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In keeping with the Republican imperative of winning above all else, the president from the very beginning attempted to instill fear in the populace at every turn. He scared us to death to make sure we attacked Iraq. He scared us at home by every once in a while changing the security color code to orange. He did this before the Democratic and Republican conventions. He even implied that Al Qaeda would disrupt the election. During the entire campaign, he scared us by saying that Kerry would not protect us. When the Swift Boat Veterans mounted their Kerry smear campaign, Bush refused to say he was against what they were doing, thereby implicitly supporting them. After all, it added to the scare campaign.
Then there is what is called "values." If you are against abortion and against same-sex marriage you have "values." If you are for them, you have no "values." According to this Republican definition, Bush was fighting for "values."
What about the "value" of allowing a woman the right to choose? What about the "value" of guaranteeing civil rights to everyone regardless of their sexual preference?
What about all the Democratic "values," like raising the minimum wage to lift people out of the miseries of poverty; like assuring jobs for people who work for a living; like offering good healthcare to all so more people will feel like blessed Americans; like getting all people, rich and poor, to pay their fair share of taxes; like doing all we can to prevent war so we do not kill innocent people. As an aside, the Pope was against the Iraq War.
The president knew that there was no way his No-Same-Sex-Marriage Amendment would ever pass. He proposed it in order to encourage a little bigotry. Many bigots took him up on it. There is reason to believe that in Ohio, the last state to fall for Bush, bigots were drawn to the polls in order to affirm their "values" by voting to restrict same-sex marriage; while there, they voted for Bush.
Some people call this good tactics. I call such actions un-American. However, it appears that in present-day America un-American actions are used to win presidential campaigns.
John Kerry had many opportunities to take the low road, but he resisted. He stuck to the issues as he saw them. He did not lend his name to the bad tactics of some of his Democratic surrogates. Of course, he made mistakes. But it makes me feel good that the Democratic candidate ran his campaign as a good American.
Un-American actions in presidential cmpaigns bode ill for the future of our democracy. We must devise ways for making our campaigns less smeary and more positive. The 3 debates were a start. At least each candidate had a chance to reply to the latest attack.
