Let's remember who's actually running for president
Erix MinkAfter two weeks' vacation and more than 1,700 Midwestern highway miles, I came home looking for some wisdom. I found it on the editorial page of Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch _ in a letter to the editor by Dorothy Anderson of Spanish Lake, Mo.:
"I have a question," she wrote, setting us up for her rhetorical punch line. "This year, are we having a presidential election or a vice-presidential election?"
Thank you.
Enough about Sarah Palin already. Enough, even, about Joe Biden, as paltry as coverage of the longtime Delaware senator has been in comparison to the frenzied attention paid to the formerly unknown governor of Alaska.
I'll grant that their respective life stories, family situations and opinions on issues are interesting. I'll also note that, except for an immense disparity in length, the political careers of both are essentially routine when you bore down into them. Both of those careers now are the subjects of inevitable campaign exaggerations and, in Palin's case especially, campaign deceptions.
But none of this really matters. The truly relevant questions when it comes to them are: If Obama were elected and, God forbid a million times, were to be struck down by violence or illness, would you feel comfortable with Biden becoming president? Likewise, if McCain were elected and, God forbid a million times, were to be struck down by illness or violence, would you feel comfortable with Palin becoming president?
People's opinions obviously differ. I'd be comfortable with Biden becoming president. And I'd be as uncomfortable with Palin becoming president as I'd be with the mayor of my hometown becoming president. By any reasonable comparative assessment, Biden is qualified for the job, and Palin isn't.
But neither Biden nor Palin is running for president, as reader Dorothy Anderson gently chided us on Sunday, and I'm not about to base my vote for president on either one. The candidates for president are Barack Obama and John McCain.
By the time I vote on Nov. 4, I expect to have a good sense of which man comes closer to sharing my values and my priorities about issues; which one is more genuine, given the realities of politics; and which one I can trust better to keep faith with me and the rest of the American people _ including those who don't vote for him.
What does this amount to?
_Well, I know that millions of Americans are struggling to pay bills that aren't optional: mortgages and rent, food, transportation, medical expenses. People close to me have lost their jobs and suddenly find themselves working to stay afloat financially. And although I make a good living and have managed to keep debts to a minimum, my wages haven't kept pace with inflation, my retirement funds have taken a huge hit and my profession is undergoing a wrenching transformation that could put me on the street tomorrow with barely a blink.
_I read about crises in the financial and securities industries and reflect on the last 30 years or so, during which The Market was elevated to the status of god _ as if asset and liability balance sheets and profit and loss statements said more about the goodness of American society than the way people live and treat each other.
I hear politicians express confidence in the marketplace and wonder if they are ignorant or if they secretly realize how many crises have resulted from the failure of government to do its job and protect ordinary Americans from the abuses of the very marketplace they pretend to revere.
_I've seen the American health care system left to the mercy of those same market forces and watched costs rise, health decline and millions forced into bankruptcy. I'm mystified that anyone can keep a straight face when he claims that the marketplace can solve these problems when what we need is the political will to create a new, uniquely American system that will spare people from needless suffering and anguish when they are most vulnerable.
_I'm offended by scam artists who prey on the real fears of real people and pretend that getting more oil to market, even in 10 years, will do anything but prolong our sick and destructive dependence on petroleum products, further erode the American economy and hurt working people more than anybody else.
_I keep hearing that education is the key to conquering poverty, and then I read about higher and higher tuition costs, limitations on grants to bright qualified students who lack only money and abusive commercial loan practices that pump young people into the job market carrying crushing debts.
_I see my country's fundamental values of justice, fairness and individual rights debased in a fight against punks and thugs who exploited simple security flaws we knew about but hadn't bothered to fix. I see a war waged because weak, frightened people needed to feel and appear strong _ a war that, no matter how it concludes, will leave our country more vulnerable than it was before and our American values pointlessly and shamefully compromised. I wonder if there is such a thing any more as accountability.
It's six weeks until the presidential election, and I'm going to spend that time figuring out whether to place my trust in Barack Obama or John McCain. I've already answered the only question that matters about Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Eric Mink is commentary editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Readers may write to him at: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 North Tucker Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63101, or e-mail him at emink@post-dispatch.com.
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