< PREVIOUS ] [ 1996 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Like a good citizen, I sat before the television set
Sunday night, prepared to see Bill Clinton and Bob Dole
discuss the issues. My civic virtue continued as I switched
to Larry King Live
to catch four minor-party
candidates.
The only feature I missed was 30 minutes of Ross Perot, but it was dinner time, and at my age, a fellow has to avoid gratuitous insult to his digestive processes. By the end of 1992, I'd already heard more of Perot than I could stomach.
The Dole-Clinton debate was a disappointment. For one thing, I wanted to hear how Dole pronounces the name of the river that flows through Salida.
In Colorado, Oklahoma and Arkansas, it's pronounced
Arkansaw.
In Dole's home state, it's
Are-Kansas.
If he used his home state's pronunciation, he'd perturb voters in the other three states. If he said it our way, he'd alienate his home state. This could give us insight into his campaign strategy.
Then again, Dole might pronounce it both ways, indicating that he respects local customs and culture. He might come up with a new pronunciation -- Arkan or Arkanset, perhaps -- thereby demonstrating that he's innovative. He could use the river's old Spanish name, Rio Napestle, thus respecting tradition while recognizing the variety of contributions to our American heritage.
He might even try to evade it with humor -- You mean
that sandy streambed down in Dodge City that hardly ever
carries water because Colorado grabs it all
upstream?
My insightful and provocative analysis of Dole's answer, whatever it might have been, could have catapulted me into a profitable and glamorous network television career, and yet the question was never asked. Little wonder the debate was a disappointment.
Besides, they both sounded so reasonable, and I wanted to watch a good fight:
Dole: You've filled the White House with drug-sucking
brats who've never done a day's honest work in their
lives.
Clinton: Strong talk coming from a career politician
who's been getting a government check every month since
1942.
Dole: And I started by defending my country and
getting severely wounded. That's sacrifice, and that's
something you spoiled Baby Boomers and generation X-ers
don't know anything about.
Clinton: Gee, and just last week you Republicans were
saying I'd sacrificed my honor and principles, if I ever
had any in the first place. So what is it, senator? Do I
know something about sacrifice or don't I?
Dole: I'm not about to fall for any slick debater
tricks here. That's your department. We should be talking
about America's future.
Clinton: And while you want to return to a yesterday
that never was, I want to build a bridge to the
future.
Dole: A lot you know about bridges. The usual way to
build a bridge is to put footings on both sides. Now, how
can we put the footings on the future side when we're not
there yet? Sounds like a typical Democrat thing, just start
building from one side, no idea where you'll end up, no
idea how much it's going to cost the hard-working taxpayers
of this country, who're going to end up in the future
anyway, bridge or no bridge. Just another make-work
boondoggle, that's all this so-called bridge of yours
is.
And besides, your good friend, that skirt-chasing
liberal Ted Kennedy, couldn't even drive across a bridge,
let alone help build one.
Clinton: And you and your good buddy, Gingrich the
Great Satan, want to tear down everything...
After not seeing the debate I wanted to see, I thought things would be better with the minor-party candidates that CNN, to its credit, brought before the public.
Ralph Nader, the Green candidate, made a lot of sense. So also did Harry Browne, the Libertarian candidate.
The problem is that they appear contradictory. Libertarians want minimum government and maximum freedom, which could be pretty hard on our air, land and water. Greens want to protect the environment, but that seems to involve a lot of government and restriction.
This tempts me to try organizing the Green Libertarian
Party. It would be Libertarian as to personal liberties,
but Green as to corporate regulation. In other words,
individual liberties would be sacrosanct, but corporate
activities would be closely monitored. We'd get rid of the
legal fiction that a corporation is a person
with
rights.
In the Green Libertarian town, you'd be free to go into any business you wanted to. But Wal-Mart wouldn't be free to invade at will. You'd have the right to build whatever you wanted on your property, but a corporate builder would be closely regulated to insure that we weren't subsidizing development.
This political theory will require more work, but it seems closer to what Thomas Jefferson had in mind than anything we heard from Dole or Clinton Sunday night.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1996 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >