Oh Politic Where Art Thou?.

If you weren’t paying attention to my Asides feature, you may not have noticed that me and my conservative, house-church nemesis (tongue-in-cheek) Derek got into a little tiff this weekend over some political stuff. I actually really like Derek and have gone to a movie with him, his brother, and a friend. As a complete side note, he’s been hosting a rather insightful collection of posts on some of Frank Viola’s older work over on his site that you should probably check out.

Anyway . . . he made a couple of comments in the comments (ha) that assumed I was voting for Barack. And while I have blogged about my affection and interest for the Senator (here and here) . . . I also haven’t written much here about what I think of the process and the election, outside of why I won’t give money to a campaign. I thought it might be therapeutic for me to get a few things off my chest about the whole political process.

Let me begin with what might be a bit of a surprise. I actually like John McCain the person. I definitely don’t jive with his thoughts on war. Nor do I think his rhetoric involving “enemies” is very helpful in the short or long term. But as a person . . . I think we could be friends. I find him to be honest. I find him to be fairly engaging. And I find him to be pretty straight-forward and honest. I think he has backbone and dare I say virtue, although I did make the backbone comment in the past about a current 2 term president. All that to say, I still wouldn’t vote for him. But I think I just might like him as a person. He stands up for what he believes in. But not in a creepy, twisted logic kind of way. He explains his perspectives like a gentleman. And I don’t think he’s full of BS like some of the other political candidates (Clinton, Romney, Huckabee, Edwards – hell everybody but Obama, McCain, and Paul). But again, still wouldn’t vote for him unless you paid me handsomely. He still relies to heavily on the Straussian need for an enemy.

Now to Barack Obama. I stand by my earlier statements that he might not be the most seasoned candidate for President (Hillary’s “ready from day one” rhetoric is a joke) and I might not agree with all of his policies (even if they are still in their infant stages), but I think he’s the best person for what our country needs right now. Namely, a military withdrawal from Middle East conflicts, and secondly, someone who will be diplomatic enough to repair our image across the globe and do so in non-military ways. I also think he brings about a certain energy/hope/bipartisanship that engages people who normally wouldn’t be engaged in the political process. For example, Anna is currently downloading Barack Obama wallpapers and screensavers. Seeing her face and excitement after voting in the Georgia primary gives me hope that civil engagement doesn’t have to be complicated or detached. It can affect everyday people who don’t like to read huge economic or political works. The biggest concern that I see for Obama is letting other people influence him and in turn allow his policies to evolve into a diluted down, mash-up of his cabinet or advisers, in effect a politician.

However, with all that being said, I’m growing increasingly ambivalent towards the political process. I’m not sure if it’s just in my indie jeans to dislike anything that becomes popular or if it’s something more substantial. Lydia over on the Emerging Women blog asks some interesting questions as well about these crushes that we have for Obama. I really like the guy. I voted for him in the primary, but just barely (I almost didn’t vote at all). But he’s not superman. He’s not going to save our country. Or even fix it. He is but a man. And a politician at that. To think that he’s going to fix everything is to deceive ourselves.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that a President has less and less of a real impact on the “state of the world”, although you could certainly convince me otherwise with Clinton’s NAFTA, Bush’s war mongering, and Regan’s reversal of the New Deal as evidence. I guess I just contradicted myself.

But I’m just so apathetic to this whole process at this point. Perhaps it’s the length of the contest. Perhaps it’s the insane amount of money that gets spent. Perhaps it’s what you have to become and lose in order to move forward. Perhaps it’s my tiring of reading every blog that comes into my RSS praise the golden boy from Illinois.

Perhaps it’s just that I’m afraid that we are putting way to much stock into Obama getting elected and fixing everything.

Maybe he will. What do I know?

I also think that a couple of hours of talking with Chris Haw about Thoreau, Hauerwas, Yoder, and the Amish, to name a few, has completely clouded my hope in the American political project.

In the end, I’m just not sure how relevant politics is. Or rather, how relevant we should desire to be in the political process. This is not to say that Jesus wasn’t interested in the politics of Rome. Or that he didn’t attempt to subvert Rome in his own way. But that his methods of doing so was based on an effort at irrelevancy as opposed to relevancy.

Anybody still reading my ramblings at this point?

John Edwards Drops Out.

The real question will be whether he was legit in developing his voice and backbone. I still think it’s funny how much he changed over the past 12-18 months. Now if Hillary jumps out to a lead, will he endorse her to snag vice-president. Or will he stick to his guns and continue to critique Clinton and praise Obama’s change. I find it kind of odd that he wouldn’t go ahead and endorse a candidate one way or the other. Especially since he’s been so opposed to Clinton and on Obabma’s side. Instead he’s “going to hang back and “does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.” Sounds a bit opportunistic to me.

Why I Won’t Give Money To A Campaign.

Let me just say up front, I’ve got no problem if you support a candidate financially. As a matter of fact I know many people who contribute to campaigns and these people are quite nice. And they believe, for good reason, that their contributions play a viable roll in the political process.

However, as for me and my house . . . well that’s another story. I write this because I’ve been so very close on 3 different occasions to being lured in to give small amounts to a candidate that I like. And each time I’ve had to remind myself of why I had committed not to give, even when it felt like it was something I should do.

To me (and I could be wrong) the problem with America is that there is a growing disconnect between citizens and our government. I’m beginning to learn that this disconnect is not necessarily all the government’s (or big business) fault. That in many ways, we – the citizen, are complicit in what goes on by our blind indifference and lack of radical action. But the problem of this growing disconnect is that many citizens are growing more and more disillusioned with the government and political process.

Long story short, everyday people feel like their best interests as citizens (globally and nationally) are being ignored. Power has been centralized in the hands of the “few”. And these “few” are being influenced by people other than your average, everyday citizen.

For example, getting elected these days is no longer about whose ideas are the most progressive (Kucinich & Paul respectively for each party). Getting elected these days is more like king of the hill with the hill being made up of money. Take a look at the charts below (courtesy of OpenSecrets.org) and you can see very quickly just how the front runners because of their cash flow.

No longer are ideas, ingenuity, or your average citizen what gets you elected. But it’s how much money you have and how fast you can raise it. If history is always told from the perspective of the side that wins, what does that say about our election process? These exorbitant dollar figures that are raised and consequently spent effectively box out the average man from running for a government position. Only those with deep pockets to begin with are even allowed to get the ball rolling in that direction. The day when a man like me could step up and represent his community, be the voice for his context . . . that day is over. Bigger is better. And bigger has won.

Now to be fair, some candidates, Obama and Paul for example, have raised a good majority of their support from small donations from small donors while others have chosen to take large chunks of change from lobbyists and big donors. So at least these campaigns are more representative of the average citizen.

But it’s the process that’s broken. Even if the money is raised from average citizens, what does it say about our average citizens when their candidate has raised over $80 million dollars and already spent $44 million not even a month into the official race?

$80 million dollars for Obama. $90 million for Clinton. $62 million for Romney. $47 million for Giuliani.

You’re looking at a half a billion dollars being sucked out of the average citizen so that we can change the letterhead in the White House? To replace one man with another (or woman)? The process is broken.

Even if I were to give a small donation of $25 to my guy . . . and even if that donation was more representative of the average citizen instead of the big corporation or large donor . . . is this process even sustainable?

In a world where people die from something as simple as clean water to drink, is a half a billion dollars 1 month into an election sustainable?

I can’t imagine this model is replicated in other countries. Only in America would something balloon to this size and most people not bat an eye.

As much as I love Kucinich, I don’t want to help him buy his way into the White House. And as much as I love Barack, I don’t want to help him buy his way into the White House.

You should be able to become a Senator or a President without having to have the biggest pile of money.

I’m tired of being complicit. I might vote for Barack. But he’s not getting a dime of mine. Is that a contradiction?

Perhaps I’m being too critical so I’d love your feedback. Have you donated? Why or why not? What kind of hang-ups with giving money to a campaign do you have? What strengths do you see in giving money?

Hillary Clinton.

This doesn’t surprise me. And by the way, it wouldn’t surprise me if we found out every candidate does this.

I’m just not sure what the infatuation is with Hillary. I know that a great majority of her support is coming from donors and friends of Bill. And when you’re the president for 8 years, you have a lot of favors you’re able to call in. So I think the great majority of her numbers are made up from this group of lifelong Democrats. But come on?

She flips as much Kerry. She is owned by the lobbyists. Espouses the same interpretative grid as W. She also comes off like some sort of robotic cyborg.

I saw Barack on Leno last week. And I’m starting to get re-energized about his campaign. As much as I think Kuccinich would be the perfect antithesis to our current policies, we all know that he’ll never make it because he sounds like Jesus and looks like a Star Trek extra. But Barack . . . I think there is some real potential with him. Listening to how he doesn’t take money from lobbyists, is raising it on a grass roots level $5 at a time, and the fact that he has such a generous nice tone when he talks is inspiring when the other Democratic option is robot girl.

Right-Wing Facebook.

This is a pretty funny parody that these guys have going poking fun at the Republican candidates. Their site is here but there is a screen cap below. I wish someone would start one for the Democrats.

Hillary’s could say:
Hillary Clinton left the group “Universal Health Care”.
Hillary Clinton joined the group “Kaiser Permanente Has Me In Their Back Pocket”

Kucinich’s could say:
Dennis Kucinich added “Convincing everyone I’m not an extra-terrestrial and am in fact human” to his Interests.

Barack’s could say:
Barack Obama is trying to remember what he was like before he turned into a politician.

Richardson’s could say:
Bill Richardson is wondering why qualifications should even matter. After all over-qualification is sooo over-rated these days.