Ronald Reagan defeated Communism.

I watched the entire presidential debate the other evening. Every media outlet is scoring it a lopsided win for Senator Kerry. I've also seen reported that there have been a string of democratic party debate winners that have lost elections. The comparison of the two candidates was rather severe. One candidate was flustered, made faces, stammered, repeated the same lines over and over, regardless of what was asked, paused and stuttered and finished answering before his time was up. The other was coolheaded, relaxed, gave clear, concise answers, chapter and verse, 1,2,3. He worked the clock and finished his answers at the last moment of time. Okay sure, say the Republicans, if you are talking about technicalities as if this were college debating, perhaps the President didn't score as many points as his opponent. But his opponent is an evil doer!

There are reasons why it doesn't matter who wins the debates.

The Republican base has a solid coalition of one issue Americans. Their central issue means that they can't ever vote for the democrat. It doesn't matter who she or he is, how smart the person is, how dumb the republican candidate is, how disasterous republican policies are. They have overriding issues that the republicans have collected under their umbrella in order to get votes and stay in power. The democratic party won't even lie and say they embrace these issues in order to garner votes, because they seem fundamentally illogical, unAmerican, or unconstitutional to them.

You can picture in your mind the members of these groups that are crazy and have made headlines, but these groups have millions of quiet members. They feel like they feel and they are going to vote that way.

Racists (invited to the table by Richard Nixon)
Pro Life movement
Anti public school movement (all home schoolers, all parochial schools)
Advocates for unlimited gun ownership
Anti tax and government movement
Those afraid of homosexuals
Those who are against separation of church and state (religious zealots)
The group who say harsh punishment for criminals is more important than eliminating things that foster criminal behavior.

There may be some more members under the umbrella, but I'll stop there for now. None of these folks can ever vote for a democrat. Of course some folks would swear allegience to all those groups, but even if they only fall into one of the categories, they are going to be at odds with any democratic candidate.

The motivations of these people fall into one of a short list of categories.

Fear. Religious zealotry and guilt. Anger against a wrong. Self centeredness. It's all about protecting vested interests (lifestyle, beliefs, family). While these are pretty negative motivations, they are not inherently bad. It's good to protect your family, hold fast to beliefs, protect wealth, and even protect yourself. What's the problem then?

There is no room for altruism. The only way to help others is to insist that they be just like you.

44 million Americans don't have access to healthcare.
Over fifty percent of Americans that live in poverty are children under 12.
Access to economic success is still limited if you are not white or if you are not a man.
People in most other countries are not enjoying the economic prosperity of middle class Americans. And, we are not trying to find ways to help them. Instead, we are surprised when they hate us or kill us.

I love to hear that Ronald Reagan defeated Communism and won the cold war. Making such a proposterous statment brands the speaker as an idiot. I read book MIG PILOT back in 1980, about Lt. Belenko, a soviet top gun who defected by flying his MIG to an airstrip in Japan. It was obvious to me then that the soviet union was all set dressing. They put their best face on TV, but they had nothing. The country was held together with string and glue. The overwhelming poverty broke the underpinnings shortly afterward. The communists were never even the enemy. It was the poverty. The terrorists are not the enemy. It is the poverty that breeds the terrorists. If I had nothing, my father had nothing, my children had no prospects to have anything and I could see Americans on TV in a shop window or a movie house, I'd hate us too. We have so much. We must find a way to share. We must find a way to not be afraid of a different skin color, religion, or lifestyle.