HOPE
OR
HOPELESS

That’s the real equation.

Don’t blame Obama.

Not with this do-nothing Congress.

Some folks just like a mess. Especially one of their own making.

Many of the Red Barn’s Woodpecker Reports, you may have noticed, are rooted in the years of the George W. Bush administration. Contrary to recent public opinion and propagandists, it was a dark period that launched a very expensive and unjustified war and nearly crashed the country into another Great Depression. Toward the end, there were moments we were only hours away from global financial collapse.

Barack Obama deserves praise for his drastic efforts to turn from that fate, even if he can – and should – be faulted in restoring the banking system rather than rebuilding it on a new foundation far more open to the American people.

Despite steering the nation back to economic health as far as Wall Street goes – something that has yet to take hold for the nation’s working families – and of inheriting two wars that defy true resolution, Obama’s legacy stands tainted by the GOP’s bitterly partisan control of the House of Representatives, severely crippling any effort to move forward on many critical issues. A party intent on obstruction and destruction rather than acting as a loyal opposition deserves far more blame than it’s been given.

In its own failure to proclaim this burning message, the Democratic Party, in turn, has no justification in being baffled by its own current state of wreckage.

So where do we go? Where do we turn? How do we move forward from this mess?

There I was, driving behind a vehicle that had a GOP elephant logo when the random thought hit me: pachyderms generate huge amounts of offal. (I read it in the Wall Street Journal, a big piece about the job given the last guys in the circus parade, in fact, if I remember right.)

And then I realized how much of our current political mess was created by previous Republican administrations. (If we can’t afford X, Y, or Z now, remember how much was squandered on the meaningless Iraq war, for starters.)

The fact I want to focus on, though, is the question of whether an elephant is an appropriate mascot for an AMERICAN political party. It’s an import that’s ill-suited for much of the continent, and it consumes tons of food, no matter how mighty it can be as a workhorse in the jungle. It’s definitely not something for the masses, and definitely not something we’d want as one for every household.

A donkey, in contrast, is a very efficient workhorse, and stubbornness can be a useful quality, at times. One per household’s not that far off the mark as a historic American ideal, either.

If I were a Republican strategist (gee, banish the thought), I’d be pushing for a new critter to identify with. But nothing that comes to mind at the moment is anything they’d want to consider.

Count me among those who’ve long felt there’s a place for a viable third party in America. Or maybe even a fourth. Some place my positions won’t immediately be lost in tactical compromise. Some place I’d feel more identity than I’ve long sensed in the so-called representatives serving in most of the places I’ve lived.

To date, though, what I’ve observed is that most of the minor-party advocates and candidates have cast their eyes exclusively on the biggest prizes – the White House, especially, or perhaps a governorship or U.S. Senate seat. If you consider the scope of the Executive Branch and the number of qualified appointments to be filled, however, you soon realize there’s no way these individuals are prepared to take on that level of leadership. These are things that come out of big party organization and contacts.

At the other end of the spectrum, the reality is how rare the two-party dynamic is in most locales – it’s usually long-term control by one or the other – meaning the national parties are really just coalitions of 50 state parties. I happened to grow up in a state where regular sweeps of the state offices, from one party to the other, tended to keep things clean, especially in the voters’ welcome of mavericks.

Even closer to home, though, is the reality that getting candidates to run for local office is often a challenge. They don’t even have to be good – just a name willing to attend the meetings, if elected. Yet this is the bedrock of democracy and community.

Party affiliation – apart from ideology – can soon disappear in the practical decisions of garbage collection, fire protection, and street repairs. A Socialist city councilor did a top-notch job for our district, as is the plumber we keep reelecting.

An effective third party, then, would need to be built from ground-level up, not top-down. And that, I assume, would also mean region by region.

How else do you think it would shake out?