The folks at the Bush-Cheney 2004 weblog asked me to link this fisking of the Democratic debates by Andrew Sullivan. Well why not? Having watched most of those debates on Sunday I found it spot on. (I confess I lost interest about 2/3rds of the way through, so I might have missed something.)
It remains that there are only two Democrats currently in the race who I could seriously contemplate voting for: Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, and I'll take Lieberman in a heartbeat. Clark is a cipher, and has flip-flopped so often on the war that I cannot at this point support him. Sharpton, as usual, is a cuttingly intelligent, charming, witty, charismatic, and engaging nutjob. Kerry I could never support, and the rest I consider utterly uninteresting and not even worth paying attention to.
Except Howard Dean. He's worth paying attention to, if only because he's got a very good chance of winning. Sadly, the rest of the candidates pretty much gave Howard Dean a pass, when what they should have been doing is savaging that sonofabitch bastard. He may be on the right side of issues like gay marriage (although he didn't used to be) and guns, but on the most important issue of the day (the war), he's utterly wrong. My take: if Dean were the nominee, and Bush died tomorrow, and Republicans dug up the corpse of Thomas Dewey and put it on the ballot, I'd vote Dewey. Ditto if John Kerry were the nominee. Both men want to sell out American security interests (and the Iraqi people, and tiny brave Israel) to that council of dictators and crooks we call the "United Nations."
If either Gephardt or Lieberman are the nominee, I'll think very hard about it, and probably won't make my choice until after both parties' national conventions are over. But if either Howard Dean or John Kerry are the Democratic nominee, I will immediately volunteer for the Bush 2004 campaign, and do everything I can to help Bush win. That's not much of a pledge---I'm leaning hard toward Bush anyway, since I support his agenda on several domestic issues and the all-important issue of the war. So, maybe Dems shouldn't bother with trying to get my vote.
I just wish they would try.
I'm sure everyone knows but me, but what are the domestic issues you think Bush's agenda is correct on? Cutting taxes, I assume, is a given.
"... on the most important issue of the day (the war), he's [Dean] utterly wrong."
You're right, the Dems shouldn't bother trying to get your vote. I sure hope the war is going well in the parallel universe you inhabit.
what they should have been doing is savaging that sonofabitch bastard [Dean]"
Man! And you talk about "Bush haters?"
What are you saying? That it's ok to hate a guy running for President, but not ok to hate him if he wins?
What's up with that?
The amount of things on the Bush domestic agenda, besides cutting taxes (which, so far as I'm concerned, is always a good idea), is surprisingly light.
I support school choice. Have for more than a decade. Bush has kept his promises on that, by managing to wangle a school choice provision into that compromise education bill he worked with Teddy Kennedy on. Indeed, his working of school choice into the education agenda is the #1 thing he doesn't get enough credit for, so far as I'm concerned.
I support the ban on partial-birth (or, if you want to use the Orwellian term, "partial dilation and extraction") abortions. Just like the overwhelming majority of American women do, and just like every woman I know does.
I have no problem--no problem whatsoever--with limiting government funding for stem-cell research.
I support several provisions of the Patriot Act, although I also have concerns about several other parts of it. I still wish we had more non-hysterical, thoughtful criticism of that.
I absolutely, unequivocally support Social Security Choice, and am disappointed that Bush's efforts in that regard have been weak.
That's about it. The domestic agenda has otherwise been relatively minor to me. He's made an effort to keep most of his promises, but he could do better.
Ara: As someone who also supports the war effort, I'm surprised you don't hate Howard Dean too. Given his stance on Israel, and the war in general, he's deserving of nothing but contempt.
I can tell you three or four things I agree with Howard Dean on. But not this. On this, he's so obviously wrong, he needs to be punished. Severely. I make no apologies for saying so, either. You want to list me among "Dean haters?" You go ahead and do it. That sonofabitch bastard would sell out American security in a heartbeat, and I do hate him for that. Mark me down for it, criticize me all you want. He's an asshole, and deserves to be called one.
Dean:
As you know, I don't go in much for hating anyone. To me, it's a matter of personal style or whatever-you-want-to-call-it.
Hating someone is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Your hate harms you far more than it harms the other person.
I don't have time for that.
As for Dean's position on Israel, well let's just say that I'm aware of it. And when the time comes, I'll make my choice.
But hating him? Or Bush? Or anyone? Nah. Not worth it.
I have to say that at things point I don't think I would even consider voting for any of them. I will be curious however to see how the campaing of the nominee changes once he has secured the nomination and starts focusing his attention on winning the majority of voters and not just the majority of Democratic primary voters. If Liberman is selected, I think I will follow it with interest, if one of the others, I'm not sure they could do or say anything at that point that would win me over.
Recall the old dictum that each party panders to the extremes during primaries, then moves to the center for the election.
In some ways, the Democrats are just acting naturally.
Bush doesn't have to do this, as he has the GOP nomination pretty much sewed up. So he can afford to start out in the center, thereby making the Democratic candidates look that much more left-of-center...
That's true, casey, but Bush still has to get elected (at least that was once the requirement) and that means he has to placate Christian Evangelicals. Whatever he does to advance their agenda won’t help his prospects with many swing-voters.
And most them (thankfully) don’t live in Dean's world where a
1)a three-term Senate Foreign Relations Chairman and highly decorated combat veteran isn’t trustworthy on national security while an AWOL duty-dodger who has his foreign policy read to him by others is…
2)the medical terminology for a medical procedure is “Orwellian”, as opposed to the political spin phrase invented by opponents of the procedure…
3)cutting taxes “is always a good idea”…
4)a “non-partisan” “liberal” is really a highly partisan neoconservative.
Believe it not, shep, there are a lot conservatives (or Republicans, they aren't necessarily identical) who breathe a sigh of relief that the GOP isn't terrribly beholden to the "Religious Right," hard as that may be to believe from where you sit. :)
The only real issue I've heard raised recently on those lines was the Defense of Straights Amendment, or whatever it was. And that hasn't gotten much ink lately, has it?
I would respectfully suggest that the radical right has less influence on the GOP than the radical left does with the Democrats.
You may (again) not believe this, but there are folks out there who think that a severe drubbing of the Democrats in '04 would be a good thing. Not because Bush would win, but that it would cause the Democrats to finally do some healthy soul-searching, the same way the Republicans started to do about 20 years ago.
As for other things...
-1) I've addressed this before. Being a good soldier doesn't make you a good political leader. In fact, the opposite is frequently true (President Grant, for example).
-2) Are you talking about partial-birth abortion? Really, I'm asking. Because I can't imagine anyone being in favor of that travesty, and generally I'm neutral on abortion questions.
-3) Absolutely. And twice so on Sundays!!! Heh. I'm 200% behind P.J. O'Rourke on this: giving power and money to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenagers...
-4) Uhhh.... Are you talking about Dean? If so, that's pretty damn funny. Really. Now, I don't know if I'd call him liberal, myself, but saying he's a neo-conservative, well... :)
Casey,
Just talking about Bush here (I respect honest conservatives and like a number of Republicans, hard as it might be to believe from where you sit – heh ;-). When you have to sue your way to the presidency and no rational person can say, “we’re better off than we were four years ago” at re-election time, you gotta go home with the one who brung ya. No matter how much you try to hide it.
And if Democratic soul-searching is going to produce anything like what Republican soul-searching did; the neoconservatives (they apparently just thought it was the soul) I think out-of-power with soul intact is an OK fallback.
As for the other things…(I knew the numbering thing would come in handy)
1) Yes, and even a blind squirrel finds a nut once-in-a-while, but I’ll take my chances with the sighted (Bush make Grant look like the Oracle at Delphi).
2) Oh yes, please, ugly and unpleasant abortion procedures for everyone (No wonder women and doctors can’t seem to get enough of them.). I was talking about the spinner spinning the spin.
3) Again, I prefer leaders who actually know something, not anti-tax, anti-government ideologues.
4) OK Casey, please enlighten me. On policy, where does Dean’s deviate from neoconservative rhetoric?