Sep 18, 2008

Not Qualified to Follow

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll finds that most Americans aren't buying the Sarah Palin never-blinks-and-so-ready-to-lead line.

"More than 6 in 10 said they would be concerned if Mr. McCain could not finish his term and Ms. Palin had to take over," says the Times piece.

Polling questions are not always well-formulated.

John McCain, on the other hand, after championing deregulation for decades and seeing his numbers drop, now says his "experience and leadership" will lead the way to reforming Wall Street and protecting the American people.

It's looking likely that most Americans won't buy McCain's line in November.

But one has to wonder what goes on in the mind of the depoliticized American voter in ruminating about qualifications and experience to occupy the presidency.

I mean George W. Bush has been president for seven years and he is still not qualified to serve as president. What would the American public say to the is-Bush-qualified-to-lead question?

A closer look at the political views of Americans reveals that though their notions are vague, most still believe that the presidency is largely a figurehead for special interests looking out for themselves.

"About three-quarters of the population regarded the elections as largely a game played by powerful moneyed interests, party bosses and the public relations industry, which molded the candidates to act and speak in ways that would garner votes, so that it was impossible to believe the candidates even when they were intelligible," said Noam Chomsky after the 2000 elections.

I doubt though that Chomsky's empirically-based views will be presented in the corporate mainstream media no matter how widely held they are among Americans.

Isn't American democracy about the elected representatives following the will of Americans, and not the other way around?

More revealing polling questions would be:

- Just who do Bush, Cheney and McCain think they are?

- Shouldn't the government follow the will and interests of the vast number of Americans and not lead Americans in pursuit of policies serving powerful moneyed interests?

1 comment:

  1. Counter-intuitive but Sarah Palin's lack of experience is good for John McCain.

    If Palin is far less experienced than McCain then it stands to reason that Obama is far less experienced than McCain also.

    I write about this topic more detail in my blog as well. Take a look if you're interested

    http://www.xanga.com/mundanelunacy

    ReplyDelete