{"id":5271,"date":"2012-01-02T11:58:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T16:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=5271"},"modified":"2012-01-02T12:43:15","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T17:43:15","slug":"election-end-times-or-just-another-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/01\/02\/election-end-times-or-just-another-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Election end times? Or just another presidential election?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been covering American politics in a back-yard, my-own-little-window-on-the-world sort of way for more than twenty years.<\/p>\n

And I can’t say that I’ve ever seen the kind of messages from top tier candidates that we’re hearing from Iowa in advance of this week’s caucuses.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post reports this morning on the remarkably dire message that’s buoyed the candidacy of Ron Paul.<\/p>\n

[H]e outlines a view of the world so bleak it would make Chicken Little sound like an optimist.\u00a0 There will be a total collapse of the economy. An eruption of violence in the streets. Martial law is just around the corner.<\/p>\n

Paul says he would like to cut $1\u00a0trillion out of the budget.\u00a0 \u201cPeople say that means everybody will suffer,\u201d he adds. Some probably will, he concedes, but \u201cthey should have to suffer.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, talks about President Barack Obama as a proto-socialist<\/a>, whose ideas and policies “would poison the very spirit of America that allows us to be one nation under God.” <\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m skeptical about the factual basis for these claims:<\/p>\n

There is no indication that American society is about to descend into chaos, nor that Mr. Obama is anything more than a center-left Democrat, in a tradition that has been an established part of American politics since at least the 1930s.<\/p>\n

But this stuff is resonating big time, at least among GOP primary voters.<\/p>\n

In past years, this kind of gloomy, edge-of-a-cliff rhetoric would have been the stuff of fringe candidates, the Pat Buchanans, the Pat Robertsons and the Ralph Naders.<\/p>\n

But not since 1964, and Barry Goldwater, has a Republican candidate won the nomination on a hell-in-a-handbasket style platform.<\/p>\n

The question, really, is whether this kind of stuff will resonate with a general election crowd, as well as among more hard core conservative voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Or whether the winning nominee will be able to pivot to a more upbeat “morning in America” style message.<\/p>\n

What do you think?\u00a0 Have Romney and Paul captured the American zeitgeist?\u00a0 Do you think this political contest falls in a crucible of history — or is this just another election year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been covering American politics in a back-yard, my-own-little-window-on-the-world sort of way for more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6550,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}