Notes from the Desk Hypocrisy '08

Author: Livingston Burgess

In general, I hate whining. I will stand firmly behind the disenfranchised, disempowered and otherwise dissed, but when fringe and marginal voices demand disproportionate representation, I usually draw the line. I hate conspiracy theories, diatribes that blame "the man" and complaints about perceived, generally minor slights. More so, however, I hate people who believe they are above the law, and the campaign for the presidential candidate you support falls into that category. Yes, yours.

On Aug. 26, the deadline for presidential candidates to file for ballot access in Texas came and went unheralded - and apparently unremarked upon by the candidates of the nation's two major parties. The date represented the last opportunity for access, and the law unequivocally precludes any grace period for late filers. However, Since Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination Aug. 28, and John McCain the Republicans' Sept. 3, they and their running mates could not possibly have met the deadline. The only candidate to file in Texas was Libertarian Bob Barr.

Predictably, the Texas Department of State dug up forms after the fact that showed both campaigns and their running mates registering prior to Aug. 26. Given that McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was not even chosen until Aug. 29, the claim seems specious at best.

The dancing of the major parties around ballot-access law would not be worthy of mention - their empty rhetoric and entrenchment in the very establishments they profess a desire to change far outshine it - but for the excruciating detail exacted upon third-party candidates in the exact same class of law.

The Barr campaign failed to gain ballot access in West Virginia when signatures on its petitioners were denied for coming in late, and both major parties pounced on the swing state, nobly seeking to uphold the letter of the law. Similar obstacles have been placed in the path of candidates for the Green and Constitution parties.

I would never argue that the West Virginia signatures ought to be accepted late - rules are rules. The hypocrisy at work, however, is demeaning to a pair of storied political parties, and to the American electoral process in general. The consequences of adherence may be extreme - it wouldn't be news if it couldn't potentially affect the clash of substance-less titans - they are merited by the need to stand upon the basic precepts of a functional republic.

The suit - which will almost certainly resolve in favor of the major parties - also exposes the shallowness of the platforms of both their candidates. Neither is sufficiently committed to the restoration of the basic freedoms eroded during the Bush administration, both are indebted too heavily to the power brokers who helped their climbs through the Senate and, more deeply, neither has a platform with any semblance of internal consistency. They clamor for change, asking that voters ignore their complicity in the status quo. And yes, that complicity includes Mr. Obama.

The attack that Barr and others could lead on those weaknesses frightens the country's political establishment. And given the messages on repeat from both campaigns, can there be much doubt that the electorate should be grasping desperately at the things that the component parts of this broken government fear?