Edwards is out. Damn. I held to a forlorn hope that he would hold on.
Whom should I support now? Hillary is -- by a thin margin -- the more liberal of the two remaining candidates. The purists refuse to believe this fact, but a fact it is.
A sensible willingness to take "risks on the safe side" defines both. That attitude will give either Hillary or Barack more freedom to act boldly if the political atomsphere changes -- which is to say, if the political center shifts back to the place where it was in 1940-80.
I doubt that any grand ideological movement will occur. Rush and Rupert still control the airwaves. And the "progressive" loudmouths will commit suicide, as they usually do, by presuming that the country is less conservative than it really is, and by alienating average voters. The usual wedge issues will crop up, and will tip the scale to the GOP.
Gay marriage (for example) could not possibly wait until 2009. Hell no. The purists will insist that we have a national debate on that topic right now now now!now!NOW! We must talk about the matter in an election year precisely because the issue will help elect gay-unfriendly Republicans. So it occurred in 2004; so it will happen in 2008.
Never forget that the fucking progs do not want Democrats to win and will do anything they can to sink any Democrat's chances. Progressives, like Republicans, are the enemy.
Back to the question of the day. Clinton or Obama? I like Clinton better on health care, and a return to the "nightmare years" of the 1990s seems like a rather refreshing idea right now. But Obama may do better in the general, and he does cut an inspiring figure. So I am torn.
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itical realities are such that marginal policy positions mean little. Passage of anything that looks exactly like the candidate wants is almost nil.
How close they can get depends on their ability to interact with lawmakers AND (more importantly) how skilled they are at mobilizing the voters at large to get behind an idea.
Call it "style over substance" if you wish, but in the final analysis, style matters - a lot. If Hillary Clinton wins, nothing will be accomplished, because she will not inspire the electorate to get behind her policies with the kind of numbers and entheusiasm required. She will carry no coattails at re-election.
Obama is a much different story.
But for me, unequivocal and unbending opposition to the Iraq war from the beginning trumps everything else.
It's interesting to read, given your certainty that your political positions are the only "correct" ones to hold for any person who wants to be considered morally just and a true member of the human race, that in the name of getting any person with a (D) next to their name in the White House, you'd insist on not disclosing what the true policy stances should be because those ignoramus leeches in the red states will coalesce to vote against what are, as we know, the only civilized positions one could possibly have.
Nothing like having the courage of your convictions.
I've seen a lot of revisionist history about the 90s recently, from so-called Democrats. Not that I'm a big Clinton fan -- I only voted for him because I got a letter from Barbara Jordan, whom I considered to be God, telling me I had to. But I'm glad I did. He's still not the one I would have preferred to be president in the 90s, but I'll take him over GHWBush and BDole any day.
Just like I'll take any Democrat in the race over any Republican currently in the race now.
I don't know who I'll cast my ballot for next Tuesday when my state votes. I have serious concerns about Obama -- having listened to numerous speeches and debates, probably a lot more than most people, and I'm seeing an awful lot of style -- good, inspirational style -- and virtually no substance. Every time I listen I ask, well, how are you going to do all these things? Clinton talks a lot more about specifics, issues, what exactly she wants to do, the nuts and bolts. I'm drawn to that, because I'm a hard evidence kinda girl. But I can also see the draw of an inspirational candidate. After 8 years of crap, we sure could use some inspiration, and while I don't know the specifics of much of what Obama promises, I am confident it'll be a far sight better than what we have now.
I don't buy it that Obama is so very different from Clinton -- heck, even Ralph Nader says it's not so (although I disagree with him that both are corporate shills). There are differences in style, in experiences, and even a bit of a difference in outlook -- Obama sometimes seems given to (in my humble opinion) a little too much optimism, the rose-colored glasses kind, while Clinton may be too cautious at times in her assessment of the challenges we face.
In the end, I just don't know. Not yet. I suspect I will make a decision by Tuesday, and I certainly will be backing whichever of the two wins the primary and goes on the general election.
And I consider myself a progressive. Hopefully I'm not the enemy.
Thanks for your often insightful, cutting through the bull look at the race.
Nothing is left for us to do, but to tear down McCain like we helped bring down Rudy. Let's get to work!
Joe shows here that his "facts" simply cannot be trusted. He says: "Whom should I support now? Hillary is -- by a thin margin -- the more liberal of the two remaining candidates. The purists refuse to believe this fact, but a fact it is." His link that supposedly documents this is to a Congressional Quarterly webpage that doesn't actually document the point he has asserted. But http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/sen/lib.htm is a webpage that proves his allegation to be false. This "2006 Vote Ratings: Senate Liberal Scores" from a highly credible neutral source, National Journal, shows Hillary to score 70.2%, and Obama to score 86% (one of the highest in the U.S. Senate). (By contrast, McCain scores 43.3% there.) Furthermore, the major big-business PAC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, scores Hillary 67%, and Obama only 55%. So, the actual data simply disprove the undocumented allegation by Joe. This is all the more striking because Joe in this statement claims to be disproving the conventional wisdom, which says that Obama is more liberal than Clinton.
I'm having a hard time picking which fascist best represents me.
There it goes again, the view that Joe has falsely communicated, that Obama is less liberal than Clinton. NEITHER of these Democrats is "fascist," as the last comment alleged. But Joe's saying that Hillary (whom we all know is considerably more conservative than most readers here would like) is more liberal than Obama, is a dangerous falsehood. I don't call it a lie, because I would expect that Joe's having said that reflected sloppiness on his part, and prejudice against Obama, rather than any intent to deceive. Joe's having said it feeds into the disillusionment that Nader is exploiting.
I think Hillary is more committed to universal health care and more likely to be more effective at delivering it than Obama: she is our best hope for getting universal health care. Obama doesn't even have a good plan. By the time he figures one out, learns the ropes, and gets up from his first pratfall (the details of which are, I have no doubt, being planned right now by the opposition-remember gays in the military?) the honeymoon will be over and he will be ham-strung.
Obama is conservative in a very thoughtful way: he is an Edmund Burkeian in terms of political philosophy and thinks that societal change must be very gradual to be effective. This is a respectable position but not, in my view, what the times call for. What we need now is a figure with the guts and vision to make big changes and, unlikely though it may seem, Hilary is the one on the scene with those guts and that vision.
http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/ is today's cover story at National Journal, and it's titled "National Journal's 2007 Vote Ratings: Obama Most Liberal Senator in 2007." Hillary rated 16th. Joseph Cannon and other Hillary backers have contrary opinions, but this article presents comprehensive facts which contradict those opinions.
By the way, you need to register to leave some clue as to your identity. Remember the pre-net days? Remember actual, physical letters? How did they traditonally end...?
Oh yeah...like this:
-- Joseph
PS: The "yours truly" bit is optional.
By the way, you do NOT need to register to leave some clue as to your identity. Remember the pre-net days? Remember actual, physical letters? How did they traditonally end...?
Oh yeah...like this:
-- Joseph
PS: The "yours truly" bit is optional.
Not Yours, TRULY
Joe, you're wrong: Hillary receives higher ratings than Obama from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and lower "liberal" ratings than Obama from National Journal. But on top of that, Obama's votes appear more liberal the more you examine the strategic political context within which they occurred, whereas Hillary's look more conservative the more you examine the strategic political context in which they occurred. The most famous example of the latter was Hillary's having voted not only for the Iraq War resolution, but against the Levin Amendment which would have softened it to require that Bush come back to Congress a second time before actually launching an invasion of Iraq. Get over her Joe: She's bad news. Yes, she's not as bad as McCain; but no, she's not as good as Obama. You are wrong -- on the facts, here. Oh, and by the way, my name is Eric Zuesse -- as if it made any difference.
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