A Battle Between the Left and the Far Left

By Alan Caruba

Watching the Democrat Party Committee decide to let Florida and Michigan delegates attend the convention in Denver, albeit with just a half-vote each, was greatly enlivened by those raucous folks who insisted on shouting their disapproval of the entire proceedings. The partisanship in the room between the Obama supporters and those demanding equal rights for poor Hillary was almost comical.

This was, however, a very serious event, brought on by what must be the most convoluted and idiotic set of rules on how and when to run a primary election. I thought Michigan’s Carl Levin encapsulated the essence of the problem when he asked why two all-white States like New Hampshire and Iowa always had to go first. I suspect that a lot of people have been wondering why primary elections have to begin in the middle of a corn field or amidst the bone-chilling snows of a New England state.

The fact that both Florida and Michigan essentially gave the party elders the finger and decided to hold their primaries when they wanted to was, in retrospect, refreshing. The Founding Fathers intended for most of the power to reside in the states, each of which is an independent republic, and all of whom have ceded certain powers, limited by the Constitution, to the federal government which is itself a republic. After George Washington's presidency political parties emerged and have been a part of the nation's life ever since.

As the committee conducted its affairs, lingering offstage was Hillary, desperate to scoop up a few more delegates to the convention to put an end to the upstart Illinois Senator who was in the process of crushing her dream of becoming the first woman President.

What we witnessed was a battle between supporters of the Left, Hillary Clinton, and of the Far Left, Barack Obama. The problem for the Democrat Party is that it hasn’t had a new idea since the days of the New Deal. It has no solutions for the problems of the nation beyond throwing money at them and to do that it must take that money from the taxpayers; it must bleed corporations of the funds they need for research and innovation.

The result is that we all now live in a nation that is technically bankrupt. We have entitlement programs from the 1940s that eat everyone’s income in order to provide for old age and illness, responsibilities that used to be an individual’s personal responsibility. The demographics of America work against this system as fewer young workers enter the system to pay for those who most benefit from it. Importing half the population of Mexico is not going to help matters.

The voters have been tilting to the Right since the days of Ronald Reagan even though they have also tended toward a more centrist approach to government, taking the best from both political ideologies. This explains why our elections are so closely divided with often just a handful of votes, usually from independents, determining the outcome.

Now we are at a tipping point in our history. If Sen. Obama wins, the ideology of the Far Left will win. If Sen. McCain wins, we will have bought ourselves some time to fix a broken system.