“Change is coming to America.” So says John Kerry, victorious in his quest for the Democratic nomination and anticipating victory against President Bush this fall.
What change, exactly? President Bush expanded the welfare state a bit less than President Kerry would like to expand it, but they both want to expand it. President Kerry wants to federalize and nationalize education (wow, that really works well) even more than President Bush does, but President Bush has still expanded socialized schooling by the billions. President Kerry wants and demands free health care for all, but President Bush has already committed trillions of future tax dollars to largely free health care through Medicare. What more do Democrats want?
As for foreign policy, President Kerry will completely delegate the defense of the United States to the U.N., which includes member nations such as North Korea, Iran, Cuba, China and Russia (who’s still no friend of ours). President Bush might have gone over the U.N.’s head with Iraq, but Iraq was clearly an exception. (I believe Democrats are right on this one; he was finishing up Daddy’s war.) Bush’s foreign policy after the Iraq war, not only in Iraq itself but in hotspots such as North Korea and Iran, suggests that he will for the most part adopt the Democratic Party approach of “U.N. right-or-wrong” during a second term if elected to one.
I repeat: What more do supporters of John Kerry want? What kind of change are they anticipating? Perhaps they simply want an absolute guarantee that the welfare state will expand and an absolute guarantee that America won’t defend itself militarily. What they don’t see is that under President Bush and a Republican Congress, they get most of what they want (albeit with tax cuts) while under a Democratic President and a Republican Congress we get what I’d like to see a return to: divided government, where both Democrats and Republicans are kept from ruining what’s left of our freedom and liberty.
It’s true that President Kerry won’t appoint judges who support outlawing abortion. This is admittedly a good thing. But abortion rights have survived many Republican administrations, and G.W. Bush can be counted on to wobble on this issue (thankfully) as he does on so many other things. It’s also true that President Kerry won’t push for a Constitutional amendment to define marriage for the entire population, though there’s nearly no chance such an amendment will ever pass anyway. But are these issues compelling enough to warrant the label “change”?
I don’t think so.
This campaign is reminding me a lot of Bill Clinton’s campaign for President in 1992 when he continuously stressed the theme of “change.” George W. Bush, who, like his father, thought he could defeat his enemies by largely adopting their policies is probably scared to death that history is about to repeat itself. He should be scared. If John Kerry runs a reasonably competent campaign, he will win. Why settle for an apologetic Republican who advances Democratic policies when you can get the real deal?
