John Edwards , Hillary Clinton , Fred Thompson and the state of the 2008 Presidential Election

[stevenleser]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_071020_john_edwards__2c_hilla.htm


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 20, 2007

John Edwards , Hillary Clinton , Fred Thompson and the state of the 2008 Presidential Election

By Steven Leser

I did not expect Fred Thompson to be still in second place in the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination in late October and I am pleased to find out that I overestimated him. After months of artfully crafted suspense concerning whether or when he would announce a bid for the Presidency, the actual event and his first debate performance and everything thereafter have been a fizzle. When I wrote my June 26 article http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_070626_republican_2008_pres.htm predicting a Thompson GOP nomination, I expected Thompson would perform like an Arthur Branch, or the Admiral from “Hunt for Red October” or even the guy who appeared on an internet video smoking a cigar and deriding Michael Moore and his movie “Sicko”. The real Fred Thompson is none of those men and has little ability to be extemporaneous. What I am finding out about Thompson is that if you give him the chance to study a good script in advance and provide him the proper set, he can deliver a good performance. That is not enough to wage a successful bid for President. You have to be able to deliver great, unscripted lines in the heat of the moment surrounded by a gaggle of competitors and journalists who are analyzing every word and phrase hoping to use them to rip you apart.


In his debate performance, Thompson reminded me of an aging prizefighter who is way past his prime. He sees openings in his opposition’s defenses but is too slow to be able to exploit them. The real Fred Thompson has shown that he is not up to playing in the big game and the numbers show it. He has name and face recognition associated with popular television and movie characters most other politicians would give up more than one limb to have. Despite that, he is running a clear second to a Rudy Giuliani who has many problems with rank and file Republicans on social issues and doesn’t have near the Hollywood Law and Order star quality he has. If Thompson isn’t running a big first in the polls by now, he is never going to be. Combine that with a Giuliani who has shown that he is much tougher and more resilient then I thought HE was and it adds up to Giuliani winning the nomination.


Hillary Clinton

I’ve never struggled so much and so hard to try to get excited about a politician as I have with Hillary Clinton. Some might ask why, but the reason is simple. She is far ahead in the polls and seems to be gaining momentum. It would be much easier to support her from a perspective of not having to struggle to get someone nominated, than it would to support anyone else right now. I’d certainly like ‘easy’ for a change. I wish she would help me be able to like her. I recently wrote, “The Democratic Party leadership seems intent on a course that fails but for the opposite reason the GOP failed. The leadership is bent on satisfying independents in the center and center right and ignoring the liberal/progressive base of the Democratic Party. That leads to failure just as assuredly as either party pandering only to their party’s extremes does.” I don’t think any Democratic Party politician currently embodies that sentiment more than Hillary does. I don’t think that was always so. In the 2006 senate race, I castigated New York progressives for campaigning against her. At the time I viewed her as moderate but not centrist. She has definitely become a centrist. I wonder if that is cause or effect. Did the idea that she had no traction with progressives push her toward the center to seek a constituency? Right now, the intellectual exercise to think and debate that is irrelevant. We, as Democrats, are hurtling toward nominating a candidate I am starting to have a hard time recognizing as a Democrat.


She and her campaign have been doing some things right. I complained in my February 23 article that the percentage of Americans that had a negative perception of her was too high. She has taken care of that, but she hasn’t allayed some of my other concerns. Here is an excerpt from that article http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_070223_democratic_president.htm that I think she and her campaign could use to make some big inroads with liberals and progressives:


Starting with the issues, when your husband pushed for and got NAFTA passed, many of us agreed with him and thought free trade was the way to go. I was one of those people who thought free trade was good and would balance out in the end. I thought it would open up new markets to American made products even as the influx of foreign goods might cause some loss of manufacturing jobs and may even cause a few bankruptcies in the sector. What has happened is very little of the former and a lot of the latter. I regret my personally supporting free trade and I think it has been shown to be a mistake from an American perspective. I would like to see you commission a serious study of the effects of NAFTA and other free trade initiatives on American manufacturing and labor. Perhaps a study like this already exists, I do not know. Either way, I would like to see you carefully examining the data from such a study and adjusting your positions accordingly. I would also like to see you come out strong on fixing what is behind the shrinking middle class and its deteriorating share of American wealth.
----------------------
Since Hillary may very well win the nomination and perhaps the Presidency, I want to be excited about that. I want to be able, if she wins the nomination, to get behind her candidacy with a great deal of enthusiasm. I will support her if she wins the nomination regardless, but passion in your supporters (or the lack of it) means a lot in a Presidential race.


John Edwards

With Clinton and Thompson, I know how they are performing and I know why. I don’t understand why Edwards is running a distant third in the race for the Democratic nomination. He is a great speaker and debater, he is brilliant, and almost everyone who sees and hears him has to admit they like him. So why isn’t he doing better? One can guess from the above that I am a supporter of Edwards and they would be right. I think Edwards is an excellent candidate and that he would be the best President of any of the candidates running on either side of the aisle. I also think the popular criticisms of him are ridiculous. Let’s talk about the most famous one, the $400 haircuts.


I never understood the hullabaloo about the expensive haircuts. Everyone I know has one or more hobbies on which they tend to spend ‘a lot’ of money. ‘A lot’ is always relative to how much you have and how much you make. When I was in college, my hobby was computing. I think the computer equipment that I owned totaled, if one added up the amount I paid for each, one quarter of my annual income at the time. When I was growing up, my father had a man come in every other week to perform a thorough cleaning of our house. That man, who didn’t earn a lot of money, had an expensive model train hobby. Hobbies that involve personal comfort or taking care of ones looks are hardly special or new. In fact, for a politician, all of whom in the modern era spend time on television and in Edwards’ case, for whom appearance and charisma is an important asset, spending time and money looking after ones appearance makes sense. The haircut issue is such a red herring that I think it is insulting to anyone with an IQ greater than that of a goldfish.


Here is what I know about John Edwards. He cares about people, and I mean all people. He is concerned about America becoming the land of the haves versus the “have-nots”. John Edwards is self-made, and he knows what it is like to grow up as a member of the working class. He understands the challenges and issues faced by those of us in that class. He isn’t perfect; he has made mistakes in his life and in his votes as a politician. He understands and admits when he has made mistakes and he institutes changes in his policy proposals and in himself. When you hear Edwards speak, you come to know all of these things intuitively. He affects and reaches people at a level that none of the other frontrunners for either party can.


My hope and I don’t think it is an unreasonable one, is that when it comes time for the Iowa caucuses, caucus-goers look into their hearts, find the only one there politically is John Edwards, and give him a resounding victory. I further hope that victory propels Edwards to at least a strong second in New Hampshire and victories in every contest thereafter. Regardless of who wins the nomination, if a Democrat is raising their right hand on January 21, 2009 to be sworn in as our next President, I will be happy and it will be a massive improvement.

[robinlynne]

1. nice OP. Thank-you.

[Inspired]

2. I will caucus for Edwards.

I've never really understood why he is in 3rd either. It makes no sense. We have the ability right now to nominate someone who is not only electable but who is also a progressive. We have a win-win situation looking us right in the face and the guy is polling in 3rd.

It is frustrating but I'm not surrendering to the 'easy' choice. I say this as I put on my shoes to go out canvassing in Des Moines for Edwards today. We are not giving up....why would we when we've received the support of 1 million additional union members in the past 2 weeks?

[stevenleser]

3. Dont get me wrong, I am in no way surrendering unless and until it is over

... but that won't stop me from trying to get Hillary to move more towards being progressive.

Good luck in Iowa!

[Inspired]

4. I didn't read it that way....it's all good.

Thanks for your support!

[reprobate]

5. Edwards is third because the media is pushing Clinton. That includes the right wing.

It started a couple of years ago when Rover issued the talking point that Clinton was the one they feared. Typical Rovian move: Turn your enemy's weakness into your strength..But in this case it backfired on them. The Reich wing was committing suicide while the media pushed their talking point.

As time went on, more and more people started to believe that Clinton was the one, while they ignored or didn't know about her real background as a DLC board member. A corporate lackey who swore fealty to those who paid for her campaign.

Personally, I don't dislike Clinton, I fear her. Her goal is power. The power that Bush created for himself and she will inherit on taking office. Power that is constitutionally barred and that NO ONE should have access to in our form of government. I'm having real trouble figuring out why she's still a Democrat.

If you listen to her talk she more resembles a repug. She gives a terrific speech, but if you parse what she's said you find she has really said nothing. But she said nothing so well that few can figur e it out.

I'm beginning to talk myself into believing that while Bush has been the vilest occupant in the history of our white house, at least his evil is on the surface and readily apparent to anyone with an IQ in the double digits. With Clinton, on the other hand, you have to look behind the buffed and polished surface to see the coldness.

Of course, the real question that must be answered is why our populace keeps selecting the worst choices presented as their leaders. Truly imponderable.

[AdHocSolver]

6. The media are owned by the corporations and a Hillary Clinton candidacy is a win-win for them.

If Clinton is the candidate, one of two things will happen, none of them good for America.

The first scenario is that Clinton brings out an energized Republican base to oppose her, which not only puts a Republican in the White House for four more years, but could give Congress back to the right wing.

The second possibility is that Clinton wins the presidency, but she reveals herself as a corporate tool who is unwilling, or unable, to undo the damage done to this country by Bush/Cheney in the last seven years.

Either way, it is win-win for the corporations.

The transformation that has taken place in America in the last seven years has been essentially the conversion of this country from a political entity run by laws into a giant corporation run by corporate executive fiat. Bush is company president (often a public relations job), Cheney is CEO (the real power behind the throne), and Congress is now Board of Directors (often a rubber stamp for the CEO).

The People are employees, worker drones, peons, serfs, indentured servants - take your pick - for the corporation, who work in the service and at the pleasure of the Corporation. Their sole purpose is to do the bidding of the CEO and his sole aim is giving himself more power and wealth.

When you think of a corporation, the model that you should envision is Enron and the CEO you should envision is Ken Lay. Ken Lay is the epitome of the CEO. His aim is to milk the corporation for every bit of wealth, and if he destroys it in the process, that is unimportant, so long as he gets his.

The CEO demands from his underlings abject obedience and unswerving, and unquestioning loyalty. Competence on the job is irrelevant and often unwanted. A competent underling may question what she is asked to do, and that is unforgiveable. The quintessential example of this mentality is the experience of Joe Wilson and his wife Valery Plame. Another example is Colin Powell, who got away lucky. Powell exhibited sufficient subservience, and had enough stature, to avoid the kind of retribution that was meted out to Wilson and his wife.

A corporation has rules of conduct and procedures to follow for all its activities. In practice, the CEO is an autocrat who can destroy careers, and this ability makes it difficult for anyone lower down in the pecking order to oppose him.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton have based their careers on accommodation with the corporate world. I have no faith in her doing anything to make meaningful change.

I like John Edwards, also. He is my first choice for President.