Political Discussions
Devolving Standards
Posted by MadameX • 10/16/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: illinois politics, voting standards
There is a candidate for Illinois governor whom I know to be a good and honest man. And I'm going to vote for him--that's pretty much all there is to it.
I definitely don't mean to suggest that those are the only qualities this candidate has to recommend him--they are definitely not. But what strikes me is that they are wholly sufficient for me. I have lived in Illinois for most of my life, and in my lifetime four of six governors have served jail time. I have reached a point at which honesty and sincere concern for the state is ALL I ASK.
It's troubling, of course, that those things seem to be so very difficult to come by in a candidate. It's also troubling to me that we are so desperate for them that we (I can't be alone in this) consider that to be enough, without regard to specific political positions.
I've fretted a lot before about how soundbites, popularity contests, ignorance and greed impact our voting patterns, but what about disillusionment? Are we lowering our standards because it's so hard to get to a basic level of acceptability? Or is it really just me?
User Comments
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An executive who doesn't engage in criminal acts?
seems like we were looking for that on a national level for the better part of the last 8 years...-
Yes Agit8r, and the search continues...
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I've never spent much time worrying about whether politicians were crooks or not. Some are, but maybe I've been lucky and had to experience it less. There were Nixon and Agnew when I was in grade school, but I can't remember others.
By the way, I hear that Florida is possibly enjoying even more corruption than Illinois. www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113816661&ft=1&f=1014-
Mark, I think that probably has a lot to do with where you've lived and what you've experienced. It's extraordinarily disruptive to the business of a state when its chief executive is under investigation and/or arrested. Perhaps you recall how much work didn't get done on the national level while vast amounts of time and money went into sorting out President Clinton's sex life?
Even more important than that, in my mind, is whether or not a leader has any interest in accomplishing anything useful for the state (or whatever governmental unit is in question). When, for instance, the governor is willing to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, it's fairly easy to assess that he isn't making decisions based on the best interests of the citizenship of his state.
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I've lived in two states. In western WA, they've had no politician indicted in decades, but the parties are so detached from the view of the people, being standardized at the national level as they now are in virtually every state except MN and a few Southern states on the Democrat side, that everyone simply ceased to care, leaving a handful of far left environmentalists, labor unions and anti-tax suburbanites to guide the policy of the entire western part of the state.
In GA, we've had a few indicted, and we've had a few loony ones like Cynthia McKinney (formerly Democrat, now Green) in the Northern Atlanta suburbs. The parties are much closer to the people, as the GOP today is pretty Southernized even at the national level and the Democrats in Georgia are a little bit different from the Democrats elsewhere, tend to be more fiscally conservative and civil rights oriented. Honestly though, I think the populace in GA is probably healthier despite having SOME corruption (not on the level of Illinois however) and a society that is generally ambivalent to political discussion then the society in Western WA. But then again, it's not as extreme in GA as in IL, and if that's the only problem, it may go away with time. -
I would guess that there have been criminals and crooks in political office since the beginning of political offices. I think we may actually be hearing more about it now since it is much easier for information to be collected, stored, analyzed and distributed now more than at any point in the past.-
but George Washington couldn't tell a lie...
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He lied. He just had to chop down a tree for each lie, hence the grass lands.
Maybe I misunderstood the myth -
I was at a flea market once and a guy was selling the original axe George Washington used to chop down that cherry tree.
When I remarked that it looked newer than a 200+ year old axe, he said that it was completely original, just that over time the handle had been replaced. As had the head...
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A MYTH?!? OMG!!!
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Sorry, not myth.
Historical reality with malleable facts -
no, it's completely made up. I was just funning.
George Washington's only real accomplishments were beleiving in a cause, cheating death several times during combat, and in his support of Union. -
...and allowing Alexander Hamilton to be his brain!
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the "actually happening" part of history was what I was referring to with "malleable facts".
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"allowing Alexander Hamilton to be his brain"
is that an endorsement or an endictment?
I should note that Hamilton was far from a classical liberal. He had a deeply cynical notion of "human nature" likely resulting from his childhood amidst brutal sugar plantation society. He was among the most statist of our founders -
@Agit8r: I wouldn't say "statist," but he did recognize the necessity of some federally concentrated power. Even Alexander Hamilton would probably shudder at the size of the American Government today, or at least at what it is doing. I have a hard time imagining him against the Interstate Freeway bureau.
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Not to be cynical... but are you SURE he's an honorable man?
Illinois politics has me second-guessing everything these days. (Maybe I should just write in Pat Fitzgerald.)-
In this case, yes, I'm sure. But that's only because I've known him personally and professionally for several years with politics not even remotely on the table, and know several other members of his family as well. Without that direct experience, I would share your cynicism.
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