A letter from a friend regarding Selection 2004

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Agree? Disagree?
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If you want to waste your vote on Kucinich, go ahead. I live in the real world, not Shangri-La. Kucinich has got FAR less chance than Nader to beat Bush, because, as whacky as the American people may think Nader to be, he's at least a household name. Perhaps you'd like to squander your vote in the general election on the Communist Party USA candidate. If you think that Kucinich has even a 1/10 chance of beating Bush, you're a hell of an optimist. I'd give him about 1/I000. I'll write you a dissertation on why he'll lose, if you'd like, but I can boil it down to this: He's taking a radical stand on too many "issues" that are really non-issues for the American people in a rather conservative climate, and he's not going to galvanize some radical vanguard over the next year who will turn the tide against the center right. Latest polls indicate that he would have 0% of the Democratic vote were the election to take place today.

Your darling, Bill Clinton, was center-left. The effective presidents... Johnson (much as he was reviled by a misguided radical left), Truman, Roosevelt, Clinton... they were all center-left. The corrupt/evil war hawkish execs were always right wingers... Bush, Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower (and you could even put Kennedy in this category, a rabid anti-communist with armageddon-fearing arms race visions that created the 70s recession.) You'll note that, over the last 100 years, we've only had one true liberal Democrat in office: Carter, a disastrous president who did not know how to run an administration, even by the accounts of his own staff. Can you name another? I dare you. Wilson was center-left; in fact, that's why the Dems chose him that year. A quote on Wilson: "His growing national reputation let some conservative Democrats to consider him Presidential timber."

In point of fact... it may be Roosevelt who was the most progressive after Carter... not Franklin, but Teddy. After all, he was the first of the "trust buster"s and a huge proponent of the Sherman Act, was a self-avowed friend of organized labor, believed in the U.S.'s role as a mediator in world affairs (unlike the conservative isolationists like Robert Taft) yet he felt that military intervention was only a last resort, won the Nobel Peace Prize (like Carter) for his role as such a mediator (in the Russo-Japanese War), was by far the U.S. President with the best record on environmental issues and conservationism and even formed the Bull Moose progressive Party in 1912. He was also a Republican President, as a note. In saying all of this, I'm not supporting Republicans, but merely the notion that liberal Democrats (e.g., George McGovern) are absolutely unelectable jokes... the butts of punchlines... historical footnotes relegated to the attic of American politics.

A final note: At the peaks of American liberalism (i.e., 1920-1935 and 1965-1980), the Presidents were Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. Of these, six were Republicans, one was a conservative Democrat, one was center-left and only one was a lefty. Humphrey and McGovern got their asses whipped by Nixon, a fairly hardline conservative, at the absolute cumulus point of radicalism in American history. And why? In 1968, the Dems were disorganized. McCarthy was the Dean/Kucinich type figure... a real hit with the radical college campus crowd yet too far to the left to persuade real voters to back him. Wallace split off and took a lot of votes with him, as the South could not back the "liberal" Humphrey. Humphrey came off as a wishy-washy legacy of the Johnson era, when, in fact, he was a genuine left-winger and a dove. In 1972, McGovern was perceived as a kook by the American people... and rightly so. His tax a lot and spend even more policies would have utterly sunk an economy teetering on the brink of disaster. Nixon didn't do much better with his price freezes, etc. It was only Paul Volker, whose monetization policy came at a dear price, who was able to stem the tide of inflation (a policy later maintained by Alan Greenspan.)

If you think Dean is a conservative, you're not doing your homework. The centrists are Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman (only two of whom have any chance to win, due to the anti-semitic factor); the radicals are Dean, Kucinich, Mosely-Braun and Sharpton. Graham's somewhere in the middle of the mix. Clark appears to be a more interesting candidate than I'd previously thought. He's mildly conservative economically, though he does not favor tax cuts for the rich (only the middle class), he's against cuts in the death tax and is all for reforms in corporate governance, etc. Socially, he's down the line liberal and he's a general who is ANTI-WAR. He has more credibility than any of the others in criticizing Bush's strategy in Iraq, North Korea and his general foreign policy. His credentials are impressive: graduated first in his West Point class; Oxford Rhodes Scholar (sound familiar?); very connected with the Little Rock crowd (where he was born) and would have the full backing of Bill Clinton, who adores him. He's very similar, in many respects, to Clinton... yet more charismatic, a better speaker and more intelligent. I'm not advocating backing Clark; I have to see what his public positions are on major issues. I am unequivocally saying that Kerry, Edwards and Clark will have the only chances of defeating Bush in a general election, however. You can write the rest of the pack off.

I'm never keen on General-Presidents. We've only had one this century, to my recollection, and he was quite the commie hunter. I like the idea of Clark as a running mate, however, who can take potshots at Bush (which shouldn't be hard, given his lack of understanding of the inner workings of the military and intelligence community... his only playing cards in this election.) That leaves us with Kerry or Edwards, and here's how I see it: Edwards, while the most charismatic speaker of the field, is a junior senator virtually unknown to voters and has an underfinanced campaign; Kerry, while an early frontrunner, has been slipping of late and has a mixed record to contend with... not only on Iraq, but also on the economic conditions within his home state. This leads me to believe that there are NO candidates who can make a successful run against GWB and that, barring some scandal, he will be overwhelmingly reelected in 2004. The only people who could unseat him are Wesley Clark, Al Gore and... you guessed it... Hillary Clinton. Clinton is too contentious and divisive a figure to galvanize the party, and she's also not a candidate. Gore is also not a candidate, and let's hope that he doesn't decide to run; he's an ineffective speaker and will only complicate and already confusing field. Clark is really the only shot we've got, and that's downright scary to me. I'd love to back Edwards, because I really believe that he's got the statesmanship, the charisma and the values to win... but there's little hope of his picking his numbers up to a contender's level by the primaries/caucuses.

I'm not sure what more to say, except that I'm seriously considering moving to London.