Meet the Press has a round table on the 2008 Presidential nomination. If they can offer up their opinions, I suppose I can too. I’ve got a pulse and a couple of functional brain cells which puts me in about the same league as the pundits on Tim Russert’s show. Back in the 2004 cycle, I latched on to Howard Dean before it was cool. But, as per usual, I never pick a winner. The last winner I supported was George H.W. Bush in 1988. After that, I supported Perot, Perot, Gore, and Dean. So, with that in mind, here are some thoughts.
John Edwards is my favorite at the moment. What can I say? I have empathy for white-male trial lawyers. He’s a self-made man. And, he seems to realize the corrosive effect of large disparities of wealth on markets and democracies. People who don’t like that message will focus on the fact that Edwards has a lot of money and doesn’t live like a pauper — which has nothing to do with the right policy for the U.S. As Bill Clinton put it, we should design our policies so that people who work hard and play by the rules should prosper. Our system shouldn’t be designed so that accumulated wealth has an easy time perpetuating itself. Several generations later, Rockefellers and Kennedys shouldn’t still be riding the coat tails of John D. and Joe, respectively.
Barack Obama comes in a close second. For starters, he’s young. He seems willing and able to leave that 60s bullshit behind us. Women should have reproductive rights. Vietnam was a mistake and the hippies didn’t lose it for us. Civil Rights for blacks was long overdue. Let’s figure out how to get citizens involved in their communities again. Let’s figure out how to strengthen the middle class.
Hillary Clinton does not excite me. I’m not sure why. Probably it’s because, in my estimation, she suffers in comparison to her husband. She may have his policy skills, but she lacks his remarkable charisma. I’d vote for her over even a Republican with whom I agree more because I’m convinced we need a Democrat in the White House to undo the horrible damage done by the incompetence and fetish for secrecy of the Bush administration.
Fred Thompson seems like a sharp, charismatic guy who sticks to his principles. However, I suspect I disagree with a fair number of those principles. And, as we’ve seen from the Bush administration, sticking to foolish principles is no virtue.
Mitt Romney is a good looking guy. He’s also a Republican who managed to get elected in Massachusetts. But, he seems to be running quickly away from a number of his liberal positions. I don’t have much use for social conservative positions and am not enthusiastic about someone who is trying to become indebted to that wing of the Republican Party.
Rudy Giuliani was nothing more or less than the mediocre mayor of a great city until his city happened to suffer an egregious attack. He acquitted himself well on 9/11/01 — much better than our absentee commander in chief did that day. The virtues he displayed that day do not outweigh, in my mind, such things as the authoritarian streak he displayed as the mayor of New York City.
John “Weathervane” McCain caught my attention in the 2000 primaries. Of the four main candidates during that season –Bush, McCain, Gore, and Bradley — he was the one I liked the best. His performance since 2000 has lowered my opinion of him. He’s gone from berating guys like Falwell and Robertson to embracing them. His “more of the same” position on Iraq is a recipe for disaster.
Did I miss anyone who has a prayer at the White House?
Gore and Newt. I hope both get in. Gore, because he’s intelligent and competent. Newt, because I’m dying to hear the question: “How did breaking up with your wife over the phone while she was hospitalized with cancer so you could marry your mistress prepare you for your current role as a champion of family values?”
Unfortunately,Doug, your final question was more telling than intended. It is all about “having a prayer”, which means, the ability to raise money. This is distinct from having the best ideas that would serve the country.
I’m backing Ron Paul. He doesn’t have a prayer, because the Republican Party establishment hates him so, thus making it extremely difficult to raise money. I’ll back him until he is eliminated in the GOP convention, then I’ll back the Libertarian Party candidate, who I hope will be Ron Paul.
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Hello Doug,
Been away for a while. I will post my thoughts on the 2008 candidates at the very end.
I first want to comment on the elections last fall.
First of all, the Democrats would have absolutely crushed the Republicans except that Big Oil and Wall Street bailed out Dubya’s incompetent ass by dropping the price of gas by almost a dollar a gallon right before the election. Nice to have your friends at Goldman Sachs and the other Oil trading desks tell their clients they could dump their oil related risk reserves on the market and not jeopardize their short term credit ratings. Lots of voters still fell for that one, but will they again in 2008??? Sorry but it looks like Peak Oil is for real and the public is catching on.
The sad thing is that the consequence was dozens of additional truly progressive Democrats were defeated. Gas Prices at close to where they are today might have made a difference. Somebody like the heinous turncoat Joe Lieberman who supported Bushco’s energy bill along with the rest of the Republican agenda might have been still been defeated.
Instead the Clinton-DLC wing of the party betrayed the base and supported Lieberman over Lamont in order to stay in power. This was a critical issue because a Lamont victory would have really weakened the wildly corrupt DLC wing of the party. Instead it signaled that in spite of the Democrats taking the House and Senate, nothing was really going to change. Thanks to the DLC, the Democratic party is largely supporting the Bush Administration agenda. Absolutely boggles the mind. But it is true.
Now we see DLCers like Rahm Emmanuel and Chuck Schumer continuing to run-a-muck selling out the last bit of integrity the party had left. Because lets face it folks the DLC and not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi actually run the House and Senate because they control the voting blocks. The true New Deal era progressives like Brian Dorgan and Bernie Sanders are marginalized. With Lieberman holding a critical vote in the Senate the DLC wing is still in control in spite a huge electoral mandate for change in direction. Hence the further betrayals of the party’s base over continuing to fund an escalated Iraq War, “FREE TRADE instead of Fair Trade”, and this mostly Bush administration written abomination called “COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM” loaded with massive give aways to the Corporate Cheap Labor Lobby that is destroying the working and middle classes. Bye Bye New Deal Democrats Hello Grover Cleveland!!!
End Part I
Part II
Karl Rove really wanted a return to the Robber Baron era and worked so hard to bring it about. So it is especially nice to see Hillary making love to her man Bill right there on C-SPAN in front of the entire Select Senate “Committee on Competitiveness” for all to see. Bill Gates that is:
Want unlimited H1-B visas so Corporate America can import cheap labor in order to wipe out what remains of its middle class??? Want to outsource Nurses, High School Teachers, Medical Technicians … along with them Engineers and Computer Programmers??? Why sure Bill anything you say. Just put some of that money you fellas use to have your favorite lobbyist Jack Abramoff launder through Hot Tub Tom Delay in my campaign fund…..
Because the current Democratic party is so sadly corrupted by corporate Campaign money and the DLC it really is not that much different from the Republicans.
I can see why my best and only real hope for 2008 is for now laying low. Al Gore we need ya.
I will explain why I believe Al Gore is holding off announcing his candidacy in my next post.
Don’t feel bad. I voted for Perot, twice. I was in it more for the possible chaos factor rather than anything he was offering policy wise.
Hunter Thompson proposed that a Perot candidacy could produce a constitutional crisis, and I’m usually all for that. I know that sounds awful, but hey, at least I try to be honest about my motivations.
Catering to the anarchist voting bloc probably isn’t a winning electoral strategy, but so few things are.
Doug,
Remember, only you can stop bad memes like “anarchism = chaos” from propagating.
Anarchist societies can — and most anarchists would say MUST — be highly organized. They simply lack (or aim to lack) a government.
Anarcho-primitivists might argue against social organization generally, but that’s not true of the political philosophy as a whole.
Anarchism is essentially anti-authoritarianism. Anarcho-capitalists oppose only the authority of a thing that calls itself “the State”. Other anarchists oppose unjustified authority no matter how its source identifies itself.
Yes, there are many flavors of anarchism. It wouldn’t be of the political Left otherwise. :)
I don’t understand…what do you call the people in that organization? Isn’t that what we call government?
Sadly, Anarchism is much like socialized medicine with respect to its chances of successful implementation in the US:
Too many people.
In the case of Anarchism, though, the problem lies in the fact that too large a percentage of the aforementioned “too many people” are already suckling at the teat of “The State” in one fashion or another. Welfare lifers aren’t any more or less likely to bitch up a storm than corporate lobbyists or the masters for whom they conjure their evil.
I kind of learned about anarchy when I was a young teacher in the 60s. Just which knee should show be exposed through the torn trousers? The wrong knee might lead to dissipation of the group and the cause would die. It’s true that it takes a lot of organization and self-discipline to bring about anarchy,because if not, the individual would be destroyed before the targeted institutions. A strong, well-run movement will create the vaccuum that will be filled in a new way . (But be careful with a vaccuum;anyone can jump in,and that’s what the idealists don’t reckon with). But’s that’s anarchy in modern times: destruction of the institutions not approved of.No one really wants a total anarchy because we have too much to lose.We aren’t the Russian peasants. And I learned from the 16- yr-olds that it takes ‘strong government’ to destroy government.
Look at the Bush administration:their whole aim was to destroy government in order to build a new government in their own image,but no one sees them as anarchists,and only some of us see them as big government builders.It seems to have to do in this case with how the money is funneled.But that’s another chapter.
Wow, for a moment there I thought I stumbled onto MoveOn or Huffington Post.
This site, even if temporarily, has gone straight from a somewhat moderate liberal view to the fringe-left viewpoint.
I’m sure John Edwards is feeling the pain of the poor every time he gets a $500 haircut or hops on the GV. Self-made trial lawyer? There is no such thing.
My favorite about Edwards is the time he channeled the dead girl during a closing, which then increased the infant mortality rate by forcing more doctors to do c-sections, for fear of leaches like Edwards suing them. Hope he enjoys spending his blood money.
Oh yeah, were we in a War on Terror before we weren’t? Edwards doesn’t seem to be able to make up his mind.
If Obama were a white man, he’d be laughed off the stage for his incompetence and gross lack of experience. Since he’s half black, liberals everywhere are having a wet dream (even though CLinton was supposedly our first black president). Obama is a disgrace to anyone of color who has actually earned what they have, and a perfect example of why affirmative action is a joke.
Not that I suspect you care about the nuance, but Edwards’ point on the “War on Terror(ism/ists)(tm)” is that, as used by the Bush administration, it’s just an empty slogan; used to justify whatever the Bush administration finds convenient at the moment.
We have to deal with people who use terrorism as a tactic, but “War on Terror” has become a useless frame with which to address the problem.
Still, I suspect you raise a valid consideration. A non-trivial portion of the electorate won’t have the patience for explanations. The consideration will go something like:
1. No War on Terror?
2. But they attacked us on 9/11.
3. Mind closed.
4. Vote goes elsewhere.
I watched a little of the debate last night just to see what my party,the party supposedly representing low wage earners,the working poor and the middle class had to say about immigration not that I did not already know.
I learned the Democratic presidential candidates are for chain migration,expanding the H1B visa program,and the importation of as many low skilled as well as high skilled workers to the United States to help lower the wages of the very people they claim to represent and “feel” the economic pain of.They also believe English should not be the official language of the U.S. although most countries have a official language and control their borders with strict security the Democrats as well as some Republicans do not agree with this.
I learned they support the immigration bill presently being debated in the U.S. Senate which allows for 24 hr background checks and the issuing of Z visas in that time which can be renewed indefinitely without becoming a citizen and is completely unworkable,200,000 guest workers to the U.S each and every year who will absolutely overstay their visas and not return home at the end of the mandantory two years.The granting of a Z visa to over 600,000 illegal immigrants who have been court orederd to be deported,and my favorite the granting of the Z visa to a estimated 30,000 illegal alien gang members as long as they sign a paper renouncing membership in the gang!They are also for the nearly 3 trillion daollars this program will cost U.S. taxpayers.
The last Republican I voted for was Bush senior when he ran against Dukakis but in 2008 I will have to vote for one of the Republicans.McCain is finished!
The point that Obama is a Black man is valid but it’s for a positive reason ,not a negative one.How many times has Bush appointed a person ONLY because theyre Black?It’s their idea of ‘killing two birds with one stone’: appoint a conservative who supports the administration and then point out that the candidate is ‘black’ when race issues come up.Ive seen it happen often by Bush supporters in dialogues about race issues.We can all list the strategically chosen Blacks (and Hispanics) in the Bush administration,but i dont remember that frame of reference in Clinton adminstration. Hopefully finally Obama can transcend race.I realize im speaking in generalities and ‘personal observations’,but the first thing I notice coming back to USA from France is that race is a strong frame of reference still in USA and that’s not to say that everyone who ‘talks race’ is a ‘racist’,but race stays close to the surface in political conversations.Anyone who comes back to USA is invariably hit by new insights into american culture like anyone coming home after a long absence is struck by what had been familar,but had been displaced,then rediscovered after having a period of a foreign way of doing things.
Right now if I had to pick an ideal ..Democratic ticket it would be Edwards/Obama.Edwards being a trial lawyer is a postive for me,since that means he is an advocate for the common man against entrenched power.. Obama could defuse the charged race-ethnic atmosphere,which seems to be worsening.He might be a good consensus builder.These are early impressions.
I suppose I’m non-trivial then because I have no idea what else you’d call our current fight against Islamofacists who aim to destroy our culture since we don’t pray to Allah.
And what is Edwards plan to combat this, considering (assuming? Perhaps he can channel a dead suicide bomber) he can’t sue them? Is he going to draw on his years of experience in the arena, his vast diplomatic background?
I suspect he will take the standard Defeatocrat stance and cut and run, since our being there is what started this whole thing. After that, everything will be hunky dory and we can implement the socialist dream here in this country.
BTW Doug, as a self-professed occasional libertarian, why do you care what I do with my money, what I leave to my family, or whomever I choose? Why should you or anyone else get to decide what I do?
It’s not so much that I care what you do with your money; it’s that the money has to come from somewhere. I believe that government, to one extent or another, has to exist. It needs to exist to maintain a common defense and to enforce the laws, among other things. This costs money; i.e. taxes. To me, an estate tax is much more morally defensible than an income tax. A laborer has a much stronger claim to his wages at the end of a week than an heir has to the estate of a decedent. So, if we have to choose between an estate tax and an income tax, the income tax should be reduced or eliminated first. In addition, I subscribe to the school of thought that says pooled wealth ends up being less useful generally than distributed wealth. A billion dollars in the hands of one Kennedy results in less economic activity than $100,000 in the hands of 10,000 ordinary citizens.
I’m not excited about government taking a lot of action to get the billion out of the hands of the Kennedy; the cure being worse than the disease. But, if we need to impose a tax anyway, and we can impose a tax that tends to take from the rich and allow the not-so-rich to keep more of their money, it seems like a two-bird, one stone scenario. It takes from the Kennedy only after he is dead and no longer has any earthly use for the money. And, if it dispossesses a number of would-be Kennedy heirs, I won’t lay awake at night crying; particularly if it allows a substantial number of John Q. Publics to keep a little more of their paycheck each week.
FairTax is much fairer, if you ask me. It also doesn’t allow some bureaucrat to decide what is “far” or how much I should be allowed to retain.
Especially if it’s revenue neutral (it is) and exempts low-income households (it does, via rebates), then it’s a much better solution.
A little more context on FairTax for those too lazy to click The Scribe’s link:
The only candidate whom I’ve seen with a consistent record of keeping his campaign promises and voting ONLY in support of matters delegated to the Congress is Ron Paul. He even votes against issues that he strongly supports if they aren’t Constitutionally granted to the congress.
That’s the kind of leadership that this nation has been sorely missing for many decades.
Paul stands for Americe first, America second, and America third. No entangling foreign relationships. No subjecting of the US economy to the whims and trade practices of foreign bodies. No policies that encourage and expand the gradual depreciation of US sovereignty. And he promotes a tax system that challenges the unapportioned tax plan of the 13th amendment that was created contrary to the wisdom of those who wrote the Constitution.
In short, the man is everything that the rest of the candidates are not. There’s no double speak. There’s no affiliation with and promotion by multinational corporations. There’s no history of swaying with the current trend on issues. And there’s no affiliation with political operators who use their office to carry out an agenda rather than to serve their constituents as specified in our foundational legal document.
That’s my opinion, now for the facts.
I suspect that the ’08 Dem ticket will probably have a Clinton and an Edwards on it – I’m not sure yet what the order will be but if I were a betting man I’d call it Edwards/Clinton. A match cast in the 9th level of Hades, as far as I’m concerned. Social globalism with an expanded government that’s increasingly handed over to corporate mangement as the multinationals take over.
On the GOP ticket I’m expecting a Romney and Giuliani ticket – probably in that order. Another match cast in a Wall Street board room (please note the allegory). Different faces but the same agenda as the Edwards/Clinton duo. Romney to provide the grace and flair, and Giuliani to satisfy those who fear the establishment created boogeyman.
It’ll be a close race, but in the end the Dems will take it. Even if it means Bloomberg has to pretend he’s a conservative and spend $1 Billion dollars to split the GOP vote.
Once that happens, Edwards and Clinton (I almost wrote Gore, but same difference) carry out phase 2 of the Brzezinsky plan and present the US as global partner rather than global dominator. FYI, Phase 1 of the Brzezinski plan was establishing global dominance. The Dem sheople love the increased global unity and the increased care shown to illegals who need US jobs. They feel betrayed becasue the War on Terror is expanded, but there’s always 2012.
The GOP sheeple (I know – I spelled it differently in the preceding paragraph – do you know which is correct? I don’t) are ticked at our open borders but they feel a little bit better because Edwards and Hillary seem to understand that we need to fight them over there. And they’re especially happy that the Middle East Free Trade Area is providing more cheap goods and cheap labor to compete with US jobs and lower production costs. They’ll wow at the increased stock market and continue to ignore the dwindling middle class.
Important Note: the results will be much the same if the GOP ticket wins – the only difference will be the media spin and the resulting feelings of the voters who wouldn’t recognize a two-headed hydra if it was on C-SPAN every day.
That’s my prediction. It’s too bad. I’d rather dwell on what Ron Paul would do, but I know I’d be wasting my time. The majority of Americans have no idea what they’re getting themselves into by continuing to vote for the multinational corporate darlings promoted by the mainstream media.