With Congress out on spring break it is now silly season. The press will revert to meta issues with a vengeance. This morning it seems to be all about the quarterly earnings of the various Democratic candidates. Well, that and the fact that Tom Tancredo is going to run for President. And I think that Tancredo will add a valuable voice to the Republican primaries…for the Democrats.
I do, occasionally, try to envision how the debates will look in late 2007 and early 2008. And the Republican ones are shaping up to be quite a spectacle. Off on the right we’ll see former chairman of the House Armed Services committee, Duncan Hunter of California. He’s most famous for suggesting that it is okay to torture people if you also serve them orange glazed chicken and rice pilaf. Next to him is Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who poses as a pious man that is concerned about our mission in Iraq, but who, in reality, is a big-time oil and gas man and member of the Board of Trustees of the American-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Next to him is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who just the other day made an interesting point:
“If Republicans in this election vote in such a way as to say a candidate’s personal life and personal conduct in office doesn’t matter, then a lot of Christian evangelical leaders owe Bill Clinton a public apology.”
That was a shot at another Republican candidate, former New York City mayor Rudolph Guiliani. Guiliani is most famous for his performance on 9/11. But before that he was most famous for cheating on his wife so flagrantly that she had to complain publicly about the mistress being brought into Gracie Mansion. Soon he will be most famous for not only hiring a man he knew to be mob connected as his police commissioner, but actually recommending him for the position of Director of Homeland Security.
Tommy Thompson, formerly Governor of Wisconsin and Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, is throwing his hat in the ring, too. He’s a little charisma-challenged, but at least he isn’t a snakeoil-salesman, xenophobe, advocate of torture, or a well known adulterer.
And then there is brave, brave, brave Sir John McCain…the Gang of 500’s choice. Unfortunately, the base of the Republican party hates him and he polling double digits behind Guiliani.
When these clowns get together it should make for quite a depressing display. One thing is certain. They are going to savage Guiliani on his moral character and his support of reproductive and gay rights, and his support for gun control.
If I had to vote for one of these losers, I’d vote for Tommy Thompson. But I doubt he’ll catch fire.
It remains to be seen whether Chuck Hagel and/or Fred Thompson will get into the race. I’m very disappointed that Fred Thompson is the leader of the Scooter Libby defense fund. That despicable decision destroys any respect I ever had for him. But, up against this slate of candidates, he stands head and shoulders about the field and should, in a sane world, win the nomination in a walk. Hagel is also a serious and thoughtful candidate. But he’ll probably find it difficult to win as an anti-war, anti-Bush candidate.
But, who knows? Who would have thought that Republicans would be overwhelmingly supporting a pro-choice candidate at this point? Perhaps things have changed more than we know.
we’re closer to sanity than we thought.
Perhaps voters realize that a true fiscal conservative wouldn’t be spending billions of dollars on a war that didn’t need to be fought, while giving tax cuts to rich corporations and individuals.
And perhaps voters are learning from the tainted spinach and pet food, and from the Schiavo debacle and stem cell vetoes, that this current crop of Republicans would rather poke their noses into a family’s private health matters than they would into big business.
We can only hope that they’ll see through the mask put up by the eventual Republican nominee and not buy the promises of change — because no matter who the nominee is, likely it’ll be Business as Usual…
Listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the report by Steve Inskeep marveling at the cash raised so far by the Democratic presidential field. The tone of the report left me with the impression that these were totally obscene amounts of cash raised by the top three up top this point, Clinton, Obama and Edwards, up to this point. Cokie Roberts followed up with a somewhat lackluster reading of all this so I was left with some unanswered questions.
A quick look says Bush raised almost 300 million dollars for his 2004 campaign. How does the current cash amounts raised by Democrats compare, historically, to the record cash raised by Bush in 2004 at this same time? Are they truly shattering all records by historic proportions or, forgive my cynicism, is this the start of another mainstream media narrative about how all the top tier Democratic candidates are beholden to the big money donors.
Did you intend a sliver of sarcasm in there, Booman, or am I just a little too fried from the sunburn I got yesterday from working outside?
……………………..
At this point it seems like the only thing that the Republicans can overwhelmingly support is that they all hate Hillary Clinton, none want to vote for an Iraq timeline and that they all “support the troops” (whatever the hell that means on any given day).
It is truly the silly season. What I particularly love is just watching the media hunt and peck around for some kind of narrative that they are comfortable with. Something that doesn’t require a lot of original thinking or hard work. They’re trying out all their old, reliable stuff but those pesky bloggers keep calling them on it. Damn them anyway! They truly seem to be having a little trouble right now but I’m sure they will get their mojo back in time to put up a valiant effort to ridicule and belittle the Democrats with irrelevant minutiae, all the while elevating to virtual god-status whichever Republican rises to the top from the pool of candidates currently fermenting at the RNC Headquarters.
Better stock up on the Pepto Bismol and Tums. It’s going to be a nauseous ride.
(Of course, I’m kidding but…)
The rift in the Republican party has never been so great. It’s very important to prevent them from burying it.
Tancredo clearly demonstrates the positions of one faction. The more publicity he gets, the less likely it is that Hispanics will fall for the Republican agenda.
Thing is, I’m kinda getting into it. I heard that Obama may have tied or outraised Hillary. That would knock her on her ass and she’d be sooooooo pissed. And maybe she would not be declared our nominee by every msm out there.