D.E.M.S.K.G.L.G.K..... A non-con discussion!

Tarty, I'm still hoping Wesley Clark will declare.

Just picturing him in a debate with the Squatter-in-Chief makes me giggle.

Dean is out front, seemingly, on everything: organization, funds, energy and enthusiasm.

I think Kerry would be an excellent nominee. As would Bob Graham.

I got no reason to dislike Gephardt (he did roll over for Bush, but he seems to have earned his lesson).

Kucinich seem a little flaky, but no more so than the Reverend Al.

CMB is eloquent and reasonable.

John Edwards may still rise up through the fog.

Lieberman? Needs to switch parties.

BTW, Biden bowed out today. Once upon a time he seemed fiery; now he just seems tired.

truth be told i would accept anyone other than lieberman

I want to see more of Wesley Clark. I wish he had handled his comments during the war a bit differently, however. He is a dream candidate on paper. I saw a talk on C-Span, two fellows spoke of their Draft Wesley Clark campaign, or whatever it is called, that has $400,000 pledged if Clark runs.

I wonder if he is getting in too late? Any opinions on this?

I see few others I would want as president, although some would be superior to what we have. Lieberman lacks some crucial element that I can't put my finger on. Kerry is too patrician, lacks the common touch. I like Dean, and he has the best chance so far, as a sitting governor. John Edwards -- shame on my state for producing him -- is disgustingly ambitious and greedy for power. Kucinich is a true liberal, but I just can't go along with his stand against globalisation. I am a free-trader across the board, and I fear that K. would continue our subsidies instead of taking more positive moves forward; he would not see us as a part of a global economy, which we are whether he likes it or not.

I am no fan of Lieberman. Truth is, aside from that, I have not chosen a favorite among the others. I am still waiting to see what developes. I would vote for Gore or H Clinton either one if they chose to run, but, being realistic, I know I have to choose from the ones already announced.

Graham
So far, I go for Graham as being the guy with the best chance to win. He's from the south, he's in the center, and he thinks straight on most of the issues. As a downer, he has a health problem.

Whatever we do, we must pick a candidate who can appeal to the independent voter. Graham is such a man.

open convention due to the inability of any declared candidate to take the nomination on the first ballot.

there are too many people in the democratic party who will vote and support howard dean to have the moderate alternatives, viz., kerry, clark, gephardt capture the nomination on the first ballot. it is also unlikely dean will arrive at the convention with the delegates to win the nomination. by that time, the power brokers in the party will have exhausted their alternative declared candidates to counter the populism of the dean campaign. however, since these power brokers recognize that a dean presidency will result in the "de-scendency" of their own power, they will fight like hell for an alternative candidate.

this leaves al gore as the compromise candidate, and he will make a deal with dean about health care, and wesley clark will be the vp nominee.

i recognize the conventional wisdom about the baggage gore carries, but i also recognize that 2004 will not be like 2000. in 2000 there was virtually no alternative to the terms of the national debate and narrative set by the corporate controlled media that attacked gore for silly things like his choice in earth-tone shoes and alleged bouts of the "sighs" and which left george bush unscathed about a vast array of questionable behavior and comments. in 2004 george bush will be attacked by a hornets nest of democratic and progressive organizations who have learned how to use the internet and other methods and processes to exploit bush's deficiencies.

now, as the dean campaign has shown, the internet and the concommitent power of it as a cudgel in the hands of rapid response partisans will be a counter-force unseen in US history to challenge conventional wisdom and national narratives as set by the major media and its media whores.

my advice to the democrats is to get each and every current presidential candidate to hit the road after labor day 2004 and go to that part of the population from where they draw strength and attack bush and the GOP, leaving the actual candidate to take the high road in his/her campaign. this will require admission by the candidate that he/she can not win the election without the broad support of the party's populist leadership. it will also make the democratic party's campaign a "rolling thunder" review where city after city is visited by popular leaders who activate their constituencies. no city with more than 1,000,000 people should be left without a weekly visit by one of the 9 current candidates raising hell itself against the bush adminstration's actions and policies. no city with more than 250,000 people should go two weeks without a rally by the aforementioned.

Dean or Graham is okay by me. I respect their thougtful and unpretentious manner. Graham can be extremely wry as witnessed on Bill Maher's show this month. The only thing Dubya could ever be is ham and cheese on rye.

Makes sense to me.

kuvasz, an interesting commentary. But you do not mention that the dems are lacking a platform. Who will take us right (center) or left? Will a candidate who recalls us to the traditional dem ideals, and defend them, be viable? If we go up against a sitting prez and put forth the old-time beliefs of equality, affirmative action, care of the poor and most needy, opportunity for all, government programs to give the worst off a lift, we will be destroyed by the incumbent line of national security, tax cuts to help the economy (puleeeze) and we own the world so get on board.

We need a candidate who can articulate the old ideals and update them to help the country understand how they work for all of us, not just a few. We need a philosopher-king, a pragmatic economist, and a strong-on-defense person. Do we know this guy?

yes. al gore.

Why don't you just tell us what you think.

My first choice would be Gore also. Too bad he doesn't make a run.

It's not actually too late... a grassroots groundswell could serve him perfectly.

I actually started thinking this when I saw something from MoveOn that he wrote. MoveOn had been doing this "Who should we endorse?" thing, and I had written back about how I don't like any of 'em, and then saw Al Gore and kinda sighed and said he might not be perfect but he's better than any of that lot. MoveOn is very good at grassroots groundswells.

I don't know how "REMATCH!" would play out. I think there is a danger of alienating some of the people who might be willing to vote Democrat, but voted for Bush last time, and who don't like the inherent admission that they made the wrong decision. I.e., if there is a strong Democratic candidate, they can say, "Well, I thought Bush was better than Gore, but I think ____ is better than Bush." It's not about that they were wrong the first time. But those people might dislike Bush enough, or be surprised enough at what his administration has ended up doing, that Gore could get their votes, too.

Gore would certainly be our best candidate if he is willing to run, and this is especially true if the other candidates would back him up in the manner suggested by Kuvasz.

kuvasz, can you, like, write a letter to the DNC? I'm liking your proposal more and more.

Some of you nice folks may be selling Dean short.
I am very taken with him. He is:

-An articulate speaker who generates great enthusiasm. He will
run a better campaign against Bush than Al Gore did.

-A moderate who won't permit the repubs (or Lieberman) to define
him as some sort of wild-eyed lefty.

-An authentic, Trumanesque sort of guy who knows who he is.
He won't be defined by his 'handlers', pollsters or political image-makers. and won't be re-defining or re-explaining who he is every couple of months.

-He is appealing to the democratic base, to independents, greens, to many who have previously not bothered to vote, and even to some moderate republicans.

Dean's momentum has just begun and he already has almost 300,000 people signed on to his campaign. I am one of them. I have never worked in a political campaign in all my sixty-one years but I was inspired by this candidate who is unafraid to say what he believes and unafraid to
tell the emperor that he has no clothes on.
Don't sell Dean short. Everywhere he goes he is exciting people and drawing crowds that exceed the other dem candidates sometimes by a factor of ten....AND more than half the electorate doesn't even know who he is yet!
I am so sold on Dean that in addition to my contributions and local work (leafletting etc) I'm planning on taking two weeks vacation to work for him in New Hampshire in the days just before the primary there.

P.S.
I'll be meeting Dean at a fund-raiser in Middletown R.I. on 8-21
( Yes, I'm psyched about it! )

http://action.deanforamerica.com/meet/

I agree wit jjorge. I don't think we've seen or heard all of what Dean is capable of in putting together a viable candidacy. I like the way he thinks so far and it does remind me of Truman.

I am not overwhelmed by any of the candidates -- and I am underwhelmed by some.

I think it would be in the Democratic Party's best interest to consider which candidate will appeal to the majority middle of the political spectrum -- rather than which will appeal to the majority of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY political spectrum.

In any case, I intend to vote for the Democratic Party candidate no matter who he or she is -- because I consider Dubya to be a world menace and I intend to vote against him rather than for someone else.




Yeah, yeah, I know. I've preached against this kind of thing myself, so spare me the lectures. But in this case, the necessity for an anyone-but-Dubya is too much to ignore.



For anyone interested, this is my maiden PUP posting.

Frank,

Take a look at this. Maybe you'll be a little more 'whelmed'!! :wink:



InsiderAdvantage Poll: Dean Leads Democrats for '04 Elections; Towery Cites
'Electro-pop' Politics
Thursday August 14, 10:03 am ET


ATLANTA, Aug. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time, former Vermont Gov.
Howard Dean is leading the Democratic field for the 2004 presidential
elections, according to a new tracking poll taken by InsiderAdvantage in
conjunction with MWI Research.

Of respondents who said they plan to vote next year for someone other than
President Bush, 15.6 percent indicated they would vote for Dean. This nearly
doubles his percentage of 8.6 from the previous month's poll.

The poll was conducted August 6-9. It sampled 500 Americans and has a margin
of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

"This is an amazing change of circumstances," said Matt Towery, a Creators
Syndicate columnist and co-founder of InsiderAdvantage. "Since the inception
of our cumulative polling on this race, Joe Lieberman had led the Democratic
field of candidates, usually by a comfortable margin. But Dean's powerful
Internet-based campaign, coupled with the sudden burst of publicity he has
received from the national media, has catapulted him to the front of the
pack."

http://www.insideradvantage.com/