WL>While I certainly would have preferred Bob Dole to Bill
WL>Clinton, the fact remains that he had become a career
WL>politician.  Political power affects some people the way
WL>catnip affects some cats -- they do silly things while under
WL>its influence and will do even sillier things to get more.
WL>While I'm sure Bob Dole had every intention of acting only in
WL>the country's best interests if he had been elected President,
WL>he clearly enjoyed political power.  I have a hard time
WL>trusting _anyone_ who enjoys that power so much he/she would
WL>campaign time after time to stay in Washington.
 
       There is a political reality we must consider though.  The
national parties nominate the candidates selected by those parties and
the gain the nomination of a national party one must almost certianly
not only be highly skilled in the art of insider politics, but one must
also have saved up a lot of favors from other politicians.  Then, of
course, comes the issue on money which, itself, is an insider game.
       Occasionally someone with strong ideals will break trough the
insider game and run on strong personal convictions, but when this
happens the politicial elite, seeing itself challanged, cross party
lines and rally around the opponent rather than backing the rebel.  The
two most notable examples of this wer the campaigns of Goldwater and
McGovern and even then they were, to some degree, themselves political
insiders.
       Those outseld the loop, Buchannan, Jerry Brown, Ron Pual, to
cover the full political spectrum, have no chance to gaining the party
nomination because they are outsiders and should, by some quirk, they
ever do so, they will find the forces of the status quo so forcefully
arrayed against them they will be lucky to carry their home states.
       Sure Dole was flawed, Reagan was flawed, Bush was flawed, all
were, and remain, subject to critisism for having abandoned the values
they were elected, or campaigned, to support, but none were as bad as
Clinton or, almost certianly, the nominee the Democrats will come up
with to follow Clinton.  
 
      It is a sad state of afairs, but it is also a political reality.
If someone is nominated we can have faith in, they will lose and lose
badly.  If someone is nominated we can barely tolerate, they may have a
realistic chance of winning.  If someone is nominated that turns our
stomachs, they will probably win by a landslide.
      I keep casting votes, in every election, for men of principle who
I know have no chance at all of being elected, in fact, men who have no
chance of carrying even one state, but I cast my vote becuse I beleive
these men will make the best president of those available.  I lose,
I'll keep losing, but I'll continue to vote for the man who I beleive
is right. 
 
     That's about all we can do. 
 
                                         /\/\ike
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