Democrats

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

dnc: barack’s historic night

Is anyone else tired of Al Bore’s “I really won the 2000 election” canned jokes?  If we could just find a way to harness the hot air coming from our former Vice President, we would have a endless source of renewable energy.  Give the Democrats credit though.  They have a group of skilled attack dogs who allow Barack Obama to stay above the fray.

As far as the historic nature of Senator Obama’s achievement, I want to join with Senator McCain and others in applauding the Senator for being the first African-American presidential nominee from the Democratic party.  That is worthy of note, and the country is better off for Barack’s candidacy, because it shows that we continue to make progress against racism and discrimination.

Even as a Republican who still remains skeptical of Obama and his grand plans for the country, I have to admit that there would be no way that McCain could fill up a football stadium with people willing to listen to his acceptance speech.  McCain is not and will never be Mr. Excitement,  but that shouldn’t be the determining factor in choosing a president.  The whole spectacle was impressive, and Barack gave an excellent speech.  It had quite a few center-right elements, like when he talked about individual responsibility and the desire for fathers to be there for their children.  There were many things I liked about what he had to say, but there were many more areas where Senator Obama and I sharply disagree. That’s why I cannot vote for him.

We should not underestimate Barack Obama.  He is a threat to win this election, and even though the DNC was divided at the beginning of this week — and distracted by the Clintons’ long (and temporary) goodbye speeches — Barack Obama owned the stage Thursday night and became the lasting memory of the 2008 DNC. If it weren’t for McCain’s shocking announcement Friday morning, Obama’s speech would be the main topic of discussion at the political water coolers today.  Thanks to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, it is not.  She’s quite the distraction.

For must-read hilarious coverage of the DNC, go read Dave Barry’s column.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

dnc: shiny tie night

More of the Clinton show on day three — former President Clinton (the elected one) showed Hillary how a convention speech should be delivered.  I was surprised by the massive outpouring of cheers and applause for Bill Clinton, because the whole message of the primaries was that the Democrats had moved on from the Clintons and were ready to take the party in a new direction with Senator Obama.  This could have been designed to give the former president his moment in the sun and have some closure on the Clinton era before the Obama era begins.  Of course, this effort would be a massive failure since Hillary isn’t going away.

President Clinton gave a typical Clinton speech, except that it was relatively short.  The crowd was enthusiastic and cheered just about everything he said. He made a better case for Obama than his wife did, and he made what Democrats would consider to be a reasonable effort to support the current presidential ticket.  It must have annoyed a few folks that he said nice things about John McCain, since he’s the next Bush and all.

Our favorite flip-flopper John F. Kerry also made an appearance and gave a coherent speech.  Now that he’s no longer a threat to be president,  he’s much more likable and not quite as scary as he was in ’04.

I like Joe Biden.  I can’t help liking him and his story, even though I disagree with his views on about 90, 95% of the important issues of the day.  His story is a great made-for-TV narrative.  It is interesting that that personal story of him as a fighter doesn’t always translate into his views on foreign policy.  He knows that the way to deal with bullies in the real world is to hit ’em until they respect you and leave you alone.  The same should be true for rogue nations and terrorists as well, so I’m surprised that he is so willing to surrender his hawkish side to go along with Obama’s policy views.  Of course this is something all VPs do, submerging their own personal views to mirror those of the presidential nominee, so I guess he’s just following the grand tradition of Gore, Lieberman, etc.

Then there was the great Obama surprise, where he attempted to steal the spotlight from Bill Clinton and his VP pick Joe Biden.  Think he might have been tired of watching other people star at his convention?   Looked that way to me.  But it was nice of the great one to stop by and thank the little people who got him where he is today.  It’s the least he could do — to show up in person and mingle with the hoi polloi for a few minutes before his big speech to the masses on Thursday.

My prediction for tonight — Obama’s speech won’t meet expectations.  He may wow the mediots and some of the blind follower sheep he has in his flock, but the rest of us will look at what he said and inevitably find it lacking in useful substantial content.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

dnc: night two

Say what you will about Hillary voters eventually falling in line and voting for Barack Obama, the rift between the Hillary campaign and the Obama campaign is not a fabrication of Fox News and the MSM.  The Clintons don’t really believe that the Democrats are about to nominate the right person for president.  That makes the job of convincing Hillary’s delegates to vote for Barack instead rather difficult to do.  She had to make the attempt to keep herself in the conversation for 2012.  Given that calculation, Hillary’s speech did more to help her future political aspirations than it did to help Barack Obama win this election.

Hillary’s speech was a great speech, and it only reinforced the belief of her supporters that she would have been tough against John McCain.  She said what she had to avoid the blame for a possible November loss by Obama, but she didn’t make the case that he’s the slam-dunk choice against McCain.  How could she?  It’s clear she doesn’t believe that.  I think Michelle Obama knew that what she was watching was Hillary going through the motions of supporting Barack.  How else could you explain the resentful look on her face as she watched Hillary’s speech?  It’s all a big charade — this appearance of unity deal between the Clintons and the Obamas.

You really can’t blame the Obamas for any annoyance or resentment they may feel about sharing a significant portion of their convention with the Clintons.  The purpose of the Democratic National Convention should be to sell the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, to the American people as a suitable alternative to John McCain.  I’m not sure the Dems will end up accomplishing this and getting the necessary bounce out of this week.  Attacks on Bush-McCain policies only go so far.  To advance the hope/change message, Barack has to set out his own bold vision, which will be hard because there’s nothing new about his ideas or proposed policies.  The only new element is the person trying to sell those bad ideas.

All of Barack’s surrogates haven’t been able to close the deal for him so far this week.  It’s up to Senator Obama to make the case to the American people, and his speech tomorrow will have a significant impact on what happens to his candidacy going forward.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

dnc: the first night

Let the progressive love-in begin.

The Democrats kicked off their national convention Monday, and they decided to demonstrate their commitment to making a break from the old, partisan politics of George W. Bush and John McCain by choosing Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy to speak that night — who are stellar examples of unity and harmony and bringing people together. Good call there.  There’s no better way to demonstrate a new, different approach to the ways of Washington than to showcase the incompetent Speaker of the House and a guy who has been in the Senate forever and ever.  But wait…no tribute to past and present failure can be complete without including Jimmy Carter.  I was annoyed by Pelosi, amused by Kennedy, and I ignored whatever Jimmy Carter had said.

I continue to be impressed by Caroline Kennedy. I think that she would make an excellent candidate for public office, and she didn’t rule it out when she was on MTP with Tom Brokaw. She would be a tough opponent for Republicans, so I hope she stays on the sidelines.

Now to Michelle Obama’s speech…

My initial reaction to it was that I liked it.  If the objective of the speech was to humanize her and to make her less scary, I think she accomplished that — although the appearance of Barack and his interaction with their daughters probably did more to advance that narrative than she did in that speech.  On the other hand, I don’t think this kind of positive speech comes naturally to Michelle Obama.  Maybe it would be easier to buy into Michelle 2.0 if I hadn’t heard some of her previous speeches, but her smiles during this speech looked forced.  Even with this new tone, she still talks about remaking America.  America isn’t totally broken.  There are changes we need to make, and stuff we need to change, but America is still a great country.

What was accomplished?  Nothing much Monday night. I’m not sure that this convention will give Barack the bump he needs to regain momentum, unless the Clintons are willing to shift the focus from themselves to Senator Obama.  There’s no evidence that this will happen, so unless Barack gives the speech of his life Thursday, this convention week will be a wasted opportunity for the Democrats.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

it’s biden

Did you really think that Barack would tell you his pick before the media found out?  That’s some kind of faith, I must say.  Biden’s hardly the most exciting choice, and I can understand why some of you may be disappointed.  But it does change one calculation by McCain — he can’t pick a VP who would be killed by Biden in a debate.  That narrows the field of choices a little bit for him, and probably excludes some of those conservatives we would have wanted McCain to pick.   Oh well..not like McCain would have considered those names anyway.

This is going to be fun.  Joe Biden…you have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you by the McCain campaign.

Like this (for example):

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

sense and nonsense

Guess I don’t know much about the VP selection process — because I thought that Obama would have to pick one of Dick Morris’s boring white guys (Evan Bayh) to bring some balance to the ticket.  He still could pick Bayh or Tim “The Eyebrow” Kaine to keep this team from getting too much buzz around it — and to keep the attention of the press on the guy at the top of the ticket.  Unless there’s a glaring weakness to fill and all this other stuff doesn’t matter…

Why else would Joe Biden be under serious consideration in the Democratic veepstakes?

I hope and pray that Senator Obama picks Joe Biden.  On some levels, it makes a lot of sense.  He has the most credibility of any Democrat on national security issues.  He is much more experienced than Obama with the ways of Washington and he could help Obama make all those tough decisions a president has to make.  There are plenty of good reasons why this pick would be smart for Senator Obama, although there would be the risk of looking like a Cheney-Bush scenario, where the VP is in charge of organizing foreign policy.

There are also good reasons to look in another direction.  Wouldn’t a Washington lifer like Biden dilute the “change” message?  After all, Senator Biden has been in D.C. a long time.  If the system is broken, then Biden gets some of the blame for that.  And then there’s the endless ad copy against Senator Obama that Senator Biden has helpfully provided for John McCain and the RNC.

Jim Geraghty gives us some of the highlights here:

Biden, on a post-debate appearance on MSNBC, October 30, 2007: “The only guy on the other side who’s qualified is John McCain.”

Then there’s my personal favorite:

Biden said in a campaign ad, “When this campaign is over, political slogans like ‘experience’ and ‘change’ will mean absolutely nothing. The next president has to act.”

For all Senator Biden’s knowledge and experience, at times he can be a loose cannon, and he’s not that skilled at keeping his random opinions to himself.  If he’s the pick, Obama’s staff also might want to consider writing Biden’s acceptance speech for the convention to keep him from stealing words from random British politicians.  Imagine how much fun it could be for Republicans if Obama chooses him as VP.   Biden could be a smart choice, but he’s hardly the safest choice.  I would think that Obama might want someone who would be more comfortable being a supporting cast member rather than the star of the show. Can Joe Biden handle just being VP?   We might soon find out.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

no choice

The continuing discussion over the wisdom of Senator McCain choosing a pro-choice VP should be about more than whether conservatives would actually sit the election out.  I don’t think we can afford to make that threat.  Senator McCain has a long pro-life Senate record, and we have a clear indication of where he stands on abortion.  We also can be assured that Senator Obama could do far more damage as a pro-choice President than Tom Ridge or Joe Lieberman could do as a pro-choice Vice President.  There is one important responsibility the President has that would have an impact on abortion  — the Supreme Court nominations.  Of the two men, which one would be more likely to nominate judges who strictly interpret the Constitution?  I would argue that it would be McCain.  Now, it’s hard to imagine that he could get a Scalia or Alito through a Democratic Congress, but the precedent has always been to confirm judges who have all the right qualifications for the job as long as they don’t show all their cards during the confirmation process.  We are guaranteed not to get someone we like if Senator Obama wins the election.

The argument against Lieberman, Ridge, Giuliani or any other pro-choicer should be this — what else do they bring to the table?  Can you steal any Democrat or independent votes from Barack by picking this person?  What in their resume shows that the potential nominee is a strong leader and would be ready to lead on day one if anything should happen to McCain?  Is the person someone that conservatives can support when examining their entire political record, in spite of their pro-choice views?  All of these names have one common theme — none of them adds much to the McCain ticket.  There’s more risk than benefit here for McCain, and the numbers are showing that he has been gaining evangelical support recently, with some of that due to his strong performance at Saddleback on Saturday.

There has been an attempt by the media to change the focus of evangelicals from abortion and gay marriage to more popular causes like global poverty, HIV/AIDS, and global warming. A shift like that would make it possible for evangelicals to accept a pro-choice candidate like Barack Obama.  For now, their campaign is a massive failure.  Of course we care about global poverty and some of those other issues, but the primary concern of evangelicals has always been protecting the unborn and opposing abortion.  There is a clear difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain on this issue, and choosing a pro-choice VP would not allow McCain to emphasize that difference as much as he could if he picked someone who shared his pro-life views.

2 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Republicans

frum’s unconventional idea

David Frum wrote an article last week for Opinion Journal that is worthy of discussion regarding the party conventions of the Democrats and Republicans  — he suggests that they would be more useful and interesting if we got rid of the media circus and the two major presidential candidates.

He says:

But what if the journalists were absent? Not because they were banned, but because they did not bother to show up?

Party conventions could then discover a new purpose as showcases for emerging talent. With the candidate speaking in front of Mount Rushmore or wherever, the party’s next generation and second-tier figures could regain the convention microphones that have been progressively removed from them over the past three decades.

Sitting governors could be given platforms to detail their records in their states. Promising younger officials could participate in panel discussions and debates — and take questions from party members across the country. Right now, the parties are too busy staging a show for the whole country to tolerate any risk that some second-tier political figure might bore the audience or stumble into some off-message mistake. But with the press voluntarily absent and the voting public’s attention fixed elsewhere, mistakes would become less disastrous.

There is one main reason why I believe this could be a good idea.  I can’t speak for the Democratic side of things, but the Republican farm team has been stuck in Single A ball.  We haven’t done enough development of promising local talent, and rising regional stars like Governors Jindal and Palin need more exposure to the rest of the party as well as bulking up their resumes / achievements for future stardom.  That’s why we are stuck with the presidential / vice presidential prospects we have.   There aren’t many quality conservative prospects out there who are willing to take on the challenge of running for president. If we start now with our recruiting and training process, maybe in 4-8 years we will have someone that conservatives AND the rest of the party can support. It’s alarming how much better the Democrats have become at recruiting good young talent in local races to take seats from the Republican incumbents.  We need to match and exceed their efforts to keep our party competitive for the long term.

It’s a shame this would never happen, because the media loves having something big to talk about, and the two political parties don’t have much of an incentive to avoid all the free publicity gained by these televised events.  It would be too much of a risk for the parties and the media to take, and we know how risk-adverse they both are — but maybe we can find alternative ways to achieve the same objectives.

6 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

always a good idea

When there’s a serious problem that hasn’t been fixed in this country, the first thing we must do is blame all the politicians.  Not a bad source for a designated scapegoat. After all, that’s where many of the folks in a recent Consumer Reports survey placed the fault for the high oil prices.  I’m not sure how exactly they came up with these numbers, since they have 77% for the politicians and 75% for oil companies. (If anyone can figure out these numbers, let me know. ) We do need a comprehensive energy policy.  There are no quick fixes, but the American people understand that increasing domestic supply should be one of many ways we can decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  I’m not convinced that the impact of offshore drilling would be reflected in the price of gas immediately, but it would increase supply while we continue to pursue alternative fuels and more efficient cars.  For those who make the argument that it could take 10+ years to see the impact of offshore drilling on the oil market, I say why wait another minute to get started with it? In addition to that, do we have alternative fuels ready to replace gasoline right now? Or will that also take 10 years or more to develop? Right.

There is more to be done with energy policy.  However, the right approach should always be geared toward free-market solutions, because government has never been known for its innovation or its efficiency.  Most of the best inventions and innovations have come from the private sector.  Oversight is fine, I guess, to make sure that the oil companies are following the rules, but nothing good can come from punishing production with a windfall profits tax.  It won’t make gas cheaper — and that’s the goal, isn’t it? Democrats don’t have many solutions, just a long list of things that they won’t do.  That’s great leadership right there.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

there he goes again

We should be so proud of our Republican nominee.  He’s very good at sounding like a Democrat.  John McCain opposes domestic oil drilling in ANWR, and I’m guessing that would mean he’s not onboard with this offshore drilling bill that just got killed in the House.  It might actually get some traction if it had McCain’s support.  He also conveniently missed the Senate vote on a windfall profits tax. The House Dems continue to insist that even if we started to drill our own oil, it still wouldn’t make a difference with gas prices.  Are they serious about this?  Are they so beholden to the enviro-nuts that they can’t see how much sense this makes?  I’m at a loss here.  The American people want us to use our own resources to combat high fuel prices, as well as decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  If the Congress even bothered to ask us, I’m confident that the majority would support offshore drilling.

I should expect such behavior from the Democrats,  but John McCain has gone out of his way to parrot their rhetoric and copy their talking points.  Today he’s taking on the overpaid CEOs, just like Barack and Hillary before him.  Those CEOs make too much money and they need to be more accountable to their shareholders, McCain says.  While I’m not entirely opposed to more accountability for CEOs,  I’m not convinced that he has the best solution to that with giving shareholders a vote on CEO pay.  John McCain seems to think that he won this nomination without many conservatives, and therefore he can do and say whatever he wants — but maybe the reason for this mind meld with Barack on these issues isn’t because he wants payback from us.

My theory is that the whole point behind McCain’s strategy is to say loud and clear to the former Hillary supporters and others — “I’M NOT BUSH”.  See…I believe in global warming, windfall profits taxes, not drilling for our own oil, and punishing the producers in this country for their success.  I’m not so scary.  That’s McCain’s new message, and I hate it.  Maybe he can convince enough people of his own worth that he can become president in spite of himself.   But at the end of the process,  we are all going to go into the next 4-8 years with our eyes wide open about both candidates, and that’s not a bad thing.