It may be fetching to some voters, but the theme of “change” so embraced by so many candidates in this year?s presidential contest is vacuous, an idea with absolutely no content in and of itself.
We need change, we are nevertheless told: Change, change, change, as if any kind of change would be ipso facto wonderful.
Butchange obviously can be bad as easily as it can be good. And in a land with more liberty, justice, opportunity and prosperity than could scarcely be dreamed of before it was made a reality by America?s founders and then by a mighty force of self-governing, self-correcting people, you should be careful not to change in the wrong way.
That, it seems, is what a lot of these candidates want to do: lead us to more governmental encumbrance instead of to enlarged possibilities.You come to that conclusion when you get a glimmer of the often vague, sometimes slight content they do inject in their talk about change.
In a New Hampshire debate among the Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton pushed Edwards to be specific about some concrete, beneficial change he had brought about, and he couldn?t, of course, but he did talk ominously about the terrible, awful threat of the status quo, of special interests, of corporations. He said that, for him, it was a personal thing, and that on his first day as president in the Oval Office, he would stand up to these threats.
Barack Obama does not sink so low as Edwards, but what is this jabber about Americans coming together to fight the special interests? What doeshe think these interests consist of ? Martians?
The real change we need in America is a change from political chicanery to political honesty.
Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He may be reached at [email protected].
