Put me on record as hoping St. Barack takes Biden, and McCain Lieberman.
Yes, that Lieberman. He's liberal for me on domestic issues, but what a repudiation of the Democratic Party and all it now stands for: their Vice-Presidential candidate of eight years ago standing up next to a Republican against what the Democrats have become. Besides, I think he's a good man. Think of how much better off the country would be if the Democratic Party was sane again. Maybe this would help shock them into it.
I feel better about this election than I have in a long time. The odds are still in St. Barack's favor, but only by a little. It looks increasingly like the half-baked ersatz-Messiah might be toast, with just a little luck.
7 comments:
if the Democratic Party was sane again. Maybe this would help shock them into it.
uh, yeah, good luck with that.
imo, whether or not hussein wins, the dems will move farther left.
Probably you're right, but a man has to hope.
The fact that the Democrats are lunatic is bad for the country because it makes us excessively dependent on the Republicans, who are encouraged to indulge their worst instincts because the alternative is utterly unacceptable. Over time, even otherwise sensible people are driven to want to take chances on the crazies.
I hate to tell you guys this, but the ideological and programmatic differences between the supposedly "lunatic" Dems and the allegedly "sane" Republicans are just not that wide: I suspect that a close review of the McCain and the Obama policy positions (a review I have not undertaken and do not intend to undertake) would reveal a surprising degree of agreeement on basic objectives, if not always on means.
That's (largely) b/c the US does not have a multiparty system: the 2 parties have to embrace a range of views, and while they may sound quite different during the primaries, when they have to appeal to their 'bases,' they always move to the so-called center for the general election. Personally I would rather have a real left-labor party (which the Dems aren't) facing an unabashedly pro-corporate party (which the Reps sometimes are but not always). That wd be a clear choice.
Instead, despite what you label as an "unacceptable" alternative, what we in fact have are two mushy centrist parties (one slightly left-center, the other sort of right-center) both heavily under corporate influence. Obama seems different to some people, which has excited his supporters (full disclosure here: i voted for Obama in the MD primary b/c i thought he wd be the strongest candidate in the general election), but in fact his differentness is more a function of his personal history than his policy views, imo.
So all this fuming about 'lunatic' and 'unacceptable' leaves me a bit baffled, frankly. The US will be under an Obama admin what it would be under a McCain admin: a capitalist country w relatively high levels of wealth and income inequality and a very weak (albeit slightly resurgent in some sectors) labor mvt. There wd be some diffs in foreign and domestic policy between the two, but nowhere near the degree you seem to think.
lfc
i'm just curious about something, why do you hate to tell us that that you did. the question is not rhetorical. why did you hate to tell us that?
now don't get me wrong, you do a good job of describing what is happening to the aisles in deecee. but out here in flyover country, we still believe, for the time being, we have the right to our own opinion.
and this is mine.
while you do a good job of stuffing your comment with filler, the absolute meat of your comment boils down to about the last two sentences. which in your comment you provide as merely a passing reference.
the fiscal policy differences between hussein and jmac are marxism vs free market.
the domestic policy differences between hussein and jmac are one RBG on the supreme court bench is one too many. she won't be able to last another four years, hopefully, and judicial appointments will be critical for years to come.
the foreign policy differences are a none starter. i want someone with the american viewpoint in mind, not someone making decisions about america as viewed from outside america.
in short, when the doors to the oval office are closed, and those certain decisions are made, i want someone who views the document that james madison put together as being for some place that is special, as opposed to being for some place that is fundementally flawed. as hussein's rhetoric repeatedly references.
what you sir describe as being some differences are in fact a chasm.
maybe not between the party's per se, but between how the candidates will govern.
for my part, i have come to determine who i vote for by who that person pisses off. that is why i was originally for ruddy. the saudi royal family was absolutely horrified that that man could possibly become president. regardless of any position he had, that was all i needed to know.
and finally........nancy pelosi is going to move to the center for re-election????????????????????
You've lost your mind. He'd lose about half of the republican votes if he chose lieberman.
LCF
Yes there are differences and similarities. But the time to tell is not during an election where they tend to that which will get them elected in between when there are little political costs.
If by “lunatic: El Jefe means inclined to stick to the ideology with out looking out the window to see if the facts support the action, he is discribing the 2004 condition of the Democrats. Both parties have them, right now the democrats have more in key positions in the party. Their candidate seems to be one.
Senator Obama has always voted as the ideology of the left would dictate unless a desire to avoid political suicide would said otherwise. And sometimes he has stood on ideological principle against expediency. I expect he will do the same, as president except he will have the power in many ways to control expediency. But he cannot have anywhere near as much control over the facts of a situation for his policies to produce positive results.
Senator McCain, on the other hand is much less ideological or what I think El Jefe means by sane. His instinct is Center Right but he has a record of being a maverick when Center Right did not seem to agree with the facts,.even at some political cost to himself. Since this is a very long-term tendency on his part I expect it to hold.
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Any democratic system has to have a means of creating effective political coalitions. When it works does the US two party system, when it works, it does this much better then the alternatives, when they work, though both choices are pretty messy when they don’t. Right now both parties are non-functional, but if any other system were in place in the current environment they would be non-functional also. I suppose on that one we get to agree to disagree.
hank: "right now both parties are non-functional": yes, i tend to agree at least with that.
louielouie: "i hate to tell you..." is, or used to be, a fairly widespread English figure of speech, intended to introduce what the speaker or writer considers (rightly or wrongly) to be an element of common sense or other similar corrective into a conversation. The meaning of the phrase does not match the literal meaning of the words. English is not short of examples like this.
For instance --
A: You know what?
B: What?
A: It's going to rain this afternoon.
A's "you know what?" is just a way of introducing something, and admittedly could be eliminated without any loss.
On the substance, such as it is, we're not going to resolve our disagreements, obviously. (I do agree with you on the importance of judicial appointments, though not of course on the merits of particular judges or Sup Ct justices.) And Pelosi does not have to move to the center b/c of where she is from. If she were a Dem member of congress from Denver, say, rather than SF, it would be a different matter.
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