Obama and McCain Both Gamble on Reasonable Voters

Both Barack Obama and John McCain seem to feel the respective radical fringes of their parties are past the peak of their power. Despite constant shrieks appealing to each candidate to tie himself to causes that would follow in socialist or fascist footsteps, the two have found themselves agreeing on several issues; and the people they found waiting for them on that common ground were the American public.

Each man has found that the opponent need not be made a figure to be hated, and that there is much to be found in listening to those of opposing viewpoints. Both men agree that shutting down the prison at Gitmo is the right move, and torture is not excusable.

Both are for some expansion of stem-cell research, and both favor a humanistic and realistic solution to the national immigration mess.

Other positions, on trade, wiretapping, nuclear proliferation, and more, show two men more concerned with getting things right than with winning partisan victories.

Perhaps now will come the dream that died as the Bush administration fell victim to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Even as Bush representatives told the public repeatedly that to allow the terrorists to change how we lived was to give them victory, the administration changed how it lived.

Centrist politicians who were just reaching their potential to heal the nation and work together were thrown to the winds. Fiscal conservatives with socially liberal, or libertarian standards were relegated to the children's table of the Republican Party.

Such up-and-comers as Christine Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colin Powell, and William Weld were pushed aside as old cold-war thinkers like Cheyney and Rumsfeld became the administration's mainstays.

Just as a government that was economically sound and responsible, while at the same time allowing its citizens maximum freedoms, was about to reign, the hawks came in like the the old Politburo generals seizing power to retain their archaic thoughts of government.

Rather than live free and defy terrorism to hurt us, we surrendered many valuable freedoms. The Patriot Act gave government power to spy on its own people, and habeas corpus rights were ignored. Everything became about terrorism; online gambling had to be shut down, as it might be laundering terrorist money, demagogues screamed!

Meanwhile, a major source of terrorist monies flowed regularly into American gas tanks.

Now the electorate has found two men that can act with reason rather than cite partisan lines. Let us hope they can sustain their affection for their principles throughout the campaign, and into the next Presidency.