Page 30 - Flathead Beacon // 7.27.16

LIKE I WAS SAYIN’
TWO FOR THOUGHT SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT VIEWS THE KAINE PICK
KELLYN BROWN
UNCONVENTIONAL DMEBUT
BY TIM BALDWIN
Like Donal Trump, Hillary Clinton just picked a
“safe” choice for VP, Sen. Tim Kaine. “Like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, his Republican counterpart, Kaine brings a steady temperament and unpretentious per- sonality to the campaign,” as USA Today put it. Now what?
As much as some Republicans dislike Trump, they fear the thought of Clinton becoming president and thus will vote Trump. On the other side, many Bernie Sanders supporters vowed never to vote for Clinton, but Trump’s potential success will drive them to hold their nose.
While the idea of voting against a candidate, as opposed to voting for a candidate, is not new, the choices in 2016 highlight this political survival instinct. Of course, this gives third parties, particu- larly the Libertarian Party, a chance to rise and set a stage for future success.
In truth, the Libertarian platform ts a large por- tion of Americans’ political preferences, but the media controls which candidates get exposure, which makes the di erence at the end of the day. Thus, while many voters who vote for Trump or Clinton would rather vote for Gary Johnson, they will choose either Trump or Clinton because they know the chances of Johnson getting the popular vote are slim.
Kaine will help Clinton’s chances of winning, but ultimately, 2016’s political upheaval should awaken people to the fact that media’s control of politics is unsafe for a democratic republic.
BY JOE CARBONARI
Tim Kaine should help the Democratic ticket.
The Virginia senator is intelligent, well informed, and stable. He can provide good counsel, and he can get things done. Should the need arise he could take over as president and maintain order and con- dence. He is generally respected and liked. He knows Washington and serves on the important Foreign Relations Committee. He is well-versed in international issues, their complexities, and the players. He is steady.
Steady counts. When we vote in November we will be electing a team with a vision and a mission. The views of the two parties di er. The teams that they would build and the approaches they would take di er. It is the team as a whole and its man- ner of play that we should be deciding on. Which team, which approach, is most likely to advance our prosperity and our security, both at home and abroad? As in baseball, it is more than the pitchers that decide the game. It is the team as a whole; the way that it functions, and the support that it gets.
The personalities of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do matter. They set a tone. Both candidates have been disappointing of late; Clinton unwill- ing to admit error in a convincing way and Trump a ecting a combination of machismo, petulance, and demagoguery. Full support for either requires the willing suspension of disbelief. In this circum- stance, I nd Tim Kaine uninspiring but calming. Thank you, Hillary.
ONTANA CONGRESSMAN RYAN ZINKE TOOK the stage last week, but unless you tuned into CSPAN or streamed it online, you wouldn’t
have seen him. On the rst night of the Republican National Convention the speeches were running late and, despite Zinke being touted as a keynote speaker, the net- works and cable channels had cut away and most of the audience left.
It was a bizarre beginning to a bizarre week that saw a Trump campaign speechwriter acknowledge she had mistakenly inserted lines from First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech into Melania Trump’s; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz loudly booed for refusing to endorse Donald Trump; and the nominee himself deliver a lengthy and raucous speech centered largely on restoring law and order in America.
Zinke’s speech was uneventful in comparison. Tapped for a night themed “Make America Safe Again,” he talked about his experience in the Navy SEALs and criticized President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton as “armchair quarterbacks” responsible for weakening the country’s standing in the world.
“Our world knows this president is weak and his anointed successor, the architect of Benghazi, is no bet- ter.” He served up a boilerplate speech and delivered it well over the course of six minutes. And he would have drawn more applause if more people were still in the building.
It was a strange scene, watching Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, then Zinke, speak to the thinning crowd. It was stranger still two nights later when a packed arena shouted down Cruz, the runner-up in the GOP primary, as Donald Trump entered the building and waved to the audience. But memories prove short when comparing this to pre- vious conventions that were just as unconventional and far more chaotic.
After Robert Kennedy was killed during the presi- dential primary, Democrats had no clear frontrunner at its 1968 convention in Chicago. Instead of choosing Sen. Eugene McCarthy, the party establishment chose Vice President Hubert Humphrey as its nominee, despite the fact that he hadn’t competed in any primaries. Mayhem ensued on live television as attendees screamed “The whole world is watching!” and riots erupted outside the convention hall.
Because of the scene in Chicago, conventions are far more calculated than they once were. The speakers stick to similar scripts that traditionally revolve around why their candidate is better than the opponent. Old rivalries are mended. Everyone comes together. Most of the time.
Some years, not everything goes as planned and not every speech is well received. Before there was Ted Cruz, there was Ted Kennedy. In 1980, Kennedy challenged his party’s sitting president, Jimmy Carter. Despite Carter’s clear path to the nomination, Kennedy attempted to free delegates from their commitments to the incumbent. While Kennedy supported Carter, his lack of enthusiasm for nominee was apparent, and the former president later wrote that the scene “was quite damaging to our cam- paign, and was to linger for a long time.”
It’s too soon to tell whether Cruz’s non-endorsement will hurt him or hurt Trump. In the immediate after- math, Cruz’s fellow Republicans called him everything from “sel sh” to a “self-centered liar.” Perhaps it was best that Zinke largely stayed out of the fray, unnoticed by many outside our state.
When Trump accepted the nomination on July 21, Zinke was already back in Montana discussing the plight of the timber industry in Columbia Falls. And another convention, this one for the Democrats, was preparing to begin in Philadelphia.
AMERICAN RURAL DIANE SMITH AFTER THE FRENZY
Y
media pros and politicians who know exactly how to escalate our fears and anguish until we’re in a frenzy and calling for blood.
Tired of an EPA that cares more about wolves and dead trees than your livelihood?
Fed up with politicians that tell you they’ve got your back then adopt tax and trade policies that leave you behind so their donors can get further ahead?
Frustrated with political/media-speak that focuses more on the future of foreigners than you and your kids?
Worried about terrorism but the thought of sending your kids to ght ground wars in countries you don’t give a hoot about makes you seethe?
Then stop the crazy and say so. Calmly. Enough with the yelling, blaming and jail-mongering. Are you listening to fast-talking politicians and media types who scream in your ear all the platitudes you want to believe and promise to love you tomorrow? You know what your mother would say about that right? There’s no easy way. Heck, there’s no way around this, we’re going to have to break a serious sweat while we plow through or American democracy may perish. Seri- ously. When the frenzy subsides, we’re all going to have to do the hard work of building a consensus and crafting policies that address our problems. That’s the American way you profess to care so deeply about. You’ve been heard. Now let’s get down to business.
O, AMERICA, YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT. You’ve been heard loud and clear. You’re furi-
ous, fed up and misunderstood. And you’re not going to take it anymore. Got it. All of social media, most of mainstream media, the few political establish- ment players who pay attention, and every one you’ve spoken to in the past year knows that you HAVE HAD IT.
But as one of my super-wise friends says, “So what? Now what?”
In the aftermath of last week’s Republican presi- dential convention, you have me more confused than ever. You didn’t want an “establishment” candidate, but Donald Trump’s pick of uber-establishmentarian Mike Pence as his VP, that’s OK? You decry constitu- tional impurity but approve of banana-republic-es- que (and clearly unconstitutional) proposals to regu- late the press or behead Hillary Clinton for presumed, unproven guilt? You profess to deeply love America, but tolerate and occasionally applaud expressions of hatred toward fellow Americans of di erent races, religions, or beliefs?
Gallup reports that 69 percent of Americans are dis- satis ed with the way things are going in the United States right now, so clearly lots of us have concerns, even if we disagree strongly with one another about what those concerns might be. But, it’s hard to gure out how to x things when folks are whipped up by
Learn more about Diane by following her column here or visit American Rural at AmericanRural.org.
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JULY 27, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM