Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Friday, February 09, 2018

"We Choose Debt..."

I’ve long held a working theory that US voters are completely predictable in Presidential elections.

The idea is that Americans almost invariably tend to swing wildly every few election cycles, voting for the candidate who is as close to the opposite of the current guy as possible.

Let’s go back a few decades to, say, Jimmy Carter.

In 1976, the country was sick and tired of the corruption, scandal, and disgrace of Richard Nixon’s administration (which at that point had been inherited by Gerald Ford).

Jimmy Carter was pretty much the opposite of Richard Nixon– a youthful outsider versus an aging crony.

After four years of economic disaster, Americans swung in the opposite direction from Carter, choosing an older, polished conservative in Ronald Reagan who represented strength and stability.

That trend lasted for twelve years– two terms with Reagan, and one term with his successor George HW Bush, after which the country swung in the other direction again– to Bill Clinton.

Clinton was another young, energetic liberal, pretty much the opposite of the elderly, curmudgeonly Bush.

After eight year of Clinton and his personal scandals, the country swung again to George W. Bush, a God-fearing, fundamental conservative who wouldn’t cheat on his wife. He represented Clinton’s opposite.

And after eight years of war and economic turmoil, the country swung once again to Bush’s opposite– a youthful, charismatic, black outsider.

More

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Up, down, up, down. Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat. It only goes to show that the nation should decide which way to go, and political parties to decide that the middle is the best solution, but stupid moves and freaky decisions have won out. Humans rule, and are they so foolish and fickle, able to be swayed by idiots who just want power.

Anonymous said...

4:51
Never give a sucker an even break.

You can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time.

You can't cheat a honest man.

There are no honest men(or women). The last honest man died almost 2000 years ago.

Anonymous said...

Roll some dice. Evens go in one direction, odds go in the opposite.