Saturday, July 19, 2008

Voters are employers, not employees

Exerpt from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080719/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_gramm

[Phil] Gramm said in a statement late Friday that he is stepping down [as a member of John McCain's campaign] to "end this distraction."

"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country," Gramm said.

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In my last post, I say this guy is a piece of shit. Now it's clear he is missing the point of the outrage (and now he's a stupid fucking piece of shit).

He seems to think that people are asking him to retract his opinion, but no one is asking him to do that. Hence his backtrack that he was talking about "our leaders," and hence the flood of conservative "analysts" stating that what he said was true. But no one is asking him to state an opinion he doesn't hold.

Instead of acknowledging that he shouldn't have said what he said, he merely apologizes for the "distraction" to the McCain campaign. My only wonder is why McCain didn't get rid of this asshole sooner.

He seems to think that the controversy is about the veracity of what he stated. But to a certain extent we all know he's somewhat correct. In many ways, we do like to whine.

But whether or not he's correct, or that he's entitled to his opinion, or that he's entitled to state his opinion, is not my issue, and I sense it's not the issue for the American voter as well.

In this Presidential campaign, the top issue on voter's minds is the economy. I personally disagree (I think it should be foreign policy), but that's not my call. It's the voters' call. And most voters have judged that Barack Obama will steward the economy better than John McCain. So it's in the McCain campaign's best interest to convince those voters that the economy is not that bad after all.

The issue, that won't penetrate Phil Gramm's thick head, is that he is not giving a reasoned and cogent explanation of why we don't want to vote for the President based on the current state of the economy. Instead, he talks down to us and insults us by calling us "whiners." He forgets, as many politicians do, that HE WORKS FOR US. We're not "whining." We're simply complaining that Bush and advisors like Phil Gramm are DOING A LOUSY JOB.

What if your manager, or his/her manager, on up to the CEO, what if one of them told you that you weren't working hard enough, or you weren't focused on a particular aspect of your job that they wanted you to focus on. Would you try to convince such person that they are wrong, that you are in fact working hard on the project they are talking about? Would that argument be well thought out, cogent, and respectful of their position? Yes, if you wanted to keep your job. Would you think him/her a whiner? Perhaps. Would you call him/her a whiner? Not if you wanted to keep your job.

And so Phil Gramm doesn't get to keep his job. Not because he was wrong, but because he was disrespectful of our right to decide who to vote for and why. You can convince us that John McCain is a better person for the job. Just like an employer, we expect confidence and a persuasive argument. Just don't call us "whiners" and expect us to think you have respect for what we want when we ask for it. It's clear to me he doesn't give a fuck for the voters. They're just "distractions."

While I may disagree with the final judgement of the voters, it is their right to judge, just like my CEO gets to judge whether I am adding value to his/her company.

And the voters are not as powerful as a typical employer, who can fire at will. So the voter has to be even more careful in granting John McCain or Barack Obama a four-year contract that cannot be bought out.

And it doesn't matter if either of these guys, or the people in their campaign, believe the voters to be "whiners." Just don't call them that.

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