Liberals

31 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

questionable alliances

First it’s former NY Gov Eliot Spitzer and his high-priced call girl. He had to resign and he did.  It’s hard to feel any sympathy for a guy who wasn’t smart enough to recognize that he’s not the only government official capable of busting up prostitution rings.  It’s always annoying when politicians condemn activity they themselves engage in, so Spitzer isn’t getting a free pass by the public and the media.  That said, I’m not sure how strong the legal case is against him going forward.  If all he loses is his political career, that would still be a significant loss, so I’m not sure whether they should go ahead and prosecute him. Now, that’s not to say that cheating on his wife is acceptable behavior, or that politicians shouldn’t be treated the same as everyone else when they break laws. But in this case, I’m not sure there is much benefit to putting the guy in jail.

Side note to my friends on the other side of the aisle:  Democratic hypocrisy is not justified or excused by Republican hypocrisy.

Then the MSM finally gets around to questioning Barack Obama’s relationship with his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is different than people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell endorsing Republican presidential candidates with which they only have a passing acquaintance.  As we now know, Obama and Rev. Wright have a closer relationship than that, and it is troubling that Obama doesn’t see the problem with having a friend like this.  Obama says that he doesn’t see his church as controversial.  I think he should get a second opinion on that.  Whether or not Obama shares some or all of Rev. Wright’s views — and for the record I don’t believe that he does — he must distance himself far from this guy, or this friendship will end up hurting him in the general election.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

zombies

From the very quotable Andrew Sullivan:

The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway.

Heh. There’s something to this analogy, though. It’s hard to believe that Hillary Clinton, who has wanted this job her whole life, would easily surrender her claim to the throne to Barack Obama. As Sullivan points out, the Clintons have been fighting and clawing to gain political power for themselves their whole political lives. Why would it be different now? Hillary and Bill have (so far) refused to believe that the Democratic party has moved on from Clinton nostalgia. This is a wise choice for the Democrats. Despite the overwhelmingly positive views of them by a few lib holdouts, the average Dem knows that their future isn’t with the past. The Clintons aren’t the guiding force behind the party anymore, and it’s a hard realization to make for both of them.

Even though the Clintons don’t have as much political power now as they think they do, it’s still enough to keep Barack from scoring a decisive knockout in the early rounds. Hillary is not to be underestimated. That zombie-like quality she has to keep surviving when people keep counting her out makes her a tough opponent — both to Barack and to John McCain. That’s why I question the wisdom of Republicans who crossed over to vote for Hillary in TX and OH. Did they really want to take the chance that she would get the Democratic nomination? She has destroyed all of her former Senate opponents. Anybody remember Rick Lazio? Jeanine Pirro? Rudy Giuliani (whose Senate and Presidential campaign was over before it began)? Don’t expect her to take it easy on John McCain.

The strategy that works against those evil Republicans doesn’t work against the Man of Hope. Until recently, she hasn’t been able to land any punches on Barack Obama. Wouldn’t it be ironic if that red phone ad questioning Barack’s readiness to be Commander-in-Chief ended up hurting him in the general election? Hillary has no choice but to go for the jugular if she still wants to win. But it’s a tough balancing act she will have to do here. Saying that Barack isn’t as qualified as herself and John McCain is dangerous if she isn’t 100% + sure she will win the Democratic nomination. Whatever happens in this Democratic contest…it will be a lot of fun to watch from the sidelines.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

barack questions hillary’s experience

About time someone did. This, from the CBS news blog(h/t: kos):

“I have not seen any evidence that she is better equipped to handle a crisis,” he said. “If the only criteria is longevity in Washington, then she’s certainly not going to beat John McCain on that. “

He goes on:

One of the things that I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming? I know she talks about visiting 80 countries. It’s not clear, was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crises during this period of time? My sense is the answer is no.

Heh. Of course they are both less experienced than John McCain. Does this matter as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans? Byron York suggests that it does not.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll, finished a couple of weeks ago, asked Ohio Democrats to name the most important issue in their choice of a presidential candidate. Thirty-four percent said the economy and jobs. Thirty percent said health care. Nine percent said the war in Iraq, by which they most certainly meant a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops. Three percent said ethics and honesty in government. Three percent said “change.” Two percent said education. And one percent said terrorism and national security. (The Post and ABC asked the same question in Texas, and the answers were similar; one percent named terrorism and national security as the top issue.)

Those numbers are supported by the experience of just walking around in Ohio. I ask a lot of people why they support, or don’t support, Hillary Clinton, and no one tells me it is because she would be a better or worse commander-in-chief than Barack Obama.

The economy will be a major issue for both parties. The depth of the misery is debatable, but Republicans cannot afford to ignore the economy and talk about national security 24/7. Most voters aren’t single-issue voters, even though Republicans see national security as a primary reason to vote McCain over Hillary and Barack. McCain needs to show that he has an alternative plan to deal with the other concerns of voters, including health care and the economy. National security and the fear of liberals screwing up the country wasn’t a good enough argument in the ’06 midterm. It won’t be enough in November.

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7 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

atheists to the gospel of hope

This time, it’s the Economist.  They are just a bit skeptical of Obama and his economic views. 

FOR a man who has placed “hope” at the centre of his campaign, Barack Obama can sound pretty darned depressing. As the battle for the Democratic nomination reaches a climax in Texas and Ohio, the front-runner’s speeches have begun to paint a world in which laid-off parents compete with their children for minimum-wage jobs while corporate fat-cats mis-sell dodgy mortgages and ship jobs off to Mexico. The man who claims to be a “post-partisan” centrist seems to be channelling the spirit of William Jennings Bryan, the original American populist, who thunderously demanded to know “Upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight—upon the side of ‘the idle holders of idle capital’ or upon the side of ‘the struggling masses’?”

There is no denying that for some middle-class Americans, the past few years have indeed been a struggle. What is missing from Mr Obama’s speeches is any hint that this is not the whole story: that globalisation brings down prices and increases consumer choice; that unemployment is low by historical standards; that American companies are still the world’s most dynamic and creative; and that Americans still, on the whole, live lives of astonishing affluence.

Both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama speak the same way on this, but it is Barack Obama who is seen as the change agent.  Obama is seen as someone who can fix everything that is broken about America and close the inequities he sees between the working class and the people who employ the working class.  It is a common refrain of the political party trying to gain the White House that the economy is bad and that working people are getting hosed, because, after all — if people are satisfied with the status quo, why change parties?

The Economist goes on to suggest that we ignore what Obama says about the bad rich people, because he’s not really a “capitalist-hating demogogue”.  I agree that he’s not, but it’s hard to listen to Obama, Clinton, and Huckabee talking about corporations as evil and that punishing them would help the struggling middle class.  They all believe that government can fix inequities that government was never meant to fix. This kind of mindset enables the fiscal chaos the federal budget is in. 

The Democrats say that they will be more fiscally responsible, yet they have no plan for reforming the entitlements that keep us from getting a handle on federal spending.  Yes, I realize that spending has been one of President’s Bush’s weaknesses, but I don’t see how Hillary and Barack’s new spending proposals get us where we need to be on the budget. 

Even if we pull out of Iraq, there are still spending cuts and reforms to be made if we really want to see the kind of change Barack promises….

Unless these are the same kind of promises Democrats make (and don’t keep) every 4-8 years.

 

7 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

it’s over

Hillary continues to struggle in these debates. She had some substantive things to say, but her attacks on Barack Obama did not achieve the desired objective. They didn’t change the mind of Obama voters. It doesn’t matter that she may know more on foreign policy, or that she has a detailed health care proposal. She is, and will always be, the kind of Washington insider and divisive figure that cannot be a agent of change. Barack Obama offers not only a clean break from President Bush, but also a clean break from the D.C. Democrats and from the Clinton nostalgia that has held the Democrat party captive since Bill left office. In some ways, the change Obama offers is radical. But most of his ideas aren’t new or original.  They are the same Democratic boilerplate policies that have failed in the past, and will continue to fail in the future.

The media has called this race for Obama, and they will continue to be biased and ask Hillary tougher questions.  You saw some of this last night in the debate.  Hillary got the majority of the hard questions, and Obama was able to dodge his few tough questions and emerge unscathed from the encounter.  The only hope Hillary Clinton has was for Barack to stumble, and so far he has not.   All her arguments for herself and against Obama have fallen flat.   Texas and Ohio will have their say, but Barack Obama will still be the Democrat nominee, because the Democrats are ready to move on from the 90’s.

There have been many articles written about the failures of the Clinton campaign to get Hillary to the nomination with all the built-in advantages she had in the beginning.  I don’t argue that Hillary’s team has run the most competent campaign.  They have made mistakes.  However, Hillary Clinton is (and always was) a flawed candidate, and it’s a credit to her team that she’s made it this far. I really did want the pleasure of voting against her, but if the Democrats end up rejecting her and picking Obama instead, I will be ok with that too.

McCain must get his game face on, because the media will continue to give Obama favorable coverage.  He needs to have a better game plan against Obama than Hillary did, or he will suffer the same possible fate as she does now.

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

nader and the dems: the love affair continues

The nation collectively yawns as Ralph Nader announces to Tim Russert that he is once again running for President. Time to re-think which candidate is the most liberal. The Democrats still blame Nader for contributing to Al Gore’s loss in 2000, and they tried to keep him off of the ballot anywhere they could in 2004. Apparently he hasn’t forgiven those Dems for actively working against him. He says that Barack Obama doesn’t have a challenging record. Nader’s into recycling… he recycles the same attack lines used by everyone else against Obama and the same criticisms of corporations that John Edwards already made earlier in this campaign. There’s nothing new to see here, and Ralph Nader won’t get any Republican or Democrat votes this time either. The Dems will be happy with Obama and the Republicans have no reason to vote for Nader over McCain — he’s much more liberal than either of the Democrats or McCain.

Hillary and Barack are not amused by this.

Hillary: “Wow, that’s really unfortunate. I remember when he did this before. It’s not good for anybody, especially our country”.

Barack: “Ralph Nader deserves enormous credit for the work he did as a consumer advocate. But his function as a perennial candidate is not putting food on the table of workers.”

I am amused. Nader’s time has passed, but if he hangs around to annoy the Democrats, that’s enough reason to cheer his doomed candidacy.

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2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

rookies

That’s another term for people taking their first major swings in the big leagues — like Barack and Michelle Obama. Barack should be given credit for saving the good citizens of Illinois from the scary proposition of having Alan Keyes as their senator. That’s a worthwhile accomplishment. At some other point in time, it might not matter that the most attractive Democratic candidate who promotes change, hope and non-partisanship does so because that’s his strongest argument for himself. He can’t knock down McCain’s resume as easily as he could with Hillary’s. Forget for a minute that most of Obama’s policies break no new ground. Like Hillary, he says what his audience wants to hear. There are some hard choices the next president will have to make. Sometimes the best intentions fall short against foreign dictators and men like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, etc. The right person for the job of the presidency of the United States should know the good guys from the bad guys by their actions, not only by their words. I’m not looking for a candidate who can read the souls of foreign heads of state.

Speaking of souls, Barack’s wife Michelle said something interesting about that.

“Barack knows that at some level there’s a hole in our souls,” she said. This was a variation on her normal line that “Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, that before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation. “

As if it wasn’t scary enough to have Barack Obama’s big spending proposals and expansion of government bureaucracy as a threat, now we add a religious element to the mix. This is taking the role of the President to a whole different level. Michelle Obama is correct that people have broken souls, but it’s not the job of the federal government to fix broken souls. It’s not Barack’s job. It’s the responsiblity of the church.  If Michelle and Barack have this as their mission, maybe they should have chosen a different career path.

Michelle Obama could have put this a different way.  She is only trying to make the case for Barack as the candidate who will be the strongest candidate the Democrats could put up this year, and she doesn’t have much practice in this kind of bright spotlight. Mistakes were inevitable, and it’s a credit to her that it took this long to say something stupid like this, or the more controversial — “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”  Because America is hungry for change.  It was a sign of political immaturity and temporary loss of message discipline in the campaign, but not anything more serious than that. Michelle Obama doesn’t hate America.  How could she?  It has given her and her husband great opportunities to succeed, and the Obamas have taken advantage of those opportunities.

Michelle Obama is no Teresa Heinz Kerry.  She is not a loose cannon.  Democrats don’t need to worry about that (although you can be sure you will see some of those soundbites in future McCain ads).  Barack Obama will stand or fall on his own merits — which should be a more serious cause for concern than anything Mrs. Obama says.

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

i’m amused by this

Yes…I’m aware that GOP.com could very possibly be a biased source, but that still doesn’t keep me from being amused by Barack Obama’s Spend-o-Meter. The graphic’s a little difficult to read here, so click the previous link to see the original.  That’s $874.35 Billion (as in BILLION) of our money.  I don’t think repealing tax cuts and closing corporate tax loopholes will be enough revenue to cover the checks we will be writing to fund all these proposals.
BarackObameter.jpg

Isn’t it always the Dems who say that Republicans must tell us how they are going to pay for any proposed new spending? Somehow they never seem to apply the same high standards to their own candidates than they do to candidates on the Republican side. Funny how that works. The GOP’s helpful list also illustrates that Barack is not much different from any Washington insider by the way he writes checks with OUR checkbooks. This is something all Washington politicians do, although John McCain is not quite as proficient as it as his Dem opponents. We can’t trust John McCain on many issues, but holding the line on spending has never been a problem for him.

I am also amused that the stock answer to the question of how all this new spending will be paid for is always to repeal the Bush tax cuts, and to punish corporations for making more money than the Dems think they should. There are quite a few dumb people out there who smile and nod, and say that this makes total sense. Increasing federal spending to the levels Barack and Hillary want would be incredibly reckless, because the government spends too much of our money already — and we still haven’t made a serious commitment to reforming entitlements. If no politician can make a genuine commitment to reducing the massive bureaucracy we have now, the least we could do is try to improve the programs we have without adding new ones. This is common sense. Unfortunately, that’s not the way Washington operates. I’m not sure that any presidential candidate has the ability to fix the status quo.

It would be nice to have a president who can do all the things Barack Obama is promising — and it’s easy to get sucked into the hopeful changemonger rhetoric and his promises of unity for the country — but is it too much to ask that a future president do more than give great speeches and to help Congress spend our money? The saving grace in all of Obama’s new spending proposals is that there is no way he will get all of that spending through Congress.

Promising everything to everyone. The Dems have done this for years. Barack Obama is no different from the rest of the party when it comes to extending the reach of the federal government through spending. Those who expect Barack to make a clean break from the Democrat party line will be sorely disappointed with President Obama.

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Tony Blair, UK

barack’s third way

Even as a Republican, I like Obama. I think he’s a nice guy. He provides a sharp contrast to his opponent Hillary Clinton and to the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, both Washington insiders. Barack Obama is indeed a fresh face with a message of hope, optimism, unity, and not much else. What is different about Barack Obama is that he has mixed the attacks on President Bush with the soaring rhetoric and optimism of the Huckster. There’s more than one spoonful of sugar in what Barack’s dishin’ out. In fact, I’m not sure that everything his supporters are taking right now is a legal substance. I joke about this, but how else can you explain the brainless fanaticism by some of his followers(who are enjoying the music while ignoring the lyrics)? May I remind the groupies out front with their raised lighters and massive cardboard signs that we are not electing a rock star? Doesn’t the substance matter with Democratic candidates?

All the comparisons fall short of the mark. Barack Obama is no JFK. He doesn’t have JFK’s political or military experience, and no one has ever accused him of fiscal conservatism (even though he should be given some credit for the attempts at earmark reform). He’s certainly not Ronald Reagan. Obama has too much faith in the usefulness of government to solve the country’s problems. He’s also no Bill Clinton. He has the charisma, but none of the weaknesses of the 42nd president, and that’s a strong point in his favor as far as being the right guy for the Dems this year.

There is one comparison that would be somewhat accurate. It involves another man who was selected to sell the old, failed policies of his party by watering down its hard left origins. That man was former British PM Tony Blair. He too was a talented speaker and salesman. The problem was that Labour had always been a hard-left party, and the reason that Labour had spent so many years in the political wilderness was because people didn’t buy into their socialist policies once they became part of the working class. (They also had various non-photogenic types trying to sell Old Labour, and somehow this brilliant strategy failed…) Then Tony Blair came along, and the party recognized his talent and rhetorical skills, and elevated him to be the face of the party. This was a brilliant move on their part, and with a few tweaks in the wording, the Brits bought into this re-packaged version known as New Labour, and voted the Labour party into power in 1997 with Blair as the new PM.

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4 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

quitters

The dream is over for Rudy Giuliani, and for the President of the “Two Americas” John Edwards. Edwards announced his exit from the presidential race today, and Rudy Giuliani is expected to make it official some time before the debate tonight.  I’m sorry that Rudy decided to quit the race. Sure, at the end of the day, his campaign didn’t end up any better than Fred’s, but he would have had a real shot at stopping McCain in all those blue states on Super Tuesday.  I think the wrong Republican quit the race today, but if Rudy wasn’t going to make a serious attempt at retail politics in Florida or in any of the early states,  maybe it’s better that he recognized that now instead of waiting until later to officially end his campaign.

Meanwhile, Governor Huck still continues to smile and make corny jokes and to take votes from Romney.  It’s over Huck.  After Super Tuesday, it will be time to recognize that.  There’s a reason why the media has stopped talking much about your candidacy. Take the hint.  It’s time to make an outstanding “I give up” speech.

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