Are hope and change actually issues?

An editorial in The New York Times entitled "What We'd Like to Hear" suggests that:

... there is still a chance to take this campaign and elevate it, finally, to a serious debate about major issues. That is what American voters deserve. And that is what Democrats must do if they hope to break the Republican grip on the White House.

After eight damaging and divisive years, there is certainly a lot that needs to be debated starting with President Bush's disastrous war, his tax cuts for the rich, regulatory incompetence and neglect and unrelenting assaults on civil rights, civil liberties and the balance of powers in government.

That certainly sounds like a good idea for the campaign.

Alas, the Cult of Obama does not want the primary campaign (and maybe even the general election campaign) to be strictly about "issues" per se in the sense that The Times lists them. The whole thrust of Barack's campaign for "hope" and "change" is not to focus on "issues" per se, but to rant against "the system", "the established order", and "Washington", but not the issues per se.

Hillary is as opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq as much as anybody, bur Barack is so focused on his campaign for a "new" politics, that he cannot bring himself to admit that he and Hillary have roughly the same objective for Iraq in the near-term. Rather than focus on the real issue of how to deal with Iraq going forward (in 2009), Barack and The Cult of Obama obsess over twisting Hillary's vote in 2002 into a vote "for war" rather than the vote for stronger diplomacy and "war as a last resort" that it really was. The Obama campaign would rather not focus on the real issue of what to do going forward.

Yes, it would certainly be nice to see the campaign be about issues, but Barack and The Cult of Obama are insistent that the campaign be about overthrowing of the existing political order in the purported named of "hope" and "change" and even "transformational change" rather than get bogged down with discussions of real solutions for real issues.

Hillary wants as much if not more change than most in politics today, so the ongoing claim by Barack and The Cult of Obama that only he represents "true change" or "transformational change" is simply not credible nor is it defensible.

For Barack and The Cult of Obama to similarly suggest that Hillary's campaign does not represent a deep and passionate sense of hope is equally not credible and not defensible.

The very simple fact is that hope and change are core values within the Democratic party. For anybody to hijack them and incorrectly claim that only they as an individual represent true hope and true change or represent them in much greater measure than every single rank and file member of the Democratic party is ridiculous, not credible, and certainly not defensible.

Besides, "hope" and "change" are not really "issues" per se. Yes, they are core values, but they are not issues in the sense of specific problems affecting the lives of average Americans.

I rarely agree so much with editorials in The Times, but they have it mostly right on this "issue."

Alas, The Times fails to finish the job by failing to point out that it is Barack's and The Cult of Obama's distinct passion for veering away from directly discussing real issues and real solutions, and instead veering into flowery rhetoric about only he being the one true representative and agent for hope and change that has caused the overall tone of the campaign to be much less about issues and much more about matters that are not the true interest of average Americans.

So, by all means let's get back to real issues and put aside all of the "hope" and "change" rhetoric that has plagued the campaign for so many months now.

-- Jack Krupansky