THE IDEALOGUE VS. THE PRAGMATIC

As we come down to the final days of the 2008 election cycle, perhaps we should make a close examation of why we choose to vote the way we do. Our country has managed to divide itself fairly equally between two different and vastly opposing ideologies. And as tends to be the case with extreme idealogues...the more committed they are, the more vocal and uncompromising they are. And this is NOT a good thing. No ideology whether liberal or conservative fits all situations all of the time. The result is a blind committment to what may be a good idea in theory but simply doesn't work in a pragmatic way.

The idealogue will follow the party line all the way....regardless of where it leads. The gay rights idealogue will insist that gay marriage is a right...and nothing less than legal marriage is acceptable. He will continue to insist on his right, even turning down the compromise of "domestic partnership". That means that when his partner lies near death in a hospital, that partner can be kept from the hospital bed by the partner's parents. The pragmatist says, "what's in a name"? Domestic partnership would give you the rights you deserve without incurring the anger and conflict that the term marriage will bring to the discussion.

The idealogue will insist that "gun ownership" should have NO limitations and that any law curtailing your right to a weapon is unconstitutional and must be fought! The pragmatist asks, "what happens when a 14 year old boy walks into your daughter's middle school with an automatic weapon and an attitude?"

The idealogue believes in "my way or the highway" while the pragmatist looks for the compromise solution.

One of the greatest complaints I hear about our government is the assertion that they don't get anything done. But that's to be expected. We vote our ideology. And as a nation we are pretty evenly split down the middle between conservative and liberal. We have reached a national road block with neither conservatives or liberals being enough of a majority to make any progress on real solutions to real problems. And that is why I am supporting Sen. Obama for President.

Two years ago I read both of the Senator's books and was especially impressed with THE AUDACITY OF HOPE. In it he discusses his political philosophy which is very dependent upon the belief that policy only works with a majority concensus. He wrote of two incidents that stuck in my mind that illustrate how a President Obama would approach policy. Both anecdotes involved "hot button" issues designed to upset both the right & the left. But the Senator's take on the Death Penalty and Separation of Church & State was what first led me to think that a President Obama might be a good idea.

While an Illinois State Senator, Obama worked on a bill concerning the death penalty. On a personal level, Senator Obama is against the death penalty in most cases. A liberal group had brought up the issue of Chicago cops who would allegedly beat a confession from a suspect and then have him charged with a death penalty crime based on that coerced confession. The liberal idealogue would insist on trying to ban the death penalty. Obama instead stated the obvious, most Americans support to one degree or another the death penalty. He sat down with representatives of the police and with those advocating the end of the death penalty. He then passed legislation that limited death penalty convictions to cases where the confession is video taped. If a confession was given without the videotape, then the man would only be sentenced to life imprisonment. He found a solution based on the limited common ground of the two sides. Neither was completely happy with it but both sides agreed that it worked better than the status quo.

He also addressed the issue of separation of church & state. As he put it, you can't let the government endorse a particular religion or religious belief. But the flip side is that those who watch that "line in the sand" need to be aware that the world does not stop is someone mentions "God" in public. There needs to be a balance that reflects the differing opinions of the public.

One of Obama's favorite sayings is, "I know you want to go to the moon, but we only have enough gas to get this far". He is pragmatic about what can and cannot be done. I would be willing to bet that all of the screams of outrage against his candidacy from the right will be nothing compared to the screams from the left when they realize that he listens to both sides before acting.

I would prefer to vote for the candidate who is going to realize that America is made up of many differing opinions. I will vote for the candidate who considers the middle ground when enacting policy. To be honest, I think McCain has many pragmatic traits about him. It was one of the things that attracted me to his candidacy in 2000, but he is definitely an idealogue on foreign policy. More importantly, he is an old man and his number two is an unprepared idealogue. And that a recipe for disaster!