2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

Carter was a dark horse, Clinton was a dark horse--both of these exampels offered in the context of what the pundits were saying before the primaries. Dean's a governor, and they traditionally do well, so i'll be willing to hope the best for him.

While I javent decided whom to support yet,I find it hard to take seriously any party that has Al Sharpton as a candidate,no matter how fringe he might be.
Although he does put the Dems in an interesting position.
Dems claim to be all for minorities and support most if not all programs and ideas for "social equality",so if they dont support Sharpton,that would seem to be in contradiction of their own stated ideals.
If they do support him,that ruins any credibility the party might have left.
This will be fun to watch.

You may be misreading Sharpton's role, mm. While he is not my first choice for Morality King, he is conceded to be a knowledgeable and experienced person - also, a survivor.

I strongly doubt even he thinks he'd be a viable candidate - but he is performing other roles. Look, he's making you take notice.

And in the interest of bipartisanship - the repubs have had Gingrich flying around the country trying to promote privatization of Medicare. Now there's a person without ethics, morals, grace, and some records to prove it. Supporting Gingrich seems to be a contradiction for those whose stated ideals are family virtues, ethical behavior, true belief. Any party who supports and backs a person like that is suspect.

Mama,I agree 100%,except you have overlooked the fact that Newt is NOT running for president.

Each declared Democratic candidate goes into campaigning with a different point of view -- different from the administration, different from each other. The money they raise, the interest shown in each not only indicates who is the most powerful candidate but tests a wide range of policies before a large number of voters. The platform comes out of that.

The fact that Bush goes into the election without a contest from someone within his party handicaps him and the party. It scoots past divisions within the party which will catch up with him later if he's elected, and it takes away the opportunity for his party to test policies before the actual election.

I think the only way Bush can win the election (at a 52% approval rating) is to buy it and/or manipulate the outcome. If he does that, he will find himself backstopped during his second term by Congress and by the states. There will be every reason for Congressional Dems to take their gloves off; and the Republicans who increasingly oppose him now will have no reason not to do the same.

As for Sharpton (and other "clear no-winners"), they do a real service by offering what amounts to a series of issues forums -- valuable to the voter, valuable to their fellow candidates.

NYTimes editorial, 6/11/03

Interesting piece from Freidman but IMO, the story won't hold water with the general public and would be a bad choice of messages for the Democrats as things are right now.

For it to work, the Democrats that are holding office would have to be able to show that they are actually doing something to protect the essential services while eliminating many of the pork programs that the general public has become disgusted with. So far the Democrats in the Congress have continued those programs and in many cases added to the bloat in those programs. (And when I say "programs" I'm referring to things like Farm Subsidies, the Pentagon budget, Airline bail outs, etc..).

If those Democrats currently in the Congress don't reverse the trend then it would quickly be pointed out that while saying that "services are being cut" the same Democrats are approving and adding to the bloat in other programs. I would think that would just reaffirm the general feeling that politicans are two-faced hypocrits instead of rallying people to the Democratic Party's side of the political debate.

Freidmen is only half right when he says "Everyone wants taxes to be cut, but no one wants services to be cut..". Yes, everyone wants taxes cut but people also want the bloat taken out of government and the general public is, IMO, willing to see some programs reduced or eliminated.

so are you saying its the Dem's that provide the pork barrel funding?

I'm saying every single person that sits in the Congress adds to the pork. But you can't say "They're cutting services!" (i.e. pointing fingers at the 'other" party..) and then add your own pork into the mix and not expect anyone to notice.

I agree with much of what you say, Fishin', though of course the effectiveness of the message depends on the details. The disagreement lies in what "bloat" consists of. For example, I'd like to dismantle the Defense Department bloat by bloat and completely recast it according to the current needs of the US (vs the greeds of the defense industry). It would be worthwhile taking Friedman's thesis and parsing it, just as you've started to do. Get into those devilish details.

for every silly and inane spending bill that gets funded is 10 x as much for the Pentagon

Dys, thank you! I knew there was a connection, but I appreciate learning the exact formula, ie "aop (all other programs) X 10 = Pentagon appropriation". But, you know, we must keep that up in case we break out another war, I mean, in case another war breaks out; besides, how else do you pay for hammers and officer perks? :wink:

tartarin

Thank you very kindly.

I met an oxymoron once............wait, I think I've spotted him around here recently........:-)

How to stop America?

Lola, thank you for agreeing with me.

LOL!!

PDiddie, are you a member of MoveOn? Did you get the straw poll plus the news that the top three candidates are, among Dem activists, Kerry, Dean, and Kucinich? I must admit reading about Graham's daily log was what finally put me off when the news came out. Guess he's not doing too well politically. Guess, in his retirement, he's gonna have to rely on kindly souls who want to buy his CD??!

A dismal sounding future, then.

right, Boss, but some of us have more dancing electrons than others.........it's a defining characteristic, I'd say. Yours are very brave, I repeat.

Setanta - As I understand the terms, "democracy" is a system whereby each citizen gets a vote, and "oligarchy" means "rule by the few".

Our system, wherein the citizens vote to elect a "few" who "rule", seems to me to be part democracy, part oligarchy.

Now, aside from simply taking another opportunity to be snide and insulting, do you actually disagree, and if so, can you make your case for why you think I am wrong?

Or do you just come here to "pick fights" (as you so eloquently put it a while back)?