New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's visit to Blaine County proved it: The nation's in big trouble, the victim of Imperial Politics.
Clinton followed the pattern of Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, who visited here in 2003, and Democrat John Kerry, who skied here during his failed campaign for president but never spoke. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, spoke only at private events.
Like them, Clinton spoke only to those who paid big money for a private barbecue at the same ranch that hosted Cheney. A black car whisked her from the airport. She spared neither a wave nor a word for the public. The press was barred.
Clinton's national organizers said fund raising is always done this way. It was rude. It was crass. It was marketing.
As a senator rumored to be interested in running for president and as former president's Bill Clinton's wife, Sen. Clinton is a "premium product." And any good marketer knows that few will pay for a product if they can get it for free.
This is the level to which politics and government in the United States of America has sunk. It is so expensive to run for office that politicians spend more time courting donations than courting votes. After all, with enough money, TV can do the latter for them—or so politicians' handlers have trained them to believe.
So bankrupt is the system, that Clinton came to the only county in Idaho that voted for Democrats in the last presidential election, to a state with just 17 Democrats in its Legislature, and did—nothing.
Nothing for Idaho Democrats. Nothing for independent voters who after six years of the Bush administration might be thinking, "Maybe it's time for a change." No press conference, no sound bites.
Like Cheney and the Kerrys, Clinton appeared just for the money.
It would take little for national leaders who visit Idaho to politely acknowledge average citizens who vote and faithfully labor day in and day out to pay the taxes that pay the fat salaries and benefits to these ingrates. A speech on the tarmac might gobble up 30 minutes of their precious time.
The repeated insults are egregious, and telling.
Citizens don't own the federal government anymore. The age of electronic communications has turned what was once government of the people into government of big money, by big money and for big money.
Is it possible that anyone elected to national office will ever again refuse to become the slavish and slobbering lapdog of big money?
We hope so. The fate of the nation depends on it.
