Ron Bryant: American Politics Needs A Facelift

American politics needs a facelift.  Year after year we see the same old faces running for the same old offices.  Although 2016 is still a few years away, the presidential race has already started.  The Republicans are still licking their wounds from their 2012 defeat, and they seem to abysmally divided on who will be the best candidate to win back the White House.

Some Democrats are adamant about running Hillary Rodham Clinton.  It’s true that Clinton as name recognition, and no one doubts her intelligence; but talk about the same old faces.  In political years she is already a dinosaur.  Mrs. Clinton has been constantly in the public eye since 1992.  She is a part of one of the most controversial political legacies in U.S. history.

There is little doubt that her husband, Bill Clinton, was one of the shrewdest politicians of the twentieth century.  He survived a series of scandals that would have buried most public figures.  It is as if he had led some charmed life that made him invulnerable to his enemies’ attacks.  It should be pointed out however, that the presidency of Bill Clinton survived because of an excellent economy and not from some Faustian charm.

While the fates have been kind to her husband, Hillary does not possess the same luck.  She is just as ambitious as Bill Clinton, but without that “Golly gee whiz” good old boy demeanor that spared President Clinton from one self-inflicted disaster after the other.  To be quite blunt, Hillary comes off as a cold and calculating politico that will stop at nothing to get her way.  In other words, she isn’t as war and fuzzy as her wayward husband.

Another reason to overlook Hillary in 2016 is she brings nothing new to the table.  Americans already know what she stands for and against.  Her dogged devotion to Barack Obama has not helped her chances for the presidency.  Obama may have won a second term as president, but he was lucky in his opposition.  Few people besides his fellow Mormons could get excited over Mitt Romney.  As more facts come out about the IRS scandal, and the Benghazi debacle, Hillary may be pilloried by adverse public opinion along with President Obama.

A friendly note to the Democrats; find someone with new ideas and enthusiasm, instead of the same old Hillary, with the same old ideas, and the same old nostalgia for the boom days of the 1990s.  The Clintons have served America in several capacities, now it is time to place them on the shelf of history and move on.

The Republicans are really no better off than the Democrats when it comes to giving their party a facelift.  They need to look for new ideas and new faces as well.  The Republican Party is caught in a weird time warp of their own.  The glory days of Ronald Regan and the triumphs of congressional victories of the 1990s are over with.  Republicans must lay to rest the idea that they can run on the same issues that captured American voters over thirty years ago.  Now that Mitt Romney has been exorcised from the race for the White House, the Republican Party must now exorcise The Bush legacy.

Eight years of George W, Bush made sure the election of Barack Obama.  While it’s not fair to hold an entire family responsible for the deeds of one member, it is fair to move on.  The Bush era is over; the Republicans have to find new faces and new approaches to the nation’s problems.

At the state level, Kentucky’s Democrats and Republicans are in the same boat as their national counterparts.  The Democrats are in desperate need of new blood in their party.  The same faces and the same names, the same ideology that made them popular over eighty years ago, and the same solutions have taken away some of the vibrancy that had always been a part of the Democracy.  The Democrats are in need of an alarm that warns them if they proceed as they have been, they are in danger of loosing their dominance in the commonwealth.

Both Democrats and Republicans need to learn some invaluable lessons if they want to stay in power or challenge the status quo.  One lesson is the “trickle down” theory for the health of the economy doesn’t trickle fast enough.  The gap between poor and the rich continues to grow unabated.  Lesson number two is a healthy middle class is the most important component of a healthy economy.  Both parties have done extensive damage to the middle class and continue to do so.

Both parties must stop catering to every special interest group that demands attention.  The mantra of both parties must be the well-being of American first and foremost.  Both parties should work toward making America a manufacturing nation again, producing goods that are well-made and affordable.  Both parties must learn that America cannot, and should not, police the world alone.  The tax system in this country is outdated and unfair.  Perhaps both parties should think along the lines of a flat tax.  These lessons are just a few that must be learned if the United States is to survive as the dominant world power.

Democrats and Republicans, give the voters someone, and something, new.  Don’t become totally moribund.  Choose dynamic new leaders and dynamic new ideas for the good of the nation, and for the good of the state.  The voters will thank you for it by electing you to office.

Ron Bryant is a Kentucky historian.