Why, you may well ask. Very good question. After all, I’m now actively leading that life one of the gurus from my seminary days, Joseph Campbell, described as following my bliss. I literally wake up every day and do pretty much as I please. Do I really want to give that up to hit the snowy campaign trail in New Hampshire, schmooze with voters over corndogs in Iowa, cold call Fat Cats for campaign contributions, and sit through tedious, repetitive, trivial interviews on Meet the Press? Hell, no. I do not, and I don’t intend to do any of that stuff. My run for the presidency in fact will be more of a lope…or a stroll…or one of those front porch campaigns made famous by such giants of the American presidency as James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley. Front porch with my iPad…that’s the ticket!
When I was a very young man, I wanted to be president. And when I consider the success two of my baby boomer peers-- Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--had in achieving the office with neither my character (in the first case) nor my intelligence (in the second), I think maybe I should’ve given it a go. But, alas, I chose the writer’s life, believing then, as I do now, that the writer seeks to find truths within to share with others, while the politician seeks to find illusions without to share with others. There was a time, of course—before mass illusion--when you could be both a writer and a politician. Jefferson was a writer; Lincoln was a damn good writer. So with this launch, not only do I endeavor to embody the campaigning energy of McKinley et al., but the profound introspection of Jefferson and Lincoln.
This follow your bliss campaign of mine will not be entirely self-centered. I’m not just doing this to check-off some youthful bucket list item. I’m also doing it for Hillary. I’ve been reading for months now how Mrs. Clinton needs someone to challenge her for the Democratic nomination to both push her further to the left and toughen her up for a brutal general election against a Republican opponent. First of all, I find it laughable that anyone thinks at this stage in her career Hillary Clinton needs to be toughened up--she's the muffin tin that can bake up a dozen Claire Underwoods. Secondly, politicians tack left or right as the winds of a campaign dictate. Those winds are usually stirred by external events, self-inflicted wounds, scandals, media coverage, declining poll numbers. A summer breeze like Lincoln Chafee or even the estimable Bernie Sanders are unlikely to nudge such an electoral colossus as this off course.
So this follow my bliss campaign will not attempt to move Hillary to “the left”…wherever that is. What I would like to do, however, is help focus Hillary on a landscape she may not have noticed. I think she’s been in the foxhole so long--first with Bill, then with Barack--that she’s only got a gopher’s eye glimpse of things and may not realize that the wide open field where she first dug in is now home to a vast, gonzoid flea market of odorous, moldy, crusty propositions dragged down from the stuffy attic and up from the damp cellar. The traditional distinction between Democrats as the party of big government and Republicans as the party of limited government has significantly changed. The Democrats have increasingly become the party of incompetent government, and the Republicans the party of no government…or, to put it another way, the Party of I Got Mine Government.
From coast to coast, wherever Republicans have taken over governance on a Federal, state or local level they've made it their unified mission to roll back the protections, services, and responsibilities our government has to its people (although they remain steadfast for the most invasive intrusions into the personal aspects of peoples' lives). They deregulate industries across the board, subjecting ordinary citizens to toxic drinking water, dangerous working conditions, financial shenanigans. They cut the social safety net to shreds, willfully…vengefully…leaving the most vulnerable…children, single mothers, the elderly and disabled…to the mercy of fate. They advocate for rightwing militias to guard our borders; mercenaries to fight our wars; vigilantes to stand their own ground in place of tax-supported, citizen-controlled law enforcement. They enable the richest amongst us to have the most influence over our elections while throwing as many obstacles to voting against the most common of us. They refuse out of cowardice to act on an article of war against ISIS and obstruct out of craven political calculation a treaty for peace with Iran. They resist funding government at every turn, and shut it down when they don’t get their way. Worst of all, they rekindle the treasonous embers of the Old Confederacy—states’ rights, nullification,secession, and institutional racism. Theirs is a nightmarish vision for the country resurrected from the darkest period of our nation’s past. And they work to rewrite our history books wherever they command boards of education so that, Soviet style, they can bury any facts that conflict with the illusion of America they’re trying to cobble together out of disparate Bible passages and Ayn Rand pathologies.
As for the Democrats’ incompetence, it can be clearly illustrated in such sorry episodes as the Obamacare launch and the abysmal administration of the Veteran’s Administration. But nowhere is it on more graphic display than in the way they’ve allowed Republicans with their demonstrable hatred of government to take over governing at almost every level. Since Hillary’s husband gave Democratic cover to this systematic emasculation of government with his “era of big government is over” pander to the Right, she has a special obligation to begin to undo the damage. Over the months ahead she’s going to face countless questions on immigration, ISIS, income inequality and whatnot. Every answer will be an opportunity for her to hammer home the message that the opposition’s essential position is not to offer solutions on any of these issues, but to dismantle the one and only institution we as a people have to deal with them…a functioning government of, by, and for the people.
The era of rigged government is over. Saying that loud and proud is as far left as Hillary has to go. I'll be doing my best here in the campaign ahead to help get her there.
(In the coming months look for the Follow My Bliss Campaign to put forth a number of position papers on the most compelling issues of the 2016 campaign. No donations necessary…just hit the tip jar.)