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Richard Botto, Editor in Chief / CEO of RAZOR Magazine, has created the definitive men's magazine which features the best in men's fashion, travel, sports, autos, celebrities, technology, humor, fiction, fitness and more.
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 WRITINGS:
RICHARD BOTTO
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October 2004
Vicious Cycle
President Ralph Nader. Sound a bit outlandish to you? It certainly
didn't to 2,882,995 individuals who used their vote (and millions more
who didn't) to make a statement against politics as usual on election
day 2000. How about a man hoping to become President Ross Perot - political
experience negligible - who, in 1992, captured the minds and votes of
nearly one in every five Americans that thought enough of his business
acumen to get off their couches and head down to the local school gymnasium
to pull the lever on his behalf? Again, a statement against politics
as usual.
This year, there will be no such statement. And really, we have no one
to blame but ourselves. Although Nader may again be a factor, the outcry
for an alternative to the status quo will be muted, or at the very least
muffled, by the voices of those either firmly behind or firmly against
George W. Bush. Because in what has become, as we are reminded daily,
the most important election of our times, a nation polarized is either
standing behind the incumbent or standing across from him, not even
casting a glance at the person opposing him, the candidate inconsequential
in relationship to the message an anti-Bush vote brings.
If the first four years of Bush's reign can be compared to a football
game, one could argue that nearly 75 percent has been played on the
defensive. The first quarter got off to a slow, ragged start. Then the
events of September 11th played out in front of a stunned nation and
what followed was one of the greatest, most impassioned speeches ever
delivered by a president. Bush's sermon to a joint session of Congress
nine days after the attack on America emboldened the country. The quarterback
had seized control and the administration was back on the offensive.
This carried into the third quarter when strategies and play calling
were misguided at best, deceptive at worst. Now, here we are in the
fourth quarter, the team struggling to hold on to the ball, refusing
to budge even slightly from the original game plan, management suffering
from entitlement issues, more and more fans heading for the exits.
Hoping for a chance to play in the big game is Team Kerry. At the time
of this writing, more than a few pollsters say that over 50 percent
of registered voters "don't know much" about Big John. He's
been called mechanical, devoid of emotion, out of touch and, perhaps
most insulting, representative of politics as usual. The prayer of every
Democrat prior to the Democratic National Convention was that Kerry
would come across as "human" - a pretty strange wish upon
a star as it relates to a presidential hopeful.
But that's what Clinton was, wasn't he? Human? Despite his flaws, despite
the lies, despite the oral sex, can anyone deny he would have taken
the 2000 election in a walk? Argue if you will, but I believe one of
the reasons the public was so willing to forgive and forget Clinton's
moral lapses is because they made him more real, more like one of us.
We have someone similar in this race and his name is John Edwards. Edwards,
a one-term senator (not politics as usual), has been embraced and elevated
by the American people as a representative of the common folk. While
great stump speeches, loaded with headline-splashing catch phrases,
may get the media and the pundits off, they have less impact on the
masses than the humanization of the politico who delivers them. There
is no refuting that Edwards - Exhibit A this go around - is renowned
around the country more for his good looks, his every-woman wife, his
darling two kids and, as Kerry so eloquently put it, his "great
hair" than for his "Two Americas" discourse.
And that's one of the reasons why so many people felt that casting a
ballot for Nader or Perot was not one cast in vain. Although Nader is
certainly eccentric, and maybe not your first choice to dinner, there
is no denying that he has spent the majority of his life being a man
of the people, for the people. And while Perot certainly has more cabbage
than only a few hundred of us, Americans related to his non-political
vision, welcomed him as a businessman, an out-of-the-box thinker and
someone who hadn't been tarnished by a lifetime spent in the spin cycle
of the DC washing machine.
The favorite word of any politician is change. People want change. We're
all looking for things to change. But with (the very slightest of) apologies
to Jon Bon Jovi, "It's all the same, only the names change."
And it will remain that way until We The People do something about it.
How can we expect anything to change when we keep nominating the same
ideals, basically the same candidates, over and over? We're putting
limits on ourselves. Hearing the same arguments from the same two parties
every four years. And lately, more often than not, the disputes have
turned to agreements.
You look at the second presidential debate in 2000 when Gore was in
accord with Bush on issues more than three dozen times. It was like
viewing a tennis match with both players on one side of the net. I remember
watching, thinking, "Where's the alternative?" Would it have
been a crime to let Nader and his nonpartisan voice be heard? Wouldn't
three opinions (well, two if you count Gore/Bush as one) have helped
to inspire more constructive discussions?
In 1992, when Perot was permitted to participate, the debates were viewed
by 90 million people on average, with the audience growing with each
successive debate. In 1996, when Perot was excluded, the average fell
to 41 million. That November, more than half of the eligible voters
in this country stayed home. The people who didn't cast a vote were
actually more vocal than those who did.
This year, the level-pullers will be the vociferous majority. They will
scream from opposing mountaintops, stand upon soapboxes in adjacent
corners. It will all be about the merits or the deficiencies of Bush
and, in the very oddest of circumstances, a guy named Kerry, a guy more
than half the country say they do not know less than three months before
the most important election of our times, may be the benefactor. Until
four years from now, of course, when politics as usual takes center
stage again.
In even-numbered years, we are reminded almost daily that we have a
voice. We need to use that voice to welcome alternate parties or independent
candidates who will present new ideas and, ultimately, new direction.
We need to be able to imagine life beyond red and blue states, the elephant
and the donkey, the right and left side of the aisle. Until we do, each
successive election will be more about choosing the lesser of two evils
than casting a ballot for prosperity and hope. That's not freedom of
choice, that's damage control.
As always, we welcome your comments via e-mail to
letters@razormagazine.com
Enjoy the issue.
RICHARD J. BOTTO
Editor in Chief, CEO
www.razormagazine.com
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