While some party animal bloggers head off to Vegas, here are some recent utterances for all of us to ponder:
“Some rank-and-file Democrats fear Clinton bid —Activists express doubts about whether senator should be party’s nominee”-from Tom Curry on MSNBC.
Public opinion polls, as well as inside-the-Beltway punditry, suggest that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
A Gallup Poll in February found that 39 percent of self-described Democrats and Democratic “leaners” would be most likely to support Clinton for the 2008 nomination. The next closest Democrat was 2004 nominee Sen. John Kerry with 15 percent.
But recent interviews with dozens of active Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that hold the first caucus and primary of 2008, reveal that many party members who vote in those early contests don’t want Clinton as their nominee.
Coincidentally(?) “Warner Questions Clinton’s Viablity” pops up today.
Mark Warner (D), who is eyeing a possible 2008 presidential bid, “questioned in a television interview last night whether Senator Hillary Clinton has widespread enough appeal to prevail in a national race,” reports the New York Times.
“After saying he had ‘tremendous respect’ for Mrs. Clinton and calling her a ‘formidable candidate’ for national office, Mr. Warner said that Mrs. Clinton was not the presumptive Democratic nominee.”
And Jerome Armstrong steps out front and center with a revealing interview on The Huffington Post.
HP: I would think that Howard Dean and Mark Warner are very different people, coming from a different place and running or beginning to run very, very different campaigns, does your support of Warner show a change in thinking on your part? A more pragmatic approach perhaps?
JA: Well, I’ve always been pragmatic, because Governors are who win Presidential elections, and the early Howard Dean was quite different than Iowa’s Howard Dean, in the sense of his demeanor. I still believe though that Howard Dean would have won in 2004 had he gotten the nomination, because the main issue was Iraq, and certainly the move to invade and occupy Iraq was not a pragmatic choice.
The movement around Dean’s candidacy within the Democratic Party was a key component to the revitalization of the progressive agenda. It brought into politics a whole new generation (not by age but by activism) of political involvement. And now that vanguard has grown from a notable opposition (for example, to the Iraq policy) within the Democratic Party to the current Republican policies to becoming the position of strong majority. There’s no choice but to change the course of what we are doing in Iraq, and that’s not an issue of debate among Democrats.
But if we are going to really change the direction of this nation, it’s going to be through winning over many of those that have been voting Independent and Republican this decade. I want a proven turn-around artist in this regard, and Mark Warner stands out among the other potential ’08 contenders. He’s someone that’s not only changed the map and won with the backing of those types of voters, but he’s turned that mandate into progressive solutions for the problems that Virginia faced.
HP: What if Howard Dean gets tired of taking the Metro to the DNC and decides to run in 2008? What do you do then when the Deaniacs call?
JA: The line will be busy.
Meanwhile, Howard Dean tells Al Gore, “Keep Fighting.” .
Hurricane season has arrived — and two fresh studies point to a link between global warming and an increase in the number and power of storms like Hurricane Katrina.
What are Republicans doing about it? They’re smearing former Vice President Al Gore.
One right-wing pundit compared Gore to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist. Another right-winger, who’s been on the payroll of corporate special interests, likened Gore’s pursuit of solutions to global warming to Adolf Hitler’s pursuit of genocide.
I’m sending Al a note this week telling him to keep fighting, to keep standing up for the truth no matter how vicious the attacks. I thought he might like to hear from you, too. Sign on to this note of thanks, and add your own note of encouragement here.
