The Race is On
Who will be our future leaders? It's time for us to decide.
By Matt Lemmon
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photo illustration Kari Engel Who will be the nominees for November's presidential election? If the hair styles are any indication, it'll be Tom Cruise and Jennifer Garner. |
The biggest shocker came just last week, when Springfield native and Missouri governor Matt Blunt announced he wouldn’t seek a second term in Jefferson City. Republicans, suddenly faced with a high-profile opening, are lining up to fill the August primary ballot. Democrats, seeing chief Blunt rival Jay Nixon suddenly disarmed of his main weapon (Blunt bashing), are also considering shaking things up. It’s too early to say yet how the August ballot will shape up—the filing period begins later in February—but it promises to be interesting. Local stories of interest amid the fallout: Will Sara Lampe run for Treasurer? Will B.J. Marsh run as an independent to avoid term limits?
But, of course, the biggest plum of them all is in Washington D.C. George W. Bush has presided over what is quite possibly the most unpopular White House in the history of our country (don’t believe what you hear about Reconstruction Era corruption, Ulysses Grant could par-tay). The fact that someone, anyone, new will be the leader of the free world at this time next year is amazing to some; and the fact that the frontrunners are a woman and an African-American is borderline monumental. The fact that the woman and the African American appear to hate each other’s guts—well, that’s just great TV.
Beyond the over-simplified labels, sex organs and skin colors, there are a whole set of issues that will decide the race for (most) Americans. Dr. Ken Rutherford, a professor of international politics at Missouri State University, says three issues will decide this race: The global war, the economy, and immigration.
Assuming for a moment—as Rutherford does—that Hillary Clinton and John McCain will be the parties’ eventual nominees for president, he sees the war playing a bigger part in the discussion than it does right now. Another terrorist attack, Rutherford says, or even a sniff of one, will throw the weight back to national security hawks like McCain. Should problems in Iraq remain relatively dormant, the economy will be the chief issue, and Clinton could win.
But, Rutherford says, the issues are inextricably related. Low oil prices, a stable economy, no terrorism—a country simply can’t have all that AND 200,000 soldiers in the Middle East. “We’ve gotten very comfortable as a society, and we want that comfort to continue,” Rutherford says. He also doesn’t completely brush off the idea of President Bush beginning an other military campaign before he leaves office (Iran, anyone?), much as his father did in Somalia during his lame-duck days of 1992.
If this all seems very esoteric—and it can seem that way—take comfort in this, Springfield. Missouri is a microcosm of America (we’ve picked every presidential winner save one since the turn of the century), and Springfield is a microcosm of Missouri—increasingly urban yet conservative leaning, educated yet largely blue-collar. Your votes will go a long way toward determining the next four years in the United States, for better or for worse. But if you don’t vote, Anderson Cooper doesn’t want to hear you complaining.
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