PurpleThink.com

A Purple Political Abyss
March 11,2006

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan commented this week that he predicts a third-party candidate will make a serious run at the presidency in 2008 or 2012. In Greenspan’s estimation, the divisiveness and lack of genuine public policy debate is turning-off the vast political center of this country, and something has to give.

He may be right. Exemplifying this is the Dubai Ports World debacle. Truth was a casualty to political posturing on the topic from day one. Hillary Clinton started the clamor with an almost immediate call for legislation to quash the deal. Bush instinctively reacted with a veto threat. Since then, congress ignored the 45-day cooling-off period offered by the UAE and entered into a party-line battle to determine who would be viewed by the public as the ones taking action.

It was humorous to watch CNN, Fox News and others in the early stages of this story. They didn’t know what to make of former President Carter coming down on the side of Bush and Bill Buckley on the side of Clinton – Hillary that is. I need to distinguish because Bill Clinton actually helped broker the DP World deal while his wife was attempting to derail it. What to do? Anytime the press cannot easily cast an episode of Crossfire and have a united Democratic party face-off against a united Republican party, they’re lost. The press has to work outside its comfort zone and actually research the issue, heaven forbid, and the real story came too little, too late.

Couple this frightening episode in American politics with Bush’s newest approval rating at an all-time low of 37% and you have a recipe for some PurpleThink upheaval. Who do we trust? Republicans or Democrats? They’re both so unappetizing right now. Politicians just aren’t truly grappling with what Purple America finds important. Some examples:

Border Security: Millions are illegally crossing the border with Mexico, seemingly uninhibited. Democrats are trying to gain the high ground with this issue through this recent ports fiasco, but it ain’t working. Republicans have abandoned real reform and Democrats have only criticized with no real proposal and a continuing reputation of being soft on crime and security.

Social Security/Medicare: Can someone show some real leadership here? The prescription drug benefit Bush enacted is a bureaucratic nightmare, costs far more than anticipated, and adds to the threat of a welfare meltdown in our lifetimes. Republicans see how Bush campaigned on reform and all he’s done is add to the mess. Democrats are viewed as simply wanting to throw more money at it, and in fact, that’s all they’ve really proposed.

There are so many more. But, instead of getting real public policy debate, we get unhealthy doses of Dubai Ports World, Iraq, Supreme Court nominees, corruption charges, and other distractions too numerous to mention.

So, is Greenspan the next Nostrodamus? Are we in store for another Ross Perot in 2008 or 2012? The more likely scenario is that a centrist member of one of the two major parties will begin to make some noise in the wake of all this nonsense. John Edwards? John McCain? Joe Schriner? PurpleThinkers will look to find any port in a storm – and this one’s a doozy.

So what’s a good PurpleThinker to do after a week like this? Stay strong my flock, the apocalypse may well be neigh and, God (Allah, Buddah, Zul) willing, some rational leadership will emerge from the purple political abyss.

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