The Pyrrhic Presidential Campaign

By David Hinz

In 279 BC the army of King Pyrrhus of Epirus faced the Roman army led by Consul Publius Cecius Mus at the battle of Asculum. The battle raged the entire day, and then well into the night. By the light of the following morning, King Pyrrhus surveyed the battlefield to find most of his elite troops dead, as well as most of his most trusted friends and commanders. In all, more than 15,000 men lay dead upon the field of battle.

One of his advisers, seeing the Roman army vanquished hailed Pyrrhus for his great victory over the Romans. Pyrrhus replied, "Another such victory as this, and we shall be undone."

A Pyrrhic Victory has come to mean a victory gained at devastating cost to the victor.

The Democrat Primary

Eventually, some time later this summer, the Democrat Party will crown a Presidential candidate for their party's nominee for President of the United States. Polls suggest that it will be a Pyrrhic Victory. A process that was deliberately set up to be a coronation of Hillary Clinton, has deteriorated into hopeless quagmire in which neither Clinton nor Obama can win the nomination through the primary process.

For a party that has made a mantra over the past seven years of "Selected, Not Elected" in it's vilification of President George W Bush, it is positively delicious that their 2008 candidate will have to be selected by the so-called "Superdelegates." The only possible outcome that could be sweeter still, would be if that selection was made during a brokered convention, in a smoke(-free) backroom.

Polls taken of Democrat partisans paint a pyrrhic picture for the eventual winner. A significant number of the supporters of both Clinton and Obama threaten to withhold their votes if the other candidate should win the nomination. The Democrat Party is a fragile coalition of disparate special interest groups (feminists, blacks, gays, felons and dead white cats, to name a few), and this primary, pitting faction against faction, threatens to fracture the party.

But voters seem to care about the name-calling and the tackles. In a recent Gallup poll, almost 30 percent of Clinton supporters say they'd go for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., over Obama if Clinton loses the nomination; 19 percent of Obama supporters say the same.

Another poll of white American voters reveals that eight-percent of the electorate admit that they would have a difficult time voting for a black man -- merely because of his skin color.

Obama would be the first black president, and the survey detected some evidence of racial discomfort in voters' minds. It found that about 8 percent of whites would be uncomfortable voting for a black for president.

Meanwhile, the partisan Mainstream Media openly shills for one or the other candidate, while wringing their hands about how this might help the (formerly "Maverick") and now evil Republican candidate, John McCain.

The Republican Primary

Ironically, it was the Republican primary, with its plethora of highly qualified candidates that was projected to go the distance, with no clear winner emerging until a brokered convention. Political junkies, like myself, were admittedly eager for just such an outcome. But, unlike the Democrat primary, where the majority of the candidates were mere window dressing, the Republican candidates split the conservative vote sufficiently to allow John McCain to emerge unscathed fairly early.

And so, a Republican Party that was supposed to be in disarray according to all the pundits, has been able to pretty much coalesce behind the presumptive nominee, while gleefully munching buttered popcorn and jeering the Democrats from the sidelines.

But, like the Democrats, a John McCain win in November will be a Pyrrhic Victory at best. The next President will inherit an economy in collapse. Rising energy and food prices threaten to derail the train of commerce. Congress, and the Bush Administration have both pushed for Ethanol production, and done absolutely nothing to increase oil exploration, production or refining. The one-two punch of rising fuel costs and food costs are hitting the American public as never before.

Solutions that could save the nation; making the Bush tax cuts permanent, increased drilling for oil, nuclear power plants; will all be opposed by the Democrat controlled Congress. ANWR will continue to be off limits, while our dependence on foreign governments, many of whom are hostile to the United States, will only grow.

In addition, each and every candidate has offered fealty to the hoax of Man Made Global Warming. Any attempt to impose Cap-and-Trade, or tax American business in the name of MMGW will devastate our economy.

In comments to the effect that the US needs to look "beyond" the Kyoto accords, McCain could be talking about changing those anti-American protocols to include the emerging Indian and Chinese economies. If McCain is, in fact, suggesting that the US will consider stricter restrictions of emissions only if China and India are similarly restrained, his outlook on MMGW could be to our nation's advantage.

Regardless of which candidate eventually places their hand on the bible, taking the oath of office of President of the United States in January, 2009, the economy in free-fall will be blamed on that President. A Pyrrhic Victory indeed.