US Politics Opinion: Whose Gaffe is It Anyway?

For those of us who do not, shall we say, toe the line of the issues espoused by the right wing of the Republican Party and the Tea Partiers, it has been a good two weeks. In Arizona, a leading supporter of the anti-immigration measures lost a recall election. In Mississippi, an anti-abortion amendment to the state’s Constitution was defeated. A proposed new law ending collective bargaining rights for public sector workers in Ohio was drowned in a 2-1 vote.

As Democrat supporters may have watched these results with smiles on their faces, candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination seemed to be collapsing in scandal and incompetence. Herman Cain was swamped by allegations of sexual harassment. (Before the Republicans point their fingers and yell “Clinton", might I remind them that the 42nd President was a philanderer, not an harasser. What is the difference? The former implies consent, the latter does not.) Cain also provided the press with an opportunity to poke fun when he struggled with Obama’s policy on Libya. It took him almost a minute to confirm in his own mind that this was the country ruled by the late dictator Muammar Qaddafi. 

At least contender Newt Gingrich can’t be accused of not knowing his way around the the world. In 1995/6, he believed the publicity in 1995/6 that, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he was as powerful as the President. When he accompanied Clinton on a flight to Israel to attend the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he couldn’t stop complaining to the press about his accommodation on Air Force One and how disrespectful it was. The press are an unforgiving lot --- it was goodbye, Newt, as soon as he got back to Washington.

And, possibly, it’s goodbye Newt again, just as he verges on becoming a front runner. Why? He is fortunate to have a happy marriage; he is not as fortunate that it is his third. So as soon as he moved towards the lead in polls, grass-root Republicans who value the sanctity of marital union are seeking to undermine him.

And there is more. In one of the interminable debates among Republican contenders, Texas Governor Rick Perry said he was going to close three Federal agencies if he was elected. But having named Commerce and Education as having a short life, he froze on the third. Failing for a painful minute to come up with anything, he settled for "Oops".

(I am not sure that it is fair that the media centred on this memory lapse --- a recent former Texas governor and President was famous for them and that didn’t seem to bother too many people. What staggered me was the lack of questioning as to why any federal agencies needed to be terminated. Maybe Perry's third one was something minor like the Department of Defense or the Treasury.)

Amidst all of these pitfalls and pratfalls, President Obama, who has been languishing in the polls, has caught up and moved ahead of possible contenders. Maybe the voters are starting to see that their President is trying to come to grips with the worst economic times since the Great Depression and that the bromides offered by his opponents won’t work. Possibly, the same voters are realising that the Republican nominees are both limited and woeful.

But my overriding belief is that the middle of the road voters have suddenly remembered the opening words of Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution.:“The President shall be Commander in Chief....” How could lacklustre candidates of the likes of Perry, Cain, Bachman, and Gingrich take the reins of command? Perhaps Mitt Romney, who will probably get the nomination, will step carefully and avoid any talk about lack of military experience.

For now, though, the current Commander in Chief is looking better and better.