Re: Grim Old Party

NoName wrote:
On 29 Apr 2007 14:55:07 -0700, Florida <demeter547opine@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Apr 29, 2:23 pm, NoName <NoN...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 29 Apr 2007 10:58:43 -0700, Florida <demeter547op...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
-snip-
Correct me if I am wrong, but aside from Jim Stevens it seems
those who tilt right are being very silent about U.S. politics
right now. I wonder if any of them is enthused about any of
the GOP hopefuls?
Imho, at least right now so far from the next election there seems
to be an air of uneasy bravado about the Gop candidates themselves,
but the mechanics of the large number of offerings is fairly simple,
they have to field a candidates at least equal in the number to the
Dems.
They have earned every bit of the discomfort they're feeling, and
I only wish it could be greater. For at least the next eight years or
so they will be identified with the party that has plundered the U.S.,
parceled out our ownership of our infrastructure, and sent millions of
jobs overseas while their spokesrobots have continuously lectured the
majority of Americans about how greedy *we* are - what with our
wanting jobs, medical care, and a dignified retirement - things that
belong only to the winners in the economic dogfight they've
instigated.

I feel in a good place because there are a number of Democrats
in the running I could vote for happily. How about you, Elaine?
First, before I forget to ask, please tell us what your
impressions of the candidates are.
An up-home good-ol-boy remarked decades ago, speaking of women in
general, "It's all good, just some's better'n others." Kucinich
touches my heart with his intelligent but passionate populism, but sad
to say his physical appearance is not Big Daddy material, so it
doesn't appear that he will get a chance to make his case. Banal, but
true: ordinary men can see a lot better than they can think. (The
gentlemen of this n.g. excepted, of course...)
John Edwards, as much as one can tell from a couple of minutes of
political-meeting chat a couple of times - In person he is not
"charismatic" in that sleazy way that professional politicians often
are, he's a great deal more than that - he's the real thing, a
brilliant man who made his own success, then turned back toward
redressing the problems of the people he grew up with, but also knows
that his talents might as well be used on the big stage.
For the rest of our team, I'm serious when I say that at this
point I'd vote for anybody* to get the people who actually run the Bsh
mob off our backs. Cheney and his Bushiites are sock puppets, the
handful of truly powerful billionaires operating them are the
problem.
I hope that Dems are experimenting right now; if not, the party
leaders need to drop the whole name-recognition / special-interests /
'what the heck, let's see if a redhaired Eskimo can get votes' thing
and find another male, white, healthy, youngish candidate who pleases
our base, but also can win that handful of the middle the way Clinton
did.
Hillary+plus+Bill would make a fine president, given that
presidents are the visible part of a very large group of dedicated
appointees. But it's a primate world, and males don't voluntarily
give power to females, no matter who they are. Of course I'd vote for
her if I thought she could get enough votes, but it seems very
unlikely. Not willing to risk dividing the vote again so we end up
with another Reagan or a Dubya Clone.
As we get closer to Nov'08 the O.D. and I are going to pay close
attention to the sensible people in this newsgroup. Making a choice
this serious we need all the help we can get.

* At this point if there were not other choice I'd vote for
Nixon. As everybody says, he was nuts but he wasn't stupid or a
career failure. We all know the dismal story of Lincoln having failed
at a lot of things before becoming a great Prez., it took Dumbya to
show that some failures are absolutely consistent, i.e., never fail to
fail.

You ask for my opinion of the Dem candidates. First of all I
want a Dem to win and so I believe ultimately I have to support
the one I think has the best chance.

Dodd I'll write off because he really isn't what I consider a
serious candidate. Not really working at it. And you have to
work at it The guy from Alaska I had never heard of before. He was a
hoot when asked where he had been since the '70s and said
"under a rock." That about says it.

Kucinich
is a person I like in Congress but not as President.
Realistically one has to be a bit more accomodating of the center
than he is. I can see him representing the Democratic left very
well in Congress under a Democratic President. Biden suprised me in
the debate -- he has a strong hold on foreign policy, more really than
the others. I have always liked him as a Senator but felt as others
did that as a candidate he was too verbose. I could see
him in a cabinet post, perhaps Secretary of State. I thought
Edwards was rather weak in the debate. Richardson has tons of
experience and is an honest man, very appealing. He was on
the edgy side in the debate I thought.

In the last presidential race I would have preferred Edwards
to Kerry, but this time I think Hillary and Obama trump
him.

So when we come down to Hillary and Obama, I like them both and either would make a fine President. I sent
Obama $25, so am duty bound to stick with him for at
least awhile:) Opinion is divided between who did
better in the debate -- Hillary or Obama, with Hillary
probably getting the most "yeahs".

Of course one debate where answers were kept to a rigid
time frame did not give any of them the chance to discuss
all the issues by a long shot. So best for now to wait
and see how they all do as time and more debates pass by.
Hillary was very strong in the debate and Obama is going
to have to run fast to surpass her. He is smart as a whip
and a fast learner so I think he will critique his own
performance and learn from it where he needs to be more
precise. It is, in fact, his ability to learn quickly
to deal with many complex issues that leads me to consider
him very seriously. Hillary has the history, but each
year presents new problems and the past is not always
relevant to how problems are solved today.


Did you see Biden on Meet the Press this morning? Russert didn't pitch him any soft balls and I thought that he handled himself very well. It was clear that he had carefully prepared for this interview. You know how Russert picks clips to play from the past? Biden not only was prepared to respond to each of them, but he played the same game by citing things that he said on previous interviews with Russert. I gather that he has appeared on the show 47 times before.

One thing that came across in the interview was that the issues leading up to the Iraq war were not as simple as most people would like to believe. Biden went into quite a bit of detail on what was going on in the world at the time, what intelligence was available, and why decisions were made. Unfortunately, the message was too complex for public consumption. He defended Hillary and would not speak ill of any of the Democratic candidates. He is the only candidate who has a reasonable plan for what to do in Iraq, IMV, and he used it to advantage in this interview. Russert asked him if he would accept a Sec State position and he didn't say no.

I hope that he stays in the race for now and I think that he will, at least through the first primaries.

Russert's show is already on the web at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/


.

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