The Nation chooses not to endorse, but they have a pretty good run down on the Democratic candidates for the presidency. I didn’t find much at all to disagree with, which is unusual in these unsigned editorials. My only complaint is that they didn’t mention Chris Dodd. Unless Dodd can get to 15% in the polls in Iowa in a hurry, his campaign will be over. And that’s a shame because Dodd has the best record on the issues over his long career. He did get the Iraq War vote wrong, but so did Edwards, Biden, and Clinton (and Kerry). But Dodd is no newcomer to the progressive cause. He sent an email out today saying his crowds in Iowa are much bigger now that he stood up to Harry Reid on the rule of law and our civil rights. I’m glad to hear it. I’d love to see Dodd come in fourth in Iowa. I’d like to see him stick around. But if his campaign is doomed, we’re going to have to make a choice between Edwards and Obama.
I can definitely live with either one. What I can’t seem to do is make up my mind between them. As for Hillary, the Nation put it well:
Indeed, a Hillary Clinton administration could see a revival of her husband’s advisers and their procorporate neoliberal policies. Certainly the presence of familiar and high-priced pollsters and lobbyists in the upper echelons of her campaign, as advisers and donors, is a worrisome sign. (Both Obama and Edwards have declined lobbyist donations.) The experience Clinton touts is likely to frustrate the change she promises. To be sure, her election would represent a historic breakthrough for women, and a Clinton presidency even modestly responsive to an ascendant left would be far better than a Clinton presidency triangulating in the wake of the Reagan revolution. But there’s little reason to believe it would make ample space for a progressive agenda.
Actually, I expect them to strangle the progressive agenda in its crib.
Well, the clues have been out there for a while now. What are the choices left?
“Both Obama and Edwards have declined lobbyist donations.”
Says it all. If Democrats are interested in moving away from K-Street, then these candidates are the ones to vote for. Another dose of Republican Lite is not what the country needs. The problem is the women vote. Will this vote be convinced that Hillary is not the one to accomplish this feminist breakthrough, that she will only damage women’s opportunities in the future?
While I would love to see a true progressive win, I’m of a triage mindset; that is “first, stop the bleeding.” I admit to being cynical, but I could live with any of the top three as an improvement on our current leadership. None are my ideal candidate, but the truth is that my ideal candidate wont win in our current political climate.
There have been times when that’s probably been a reasonable criterion, but I don’t believe this is one of them. Another decade of just stopping the bleeding is just not enough. We are very close to the point of no return on so many fronts: environment, civil liberties, war, election, economic policy — well, you know them as well as I do.
I really think we’re in a situation where just treading water is more likely than not to lead to disaster that will make the current situation look like a kid game. I think there is hope with Edwards and Dodd, maybe Obama if his “reaching out” crap proves to be just rhetoric.
To me, a vote for Hillary would be pointless. She might stop the bleeding, but this country is in the last stages of cancer. If stopping the bleeding is all Hillary would do, as I think is the case, it’s probably now worth the bother.
Actually, I expect them to strangle the progressive agenda in its crib.
Undoubtedly. For some reason, while people get excited about Romney’s Mormonism and Huckabee’s frothy Baptism, no one ever seems to notice Hillary Clinton’s rather chilly Calvinism. Even in the areas where she is nominally liberal, it is in an iron-fisted, restrictive way. The last Clinton administration, if anyone still recalls, seldom took the side of civil liberties, and when they did, they were always ready to retreat.
I’m not sure who a second Clinton presidency would benefit, but I am pretty sure it isn’t me or anyone I know.
That’s my take on this contest as well. Both parties are pushing Republican candidates, so it is all about the lesser of two evils. But evil is evil, and a smaller does of it over the next four years may not change anything.
Hillary is part and parcel the consummate beltway Democrat. And it has become painfully apparent over these last 11+ months that a progressive agenda is just not a priority for a significant number of currently serving Democrats and most certainly not even on the radar screen of the Democratic leadership. While I’m not sure that they would strangle the progressive agenda in its crib, I do believe that they would feed it only at basic sustenance levels and certainly would not allow it any relative significance in its overall plan. So while they would not likely be overtly hostile to progressive principles, they would be far from champions for them.
That may well do as much harm as an outright strangulation. It would continue the marginalization of progressive values, which right now are shared by the majority of Americans, and allow the “radical left” narrative to be continually enforced by the “serious” and “concerned” beltway elite. Total cover would be given to the Broderesque centrist model so lovingly embraced by the party power-brokers. The corporate driven policies would most certainly continue, with perhaps only a slightly different bent.
The open hostility shown by Harry Reid to Dodd’s FISA/telecomm immunity fight is exactly the type of behavior and attitude we can expect to continue to exist within the Democratic Party under a Hillary Clinton administration.
A Hillary Clinton White House without a progressive infusion in Congress would indeed be a disaster for progressives.
I cannot support Barack Obama for president. There are too many negatives, too many questionable statements, actions, and frames.
#1: the gay-bashing was the lamest pandering ever. I expect that kind of crap from GOP dinosaurs, not someone who’s presenting himself as the great hope for progressives.
#2: missed votes, including FISA last week.
#3: right wing frames on Social Security
#4: “Joe Lieberman is my mentor. I want to be like Joe Lieberman”.
No thank you. Edwards please.
These very same things have stuck in my craw, too. I just have an unsettling feeling that I sometimes can’t quite get a handle on. Seems like there was a lot of potential with Obama but he’s just not quite there yet for me. Don’t quite trust him.
The no-show on FISA last week was the end for me. Way to lead, not.
Strangulating triangulation or from triangulation to strangulation and back again: HRC.
John Edwards for president. Plain and simple.
You saw Edwards run as the VP. He sucked. He got his ass kicked by Cheney in the debate.
Saw you better clean up your viewfinder. You are sipping to much koolaid if you think Edwards is the answer.
You do know he thought Iraq was a great idea, don’t you.
Why don’t you run you little snapshot and see what made someone do something that stupid.
But you won’t. Because lie the MSN. You have an agenda.
If we don’t mention it, no one will notice Edwards is a moron.
Good Luck