Posted by
Ron Devito on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 9:35:01 PM
The purpose of a primary or a caucus is for members of a political
party to select their nominee for a particular office. Two or more
candidates vie for the nomination and out of this process, the “cream
rises to the top” – that is the strongest candidate gets the nomination.
Once a candidate is nominated, party leaders, power brokers, pundits,
and rank-and-file voters are then supposed to unite behind the nominee.
Once a candidate is nominated all vets and bets are off. If something
about a candidate - either known or unknown – is problematic - the party
and its members are stuck, because the decision was already made. This
is true for both Democrats and Republicans.
Our Republican primary here in New York came down to three candidates, though four were on the ballot.
Decisions, Decisions
As
the months passed, I vetted the candidates’ records, but the best
vetting tool was the ticking clock. I remember when today’s primary was
over half a year away. Now, mere hours ago, I donned my red shirt, set
my American and Gadsden flags on my house, and went with pen in hand to
my polling place….
Simple process of elimination: Romney, Paul,
and Santorum are off the table for me right from the start. Romney may
very well become the nominee, but not by my vote. I don’t appreciate
insincere “evolving positions,” and out-of-touch plutocracy. I don’t
consider Ron Paul to be a serious candidate. Santorum is out of the
race, but his self-righteousness and inability to manage his behavior on
the stump were big turn-offs for me anyway.
That leaves Gingrich.
He is a Reagan-era conservative who actually balanced budgets. For Gov.
Palin, voting for Gingrich was her only logical choice. She chose not
to run, therefore, she could not write herself in. Being a Reagan
Conservative herself, Gingrich is the only candidate whose views come
closest to hers. He is also the only one of the three who has
consistently defended Gov. Palin and has had positive things to say
about her. I did not have to ask “what would Sarah do?” because I
already know as a matter of public record what she did do.
New York Write-Ins: In Name Only
Though
write-ins are supposedly permitted in the State and City of New York,
the candidate who wants to be written in must fill out paperwork to
become a write-in choice on the ballot. New York’s vision of a write-in
is self-contradictory. If a candidate is listed on the ballot, the
candidate is declared and not a write-in. A write-in is supposed to be a
section on the ballot that consists of an oval and a blank line where
the voter starts tabula rasa, because the
voter is not satisfied with the declared choices. As a voter, I could
try a “write-in” at the scanner without using the ballot, the inspector
told me, but I risked having my vote invalidated and not counted. For
practical purposes, write-in does not exist anywhere in the State of New
York. You pick from the listed choices or stay home.
Having
already eliminated three out of the four candidates as being anyone I’d
vote for, Gingrich was the last one standing. To be kind, Gingrich’s
campaign is in its death throes, and not what I would deem worthy of
rewarding with a vote. If I was going to squander a vote, I wanted to at
least squander it on someone I believe in. My options were: vote
against my values by selecting Romney or Paul; try to force a write-in
that would not be counted – tantamount to voting for Romney;
disenfranchise myself and go home…or follow in Gov. Palin’s footsteps….
...I
filled in the oval next to Gingrich’s name and walked to the scanner,
and set the ballot in the feeder. The scanner registered it, and the
cardstock ballot dropped to the bottom of the bin. My vote had been cast
and counted.
No Pale Pastels, but Bold Colors….
"Our
people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or
is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale
pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we
stand on all of the issues troubling the people?," then Gov. Reagan said
37 years ago at the 1975 CPAC meeting.
In 1976 Reagan described the Democratic Party platform as, “nothing
but a revamp and a reissue and a running of a late, late show of the
thing that we have been hearing from them for the last 40 years.”
Our presumptive nominee – “presumptive”
is the operative word here - only offers pale pastels. The late, late
show has now been running for over 76 years. Now, our party
establishment wants to offer the same late, late show, just with a
different host.
Today's Bold Colors
What I
want is an open convention. On the next ballot, this is what I want to
see: someone with executive experience who leads by example. I want
someone who has commanded troops, elevated ranks, and has been present
at deployment and home-coming ceremonies. I want someone who has
experience managing major crises and disasters at the state and city
level. I want someone who has experience working with world trade,
foreign consuls and diplomats. I want someone with a solid understanding
of energy production, generation, transmission and distribution. I want
someone who has managed large budgets and has run a surplus. I want
someone who has a long track record of accomplishments great and small. I
want someone who has a proven ability to withstand media scrutiny. I
want someone who resonates, who feels like a close friend, who has an
impeccable character that inspires confidence and commands respect. I
want someone with an absolute sense of justice and empathy. I want
someone who has lived life and has a discerning sense of judgment. I
want a strong leader who is not afraid to say it as it is and not
afflicted with the cancer of political correctness. There are probably a
few things I forgot, but this is a solidly comprehensive list.
Our Greatest Danger
Yes,
Gov. Palin has said multiple times, “there is no perfect candidate.”
True enough. But, excellence that resides in the realm of the
extraordinary does exist. You can see, hear, and touch its embodiment in
all areas of human endeavor. In politics, extraordinary excellence is
rare, but it does get embodied once, maybe twice every century.
My
state with its motto of "Excelsior" (Latin: "Ever Upward") would not
let me write in extraordinary excellence today, but I followed in her footsteps.
Romney
may or may not be as "inevitable" as he and his supporters crack him up
to be. We will not know for sure until the convention. If any readers
are delegates, just remember: when you choose pale pastels and
mediocrity, the outcome is also predictable and inevitable.
“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”
—Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
1475 -1564, Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer