David Brooks writes today about Running Mates but drops in a very sobering warning:
He (Obama) will find himself surrounded by highly partisan Democratic politicians, committee chairmen and interest groups thrilled to finally seize power. Some of them might have enjoyed his lofty rhetoric about change, but in practice, these organization types have no interest in changing politics. They just want to take the money and patronage that has been going to Republican special interests and give it to Democratic special interests.
I will vote almost entirely Democratic in the next election to help correct the damage done by the GOP. But it is entirely possible that the Democrats will not learn important lessons and slide back into service to special interests and extreme ideology. So I encourage us all to contribute to the re-education of the GOP by speaking out for a lot less social conservatism, a lot more pragmatism, a lot less posturing such as radically shrinking the size of government, and more on how to manage the services we all need and want more efficiently. I would like lower taxes but not at the expense of increasing suffering for others. I am all for promoting commerce but not that the expense of making our world less livable.
Historically the GOP and Democrats have swapped philosophical roles. Perhaps we can help with the next transformation.
Born 1950, Married, Living in Austin Texas, Semi
Retired Small Business owner and investor. My political interest
evolved out of his business experience that the best decisions come out of an objective gathering of information and a pragmatic consideration of costs and benefits. I am interested in promoting Centrist candidates and Policies. My posts are mostly about people and policies that I believe are part of the solution rather the problem.