www.townhall.com/columnists/tonyblankley/tb20041103.shtml
This column was written before a vote was counted, so I do not know who, presumably, was elected president yesterday. What I do know is that thi s has been one hell of a slam bang election season. Assuming the lawyers don't over-litigate the results, pay no attention to the sissy, panty-w aist, good government, sanctimonious, upstanding, highly principled, fur row-browed, chin pulling, thoughtful, easily shocked commentators, who c omplain about lying candidates, robo-telephoned slanders, whispering cam paigns, stuffed ballot boxes, biased reporting. This is what a muscular, healthy democracy (or a constitutional republic, for you semantic, cons titutional purists) looks like when it cares about the outcome of an ele ction. This is the kind of election our Founding Fathers and their first and sec ond generation sons actually ran from Adams to Lincoln. They accused eac h other of treason, atheism, sexual misconduct, miscegenation (interraci al copulation and child-bearing) and whore-mongering. They set up newspapers for the exp ress purpose of lying about their opponents. They played off class against class, the monied against the poor, the b ankers against the farmers. T hey may have written a high-minded constitution, but they fought electio ns about the same way that a New Orleans pimp keeps his women in line an d fights off his competitors. And they approached the voters about the s ame way those prostitutes approached their customers.
The Founders and their early progeny were men who ha d known a lack of liberty before they had fought and bled to gain it, wh o knew that their form of government was not secure and fought at the ba llot box with the desperate ferocity that attends such uncertainty. If their vision of a constitutional republic could only be gained by the e xploitation of whiskey, calumny and vote fraud -- then that is what they would use to win the day. And if Americans, today, have that same sense of urgency and desperation about their government (on both sides), why should we be any less bold and ruthless than our honored ancestors? Good government types have complained for decades about low-voter turnou t Well, now they have got their higher turnout. When not much is seen to be at stake, only the solid citizens come out t o vote. But when, as now, much -- perhaps all -- is seen to be at stake, the more fluid citizens flow into the election booths. While they may n ot bring much political knowledge or historic memory with them, they bri ng a passion that almost deranges the electoral process. The national psyche might not be able to take their unstable presence in every election. And if things calm down, we may not see them again for quite a while. But I am just radical enough to believe that whatever the ir effect on the outcome of the election, the system needs a good jolt o nce in a while. Those of us in the political class need the stuffings kn ocked out of our smug complacency every generation or so. And, by God, I feel unsmug as I write this election morning.
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