Djelloul Marbrook

The Democrats don’t want to and the Republicans are unfit to govern. That is, I think, the predicament American voters face.

If the Democrats were prepared to govern would their front-runners be two candidates whose electability is questionable at best? If the Republicans were fit to govern would their front-runners be hauling around so much malodorous baggage?

These are parties unwilling and perhaps incapable of purifying themselves. They’re hostage to unsavory money. Neither one represents the people as the people express themselves in poll after poll. And neither one is interested in unifying the nation.

Does anyone really think Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Fred Thompson, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would bring us together to end a spell of paralyzing polarization? Are these people our best hope for remaining one nation rather than two nations, red and blue?

These two parties demonstrate by their front-runners that they would rather be right than govern the United States of America. Right about what? Selling us out to corporations intent on exporting the common weal via a declining dollar?

What can we be thinking to contemplate such candidates? Do the media accurately portray what we’re thinking? They certainly portray what they’re thinking by the miserable coverage they’ve given John Edwards, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson—they’re thinking the corporations the media serve don’t like these men.

We don’t need candidates who doll up our already divisive self-righteousness. We need candidates to convince us we can pull together for a better common destiny. Candidates who preach to the choir don’t deserve the attention they’re getting. I may live in New York, but I care what happens to people in Idaho and my closely held presumption is that they care about me. That’s what nationhood is, so let’s have candidates who speak to our compassion for each other, not our prejudices. Let’s have candidates who know that in a democracy you must govern from the middle, not by chicanery but by consensus.

—DM