With all the faculties of imagination, I try to picture Inauguration Day 2009 with all the variety of personalities at the podium.
First I think about the long-shot contenders. Ron Paul swearing on the bible that he'll abolish the IRS and put us back on the gold standard, Dennis Kucinich raising his right hand and declaring a 35 hour work week and free lunch at noon for all. Then I get to the nearer-fringe players. There's Bill Richardson grinning, out the cameras, and Fred Thompson looking presidential as he sleepily utters the gentle platitudes that have gotten him this far. Mike Huckabee looks good sounds good, and thinks Baptist thoughts about what needs to get buttoned down about this country.
Then I get to the top-tier candidates. John Edwards looks shiny as he tries his best to make a serious face as he takes the oath of office. Mitt Romney also looks shiny, but a little more serious, safe, pliable and reliable. Obama looks like a Dave Chappelle imitation of himself, so serious that he's his own straight man. McCain looks the most serious; grizzled and sincere about the job ahead. And Hillary Clinton looks the part more than anyone else to me, ready to take her rightful place in history, the queen incarnate.
Then I remember it's January. The skies are gray overhead. The bare trees over the grandstand sway in the breeze, crows gripping the branches, braced against the icy wind. A frigid, damp draft makes its way between the zippers of my jacket. I shiver as Rudy Giuliani takes the stage. He bares his teeth as he swears the Almighty that he will discharge his duties with the utmost respect for the office. His long overcoat and bare head make him look like a king cobra ready to strike on all who threaten him. Cobra Commander in Chief is all I can think.
Of all the potential candidates jockeying for first place in this election, Giuliani is the only one who really gives me the willies. He is riding the current (understandable) Republican instinct to go for the most "electable" candidate, similar to the the process that brought John Kerry into the '04 democratic slot. Pro-gun, but not, pro-choice but not, informed on the issues, but not. Many otherwise conservative voters are able to rationalize their beliefs in someone who is pro-choice but declares that the Lifers will "like his replacement" for the 88 year-old Supreme Court Justice on the bench. Many think that a hard-nosed mayor of a big city will make a good leader of the nation. They ignore that most New Yorkers, especially fire fighters, can't stand the man. The GOP, the media, and the voting public seems all too ready to ignore a growing mountain of personal follies, moral misgivings, and factual inconsistencies to nominate the most electable candidate.
All I can see is a cold-hearted, nasty, ambitious man who wants nothing more than to push a moralistic, almost papist agenda on all Americans. I imagine 4 years of Catholic school for this country. Maybe we'll learn a lesson or two, but we won't like it.
I imagine looking ahead to no progress on economic inequality, the continuing sucking sound following good paying jobs as they head South, jobs that with a little forethought, might get people out of section 8 housing. I see no substance that can address the mounting crisis of our health system. If you get sick, if all you have to do is flip burgers or sell dope, it's your problem, your failing in life.
I see a viper's instinct towards the security threats that we confront today, a cabinet full of angry white men ready to bomb Iran at a moment's notice, people with no sense of what our occupation of countries, unending detainment and torture of civilians looks like to a world that is supposed to look to us a a beacon of moral superiority.
The former New York mayor Ed Koch wrote a whole book about Giuliani titled Nasty Man. When I listen to Giuliani talk, all I can see is a thin veneer over raw venom, a truly nasty person who aspires to the most important office in the world.
When I move from the theoretical and consider the odds as they stand, it looks like an election between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. On one hand, I can't imagine him providing competent answers in a debate, or playing the personality shell game that Bush did so successfully against Gore and Kerry. I just don't see Giuliani standing up to the kind of scrutiny follows post-primary presidential candidates. Once they really get to know the man, I don't see the voting public falling in love with his policy proposals or his personality. I see Hillary Clinton making him look like a nasty bully, a troll that belongs under a Port Authority bridge and not the Oval Office. I can't see him portraying Hillary as weak, incompetent, or radical. At best, Giuliani will be a vote against Hillary, not for the man himself.
On the other hand, there are too many variables in play to predict how the election will go a year from yesterday. Of all the possible choices, Giuliani is the only one that I really don't want to be our next president. Can you imagine him cooperating with an almost certainly Democratic congress, or managing the Israel-Palestine process? Could this guy really negotiate trade relations with China? What would his hardliner stances look like to all the people of the world who we wish didn't hate us?
C'mon now. Giuliani is a hack. I'd take almost anyone over that guy. McCain, sure. Romney, why not. Come next year, I hope most voters feel the same.
