In most elections, politicians pump up small differences into “issues” to distinguish themselves from the other guys. That won’t be a problem next year, as two contrasting visions of America emerge in a contest between President Obama and an unknown Republican who will embody theirs.
In 1960, there was a big debate over what to do about two small islands, Matsu and Quemoy, between mainland China and Taiwan. Nixon accused JFK of weakness by being unwilling to use nukes to defend those dots thousands of miles away.
Eight years later, something real was at stake. With Americans dying in Vietnam, Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey by vaguely promising to end that disastrous war. He won, but it took him five years to do it.
Now, behind all the bombast, the political divide is as genuine as it gets. The clowns (pace Trump) are going offstage, and the knife throwers are coming on.
Enter Gov. Mitch Daniels, the “reluctant” candidate, to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana. After urging his party to call “a truce on the so-called social issues until the economic crisis is resolved,” Daniels is making just such a move. He might as well have thrown in his hat with the announcement.
In the GOP new-face department, Daniels is behind Paul Ryan, the poster boy for heartless budget-cutting, whose charts and graphs conceal a regression to an America without a social safety net. Ryan’s “flim flams” and outright lies about deficit reduction will come to the fore if he is on the Republican ticket.