Looking at the nearly dozen Democrats who have either declared or seemed as if they might declare a run for the Presidency has me in a quandary. There are things about each of them that I like, and there are things that I do not like. Like any situation that involves making a choice between people for an elected office, there is no such thing as someone who is perfect. My choice will be based on a combination of positions on issues, leadership ability, experience and elect-ability. If I could speak directly to the candidates and give them a hint as to what it would take to bring me into their camp, here is what I would say to a few of them:
Senator Hillary Clinton Hillary, you get great marks from me on leadership ability and experience. Many people want to follow and support you. Those kinds of things do not just happen, they happen because of innate leadership ability. By inauguration day, you will also have had eight years of experience in the senate, eight years of experience in the East Wing of the White House, and 16 years of persistent attention by Republicans doing everything to tear you down and despite the latter you are still here.
I would like to see a few things from you on issues and elect-ability. Starting with the issues, when your husband pushed for and got NAFTA passed, many of us agreed with him and thought free trade was the way to go. I was one of those people who thought free trade was good and would balance out in the end. I thought it would open up new markets to American made products even as the influx of foreign goods might cause some loss of manufacturing jobs and may even cause a few bankruptcies in the sector. What has happened is very little of the former and a lot of the latter. I regret my personally supporting free trade and I think it has been shown to be a mistake from an American perspective. I would like to see you commission a serious study of the effects of NAFTA and other free trade initiatives on American manufacturing and labor. Perhaps a study like this already exists, I do not know. Either way, I would like to see you carefully examining the data from such a study and adjusting your positions accordingly. I would also like to see you come out strong on fixing what is behind the shrinking middle class and its deteriorating share of American wealth.
I also have some concerns regarding elect-ability with you. Most polls seem to have your negative vote in the mid 40's, for argument's sake, let's say 44%. I would like to see that in any Democratic candidate for President underneath 40%. As hard as it is to affect one's negative vote, I would like to see your campaign work to change at least 5% of the negative voters' opinions of you.
Senator Barack Obama Senator Obama, you get great marks from me on Leadership and also elect-ability which might seem surprising to some given that you would be the first African American nominee from a major party for President. You have a very low negative vote, in fact it might be the lowest among all Democratic candidates. It is in the mid to upper 30%'s meaning as things are now you have a good chance of getting a significant amount of the American people to support you. You have so much natural leadership ability and charisma that people feel drawn to you. Your speeches and appearances are standing room only events that people talk about for weeks, months and sometimes for years afterwards.
What I would like to see from you is a defining reason for running for President and a set of values and issue positions that you support that are driven from that. I would also like to see you address very early the knock that you do not have enough experience to be President.
Former Senator John Edwards Senator Edwards, you get strong marks on leadership and on issues. You have defined yourself in this race as the champion of the American Middle Class and groups like the SEIU have taken notice. Your leadership ability is part of what led you from growing up in a home of humble middle class beginnings to the highly successful lawyer and statesman that you are. You are the only of the candidates polling in the top three who is not a current office holder and this is not an easy feat. It is a testament to people's willingness and desire to follow you that you are doing so well in this race.
Elect-ability is a mixed bag in your case. It is clear that a lot of people like you, but the loss of the 2004 campaign has hurt you in your negative vote. You need to address the doubters as to why the 2004 defeat in the number two spot doesn't matter now in 2008. There are also lingering doubts from 2004 as to whether you have enough experience to be President. You have to find a way to show us all that you do.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich Dennis, you have a terrific amount of experience. You are on your fifth term in the House of Representatives and spent time as Mayor of Cleveland and an Ohio State Senator before that. There is virtually no issue or situation that you are unprepared to address. You are the heart and soul of the progressive Democratic caucus and as such, progressives who identify themselves as Democrats look to you as their natural leader.
Your positions on the issues is a toss-up. You are the obvious progressive favorite and I have no doubt that the progressives in the party are among the most energetic and hardest working campaigners in the party. At the same time, there is a question about acceptance of these values throughout the party as a whole and definitely among the greater electorate. To address both elect-ability and the potential vulnerabilities you face on the issues, you and your campaign need to convince everyone that the progressive values and positions are the right ones for the country. You need the best in business and academia to analyze your positions and their effects on the economy and everything else and prove that they will work. Then you and your campaign need to get those results out there.
Governor Bill Richardson, Governor Tom Vilsack, Senator Joe Biden, General Wesley Clark All of you are great candidates. Like Congressman Kucinich, you are currently way behind the top three in the polls. The four of you might want to team up with Congressman Kucinich to have a series of early debates on the issues just between yourselves in order to draw more attention and hopefully support to your candidacies. The Democratic Party needs as many good candidates in the race to choose from as possible so that we can be sure to select the best choice as our nominee.
I encourage people to write to the candidates to tell them what they can do to secure or maintain their support. Their candidacies are only as good as the people behind them. I would also love to hear from any of the above mentioned campaigns if they care to respond.
Steven Leser specializes in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations.
Steven Leser writes for www.opednews.com, an internet only media site that has grown to become one of the highest traffic news sites in America, reaching more traffic, according to alexa.com, than all but the thirty largest daily newspapers in the US. Mr. Leser is one of the 500+ liberal pundits who, each month, are published in what has become one of the top five Liberal/progressive media sites in the US.
The polls on the issues already support Congressman kucinich
The majority want an end to the war in Iraq, an end to the 'patriot' act. Most Americans want Universal Health Care without the insurance companies. Most Americans want to prevent a war in Iran, and Impeach Bush before he can do any more damage to our country. Most people want an end to the drug war.
Take a look at Congressman Kucinich's platform and you will see he represents the will of the people,not the corporations, and therein lies the reason the corporate media either ignores him or belittles him.
It is not up to Kucinich, but to US to catapult the truth over the corporate propaganda. The corporate media has lost all credibility by their support of this illegal immoral war in Iraq based on no evidence of WMD's, yet they still are pushing Iran as a threat.
We have the power now, and we have to use it to it's full potential. Viva la internet Revolution!!
Nadia - are you responding as someone from the campaign?
If so, I want to say thank you for being the first of any of the campaigns to address my points directly. I'll let your response be the last word publicly because I don't want this to turn into anything that could detract from any of the campaigns. I'll try to contact you privately.
Steve
sleser001@yahoo.com
by
Steven Leser (228 articles, 49 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 1647 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 4:15:59 PM
Steven, how can a candidate be "great" if they don't oppose
the Iraq war in a strong & serious way? Of all those you mention, only Kucinich really opposes it (and you didn't mention former Sen. Mike Gravel, who also seriously opposes it).
Some of those you mention don't oppose the war at all; or even brag, like Hillary, that they won't apologize for their past support of it. Some adopt a tone of criticism about how the war has been conducted, but upon closer inspection only "oppose" certain tactical aspects of the war (such as its costs for the US, & the fact that it's going badly), rather than the grotesque immorality of the thing itself.
Down at the bottom you call both Biden & Wes Clark "great," but neither of them is in any way an opponent of the war, & Clark still thinks that the US fought for righteous causes in Vietnam & in Kosovo. Except for Kucinich (& Gravel), none of these people is willing to acknowledge that oil has a great deal to do with the US occupation of Iraq, & as well as with its threats towards Iran.
How can you find this whole bunch to be so wonderful, when only 1 or 2 of them has a principled position on what is clearly the overriding issue?
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1232 comments)
on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 9:03:26 PM
That article actually makes a pretty good argument...
Except for the fact that the resolution on the whole is constituionally worthless. In other words, illegal.
Which makes the argument in your previous article moot.
The main thrust of the resolution is the transfer of war-making power from Congress to the president, which cannot legally be done without a Constitutional Amendment (which must be ratified by Congress AND a three-fourths majority of the state legislatures) that officially transfers said power.
But let's just say for the sake of argument that the AUMF is legitimate. While it might be technically correct to say that the Dems were just trying to cross all the t's and dot all the i's and that responsibility for actually starting the war is not theirs, that is no longer the issue.
The issue now is ending the war, the responsibility for which rests with the entire Congress.
The hands of anyone, regardless of party, who votes to continue funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, will bear no less blood than those responsbible for starting it.
by
John Perry (31 articles, 32 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 11:30:51 AM
...particularly when one factors in the 1973 war powers resolution in which congress further defined its own role in war and the requirement of the executive to report to them in advance if possible and regularly afterwards. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/warpower.htm
by
Steven Leser (228 articles, 49 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 1647 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 1:11:08 PM
Congress, not the president, has the war making power.
And, as stated in Article VI:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof (my emphasis); and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land..."
Regarding "pursuance": The 1973 War Powers Resolution allows the president to conduct war for up to 90 days at his own discretion. Call me crazy, but I say that's not pursuant to the Constitution, which, as noted above, is the "supreme law of the land."
Looks like that one is unconstitutional as well.
Once again: ANY member of Congress who does not take clear and convincing steps to end this illegal war (which, by the way, is also illegal by international standards) and provide for the immediate, safe, orderly withdrawal of our troops is entirely complicit in the crimes of the Bush administration.
by
John Perry (31 articles, 32 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 81 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 2:41:43 PM
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
That being the case, War Powers is a completely Constitutional law that assists congress and the President with Executing their powers of war and commander in chief.
by
Steven Leser (228 articles, 49 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 1647 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 4:02:50 PM
OK, 2 quick questions about your Dec. article on Iraq --
1) You argue that all US soldiers accused of war crimes & atrocities (such as rape, murder, torture, etc) committed against Iraqi (and Vietnamese) citizens should be pardoned. You justify this on the grounds that seeing one's buddies gunned down, & being in a foreign land where one doesn't know friend from foe, etc, all are reasons which could make anyone go "violently insane." Thus, you say, they should all be pardoned.
My question is: Doesn't this mean there is no such thing as war crimes for any soldiers, ever? Surely your arguments would apply to atrocities committed by ANY soldiers -- regardless of whether they are American, German, Japanese, or El Salvadorian. So in your opinion, no combat soldiers can ever be fairly prosecuted for atrocities; all should be pardoned. Is that right?
2) Your whole discussion of Iraq, and the correctness of Democrats' positions on it, focuses entirely on the WMD issue, in particular events after the Blix & El Baradei reports of March 7, 2003. You are accepting that the root issue is whether there was good reason to believe that Iraq actually had WMD -- which of course is how it was presented to the public, here.
But this very limited focus ignores the greater part of history. Just because the US govt claims the issue was "WMD" doesn't make it so, since, as we all know, the US govt lies a lot. Taking the US govt at its word often leads to false conclusions. Just as one can't reach valid conclusions about the Vietnam war by accepting the wholly fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident (which never even happened), one can't assume the issue was really WMD just because the US govt says so. A review of most US wars & interventions shows that the official pretexts turned out to be huge lies -- the Mexican War of 1846, the Spanish-American of 1898, WWI (the US lied about the "Lusitania"), Vietnam, Panama in 1989 -- all these were examples of US government lying.
In fact, the US & UK have been involved in ruthless machinations (including coups, covert actions & considerable violence) in Iraq ever since the WWI era, in order to maintain control of the region's oil. The UK installed a puppet monarchy there in the 1920's, which finally was overthrown in 1958 by the Qasim govt. Then the US supported the Ba'athists, conspiring against Qasim to overthrow that nationalist regime. Later the US encouraged our long-time ally Saddam to go to war with Iran in 1980. All of these machinations were designed, along with parallel (& equally dirty & dishonest) moves in Iran, to get control of the region's oil.
When the US govt says the issue is WMD, it doesn't necessarily mean that. It may well just mean that our government is using "WMD" as a pretext to justify whacking Iraq, to get more control over its oil.
So my question to you is, why do you take the WMD issue at face value? Don't you know that the US govt, like all great powers, has a long history of providing public pretexts for its strategic aggression, which have little or nothing to do with the real objectives?
by
Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1232 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 12:36:58 PM
I'll be happy to discuss this at length in a thread...
that has some relation to it or in private. We're now so far from anything resembling my article that we couldnt see the original topic from here with the hubble telescope
by
Steven Leser (228 articles, 49 quicklinks, 34 diaries, 1647 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 1:12:42 PM
There are no candidates currently running who are qualified to be President. The oath of office that a President takes is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. All of these candidates have taken this oath and yet none of them has done a credible job in keeping the only oath that counts. Why vote for any candidate who has already demonstrated that their word and their honor is no good? No truly responsible citizen will vote for a Presidential candidate who has failed this test.
by
Mark A. Goldman (81 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 243 comments)
on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at 4:45:44 PM
I really don't know who I am going to vote for yet. I know that I will not vote for anyone who supported the war in Iraq. If they were incapable of recognizing that the whole thing was a con job, they're too stupid for the job. If they supported the war for political reasons, then they have no integrity and I will not vote for them. I will also not vote for any candidate who has been purchased by the Israeli lobby. This includes Edwards, Clinton, Obama, and even Pelosi. There are probably others I am unaware of.
I supported Kucinich before and may support him again. He has been consistent in his views and has real plans for making the changes needed in this country. I'm afraid that the candidate chosen will not represent the real needs of this country but will represent who the Democratic party thinks can win.
The problems in this country are so deep and systemic that it will take a Christ or Buddhist to get us out of them.
by
Bob Trowbridge (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 53 comments)
on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 10:22:29 PM
I see Obama and Clinton as, without doubt, being the two most prominent democratic candidates in the coming 2008 election.
My personal vote goes to Barack Obama. He may not have much experience in the government, but, in my opinion, less experiences is proportional to less corruption--no one can deny that our government is corrupt. If you look at Obama's past life experience, you can see that he has dedicated himself to helping the "little man." He has put others ahead of himself. http://obama.senate.gov/about/ That link is a short (very short) biography of his life.
I have personally had an uncle that acquired a senate spot in Missouri. He was determined to change how things worked--he ultimately got changed/corrupted himself and I can still see this change in him today (he has been out of office for some time now).
However, Senator Obama is still new enough to the system that he has not had all of this political corruption engraved into how he thinks.
With this said, if Obama gets put into a position of power, it will enable him to enact these ideas of change so many of us desire before his views are skewed by his expanding "experience."
by
Derrek E (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, March 2, 2007 at 7:11:02 PM
13 comments
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