Voices
shock that they couldn’t win an
election after having systematically alienated virtually every voting group in the nation other than
white men over the age of 40.
It was a great plan for the Republicans: Go to shameful lengths
to tell Hispanics they aren’t welcome, even though they are the
fastest growing demographic in
the country. Tell women their
bodies really aren’t their own to
manage. Call themselves small
government “conservatives” while
espousing that government should
tell us who we can marry and
supporting laws like the Patriot
Act, FISA and the NDAA that give
government powers the Founders
never dreamed of.
While doing and saying all this,
on the key issues of the economy
and war, the GOP managed to conduct an entire campaign without
demonstrating enough difference
with President Obama to compel anyone’s vote one way or the
other. “Debating” which decade
in which we might expect a balanced budget and simply putting
a slightly different wrapper on the
same foreign policies obviously
didn’t cut it as real challenges to
business-as-usual.
Combine this lack of differen-
GARY
JOHNSON
HUFFINGTON
12.02.12
tiation on the budget and foreign
policy with scary stances on the
so-called social issues and immigration, and the result is the Republicans’ embarrassing failure to
replace a president who is presiding over the worst economy and
the most dangerous foreign policy
in a generation.
Though my record on
fiscal issues is as conservative
as it gets, my positions on
Republican litmus-test issues
didn’t exactly endear me to the
powers-that-be in the party of
so-called ‘values.’”
Even if you don’t win, elections
should offer some semblance of
a fresh start and the optimism of
having either endorsed or changed
the direction of the country.
When that doesn’t happen,
and I would suggest that it isn’t
today, it is time for all of us —
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, et al., to take a good look
at what we are doing.
Otherwise, we are standing
still on a down escalator, and the
country really, really needs
to be on an up escalator.