The comments and ideals that “conservative democrats” often espouse in the US click with me when I encounter them. I also do not believe that a man’s religion, personal life or sexuality have any bearing on his ability to competently lead (as long as he is not doing anything illegal), which would obviously separate me from Republican allegiance.

Which brings us to my next problem, or what would be a problem if I was an American voter. Obama or Clinton. My answer would be Clinton for many reasons, but mainly boiling down to experience – Obama is just too inexperienced in Federal governance to be credible in my opinion, despite the chords he has struck with young voters.

But no matter who I would vote for, it would not matter, since it is my opinion the wrong time to put up a woman or a black man for the US presidency. It’s a sad fact, but an accurate one I fear. I am certain that by going this route, the Democrats are handing the election to McCain, which would be an unmitigated disaster. I just do not believe that middle America is going to embrace either Clinton or Obama as their leader.

Voter apathy is as endemic in the US as it is here – and I think that the frighteningly ignorant people that make up such a huge proportion of the US electorate will actually get off their arses and out of their trailers to cast a vote for the first time ever to avoid a “liberal cry-baby woman” or a “uppity nigger” getting the top job.

And that makes me angry. While I would never vote for Obama, it is not the colour of his skin that alienates me. I do harbour concerns about how he will pay back the support of black voters, but I do actually think that he is a man of enough integrity to avoid being a special interest mouthpiece. The reasons I would not vote for him are policy ones and concerns about his lack of high level leadership experience.

Yet my perspective is coloured by my own social liberalism, which while scarily non-existent compared to the chattering liberal media blinded middle-classes here in the UK, is actually several steps more liberal than most Americans. This relatively objective viewpoint will not, in my opinion, be shared by the vast majority of the American electorate.

Which leaves us all in the crapper. Of the three likely candidates in the presidential race, the almost inevitable winner will be McCain. A man, who while paying lip service to conservatism and support for the military, actually wants to institute changes which will weaken the only country with the balls to fight the War on Terror properly (even if their competence in doing so thus far has been occasionally laughable).

And as you know, or should if you have read some of my posts, the War on Terror is a war that I believe must be fought consistently, unhesitatingly, and to the knife to preserve our way of life.

I know that Obama or Clinton would follow the same path to some extent, but I believe that McCain would do the most damage in the long run.

I just hope that I am wrong and a Democrat gets in – I just do not think I will be.