Election blues

Has anyone else been following the coverage of the Iowa caucuses? I’ve mostly been turning a jaundiced eye away from the whole thing, mostly because all of the candidates are predictably uninspiring.

Hilary Clinton is a great politician, there’s no doubt about that, and she’s getting better all the time. Bill’s footprints are all over her campaign, and politically that’s a good thing – he has better instincts than she does. Actually Teflon Man has better instincts than any other politician of his generation. With both of them working together she may well get the nomination.

I wouldn’t vote for her, though (if I was allowed to vote, which as a non-citizen I am not). The reason I wouldn’t vote for her is simple – I have no idea what she would do if she was President. Every time I see her speak it’s all surface and no content – you can listen to her deliver a half hour speech and come away with no idea of what she plans to do except that there’s something vague and undefined in there about healthcare (she does get some points for being consistent in her interest in that issue).

Obama is more or less the same. Everything he says sounds good, but you come away with no idea what kind of a President he would be, because he never really says anything of substance – it’s all vague platitudes and rousing but imprecise promises.

These are our two leading candidates. Oh joy. Vague and vaguer. Vote for either of them and you have no idea what they care about or what policies they’ll implement, what’s really important to them and what they’ll be willing to trade away. That applies to most politicians, of course, but the constant press insistence that both of them are different because of their gender (her) or race (him) grates. Neither of them seem different to me – it’s politics as usual. Don’t commit to anything because then you might actually have to act on it.

I still think Edwards is a better candidate. I know the media doesn’t agree with me – even though he’s pretty close in the polls most media outlets are barely acknowledging his existence.

He may pull it off, though. Americans like sincerity and trustworthiness in a candidate, and he certainly does a better job of projecting those qualities than either of the other two. He has that same sort of folksy, relaxed charm that Clinton (Bill, not Hilary) has, and that might make the difference.

The real reason I want him to get the nomination is that I feel like I actually have some idea what he’d do with it, though. He’s the only one who ever seems to say anything. I also think that the press assumption that his legal background is a liability is silly – Americans don’t like corporate lawyers, but lawyers who represent normal people against corporations? Those they like. Plus he has a sort of warmth to him that the other two notably lack.

The folksy quality grates for me, honestly, but I still think he’s the one who’d have the best chance of beating whoever the Republicans put forward. Unless it’s McCain, then they might well end up neck in neck, just because their demeanors are so similar.

The media seems to be pretty sure that both of those two are doomed, though. Me, I’m just going to sit and watch. And scowl every time another media outlet doesn’t even attempt to hide its biases. Since when did they stop teaching the fact that that’s unprofessional in journalism school?