home
about
archives
|
WHO REALLY CHOOSES THE PRESIDENT?
01/11/2008
Before I got caught up in my own Obama-mania, I had a theory, shared by many others I'm sure, that the establishment (financial institutions, big corporations, the media, the military, political movers and shakers) picks a candidate to back and then makes sure that candidate is elected. Because they have all the money, and control the media, they can control the message. In recent years, people have become suspicious that they also control the voting machines. I'm not sure that is true, not because I don't think they're capable of it, but because I don't think it's necessary. They have many powerful and much more subtle ways of controlling the outcome of elections than hacking into machines.
Sometimes the candidate they back is a Democrat, but usually it's a Republican. That's because most of the power brokers in the country are the financially powerful and they believe strongly that Republicans implement financial policies that benefit them.
Most of the time the power brokers get their way. I can think of only two times in the past forty years or so that they didn't, and that was in the 1992 and 1976 elections.
Nixon was their man, as was Reagan, George Bush, and George W. Bush. Ford was probably their man, too, but Carter brought factors into the race they didn't know how to counteract: anger at Ford for pardoning Nixon, and the rising evangelical movement. They did send their man Reagan to challenge Ford in the primaries, but it's almost impossible to unseat a sitting president in a primary. Once Ford was the nominee, there was not enough enthusiasm among the power brokers or the people to ensure his victory, and that allowed Carter to sneak in. Four years later, however, they pushed Carter off the stage with a bright new champion: Ronald Reagan.
The election of Bill Clinton was their biggest failure (they didn't count on a rich maverick like Ross Perot stealing Republican votes), which is what explains the hysterical and vicious attempt to destroy Clinton in his first term, as well as the Republican victory in the Congressional election of 1994. Putting in a Republican Congress was a good way to neutralize Clinton's liberal economic policies. And after that election, Clinton did become more conservative, championing NAFTA and welfare reform. By the 1996 election, Clinton had become their man, and they made sure he was re-elected even though the hatred they had engendered towards him continued in wingnut circles, including the Republican Congress.
In the 2000 election, the power brokers were clearly on the side of George W. Bush. His enormous campaign contributions and his favorable treatment by the media, in spite of his clear lack of qualifications for the job, tell the tale. The election fiasco in Florida, in which the recount was first stopped by Republican operatives pretending to be outraged citizens, and then by the Supreme Court, makes a lot of sense when you realize that there are powerful people pulling the strings to ensure a Bush victory.
This election, the large number of candidates has made their task more difficult, but that doesn't mean they have given up. I believe Hillary (the most conservative of all the Democrats) has been their candidate, as evidenced by the early amount of corporate and Wall Street support for her. The power brokers knew the GOP would have a hard time recovering from the Bush disaster, so it made sense to support a Democrat, especially one as conservative as Hillary, and the wife of someone they had already tamed.
But the great unwashed masses always mess things up and they started to like Barack Obama, who is arguably more liberal than Hillary. So something had to change quickly. A New Hampshire loss, combined with an Iowa defeat, would have been hard to overcome. The "surprise" victory of Hillary in New Hampshire was accomplished because the power brokers jumped into action. The news coverage changed and Hillary became more human. The get-out-the-women's-vote strategy worked as did the sliming of Obama by Bill Clinton and a variety of email campaigns which we may someday be able to tie to the Clinton campaign or its surrogates.
On the Republican side, there was confusion and disarray. Romney seemed like he might make it, and he would have been an acceptable opponent to Hillary because his Mormon faith would have kept many evangelicals from supporting him. Giuliani would have been okay as well, his liberal social views dooming him among evangelicals. Hillary could have beaten them both. But Huckabee was a different matter. Huckabee just might set those evangelicals on fire, and Huckabee had some dangerous economic views. He would have to be destroyed after his victory in Iowa, which is why we saw support in the media for a revived McCain campaign. The power brokers had to back McCain for two reasons: Hillary could probably beat him more easily than she could beat Huckabee, and if she couldn't, he was probably a good second choice. He would keep the war going, and continue the flow of money to the oil companies and the military industrial complex.
A Clinton-McCain match up would be a good win-win for the power brokers. They might prefer Hillary, but they can live with McCain. Huckabee and Obama are different stories, which is why the powerful will do everything they can to stop both of them.
One plan they are considering is a third party candidacy. There is a lot of buzz about the billionaire Bloomberg running as an Independent and if they think he can win(there is furious polling going on now to assess his viability as a third party candidate)you will see him declare his candidacy soon. Bloomberg is one of them, and he has enough money to buy the presidency, the ethics of which doesn't matter to them. They aren't interested in preserving democracy; they are interested in preserving their money and power. All this BS about bipartisanship and making the government work is just that: BS. If they were really interested in bipartisanship, they would be enthusiastically endorsing Obama, which they aren't. Sure they want the government to work, but only for them. The people and their interests be damned!
This scenario I describe tells a terrible truth: the United States is not the democracy that many of the people still think it is. The people really do not pick their president. The power brokers use all kinds of tools including money, media, propaganda, and strong arm tactics, to get their man elected.
It remains to be seen whether the people can take their country back from these people. Barack Obama is dangerous to them because he has a gift of rhetoric which can sway a good number of people. If he wins the nomination and then the election, it will mean the people have achieved a partial victory. However, even if he is inaugurated, there are ways for his opponents to stop him, some too terrible to think of. As Bill Clinton learned, the power brokers have many ways to control the direction of the country, even if they aren't able to get their candidate into office.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
|
