AMERICA’S MAD DASH TO IRRELEVANCE: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 2012
By Joseph J. Honick
It was about four years ago that I raised the specter of irrelevance consuming the U.S., the bastion of hope and freedom in the world, but also a nation consumed by the human and material costs of two unwinnable wars and the onset of domestic economic recession. I noted that we are often at our most vulnerable and confused during presidential election campaigns.
Nothing has changed that concern.
What has indeed multiplied the reality of our diminished standing is not so much the expected reality of the campaign but its embarrassing vulgarity. The “curtain call” for that campaign that saw Republicans taking the majority of the House of Representatives and a relatively small Democratic majority in the Senate was the post mortem declaration of political war against the sitting president by the two Republican leaders of the two Houses. What was absent was a similar declaration those Republican leaders wanted to work with the sitting president to secure the future.
Now as the nation is faced with a presidential campaign whose costs run to an estimated $5.6 billion and still more tons for local and state campaigns, the rest of the world looks on in bewilderment.
Every four years, we get a chance to headline candidates who could focus on means to reestablish confidence in America’s role as world leaders. Unfortunately, President Obama has not only had to deal with a Republican campaign that began two years ago but the realities of his own limited influence here and abroad. His long ago designated opponent, a one-term state governor and business consultant, George Romney, has presented little that affords confidence but also raises questions as to what influences stand behind his efforts.
In short, and in the words of an old, sad song : “Is this all there is, my friend?”
In the process, and in the eyes of much of the world, we are in a mad dash to irrelevance, shielded only by our power.
What can and must be done?
For openers, there is a need to “cleanse” the process by which we choose the most powerful individual in the world to occupy the most powerful office in the world. Three immediate steps could be taken if the warring political parties could place the nation before their political interests:
Limit the campaign period to 90 days following the nominating conventions.
Eliminate any funding for political conventions by the Federal Election Commission.
Provide public financing of equal portions for both major political candidates, and prohibit any other funding following nominating conventions.
Would this create a perfect world? Of course not. It would evoke the screams of special interest groups, public relations firms and others who make tons on the campaigns that these steps would frustrate the First Amendment of the Constitution.
And I am clearly aware of the Constitutional election prescriptions that exist, but I also recall that same document permitted Prohibition and some other oddities until logic prevailed for change.
Those steps would, however, expose those who have little interest in the good of the country and want only to manipulate the very freedoms guaranteed in that document.
Until such steps are taken, or others that might be still more productive, our descent into irrelevance around the world will only be hastened, as other powers continue to assert themselves.
So what stands in the way of change? It is the same two ingredients that always impeded progress: lack of courage and leadership.
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Joseph J. Honick is president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash, writes for many publications and can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com