I've wanted to write a little about the 2008 campaign for a while, so here are some ramblings on the subject. Most of my readers will agree with nothing I say here, but that's okay, because everyone needs a token right-winger in their life somewhere.
Republican Candidates
Rudy Giuliani – Anti-gun? True. Sordid personal history? Absolutely. Leadership credentials? Possibly the best in whole field. As mayor of NYC, he actually got results, something very few candidates in either party can truthfully claim about anything.
Tommy Thompson – My old editor’s favorite Republican, there really isn’t much to attract anyone to vote for him. His Iraq plan (to basically turn Iraq into a small United States) sounds too optimistic to me.
Sam Brownback – When the most memorable thing about a candidate is that he hates pornography, you know he has problems.
Mike Huckabee – Someone said that he is the most “Republican” of all the candidates, an accurate description I think. This also means that he is sturdy but unexciting.
John McCain – The mean old man of the Republican campaign. The strong point of his personality is his devotion to the so-called War on Terror, although that may or may not be a virtue depending on who is casting the ballot. His immigration scheme was a complete disaster and drained a lot of my faith in McCain. And if it were up to him there would be no more gun shows, and I really enjoy those things. Also, my father (a former USAF flight surgeon) says that he’d rather vote for a communist than a pilot, and we pretty much think the same about everybody.
Mitt Romney – I met the Catcher’s Mitt at a campaign event a few months ago. I asked him about gun control, and basically told me that he loved guns and was devoted to making sure people couldn’t have them. A gun nut who hates guns, apparently. He says “I get tired of people who are holier-than-thou just because they’re been pro-life longer than I have.” If he had switched positions 20 years ago this statement might be relevant, as opposed to the 6 months ago that he actually did. My least favorite Republican by far.
Ron Paul – I hate to be one of those smug jerks, but I’ve known who Ron Paul was since high school, and I’ve always liked him. He has consistently voted against government waste and constitutional infringements throughout his career. Although I don’t agree with his position on Iraq (leave now!), it certainly has its charm. Unfortunately, I agree with a former aide of his who said that Paul would rather fall on his own sword than win. I’d be thrilled to see a man like him president, but it ain’t gonna be him.
Tom Tancredo – Although Tancredo mentioned Jack Bauer during one of the debates, this guy just ain’t clicking with me the way I had hoped. He got his place in the spotlight through vigorous campaigning against illegal immigration, although he has surprisingly failed to grab attention with this issue during the debates. He has had occasional flashes of belligerence (see his comments on health care and Mecca) that I’ve found enjoyable. A big negative: when elected to congress he pledged to only serve a couple of terms, but then claimed that God told him he could break the pledge. Can we bring an end to Republicans claiming that God directly spoke to them because they’re so cool?
About the Republican debates - Can we have just ONE Republican debate not run by a Democratic operative? Is that so much to ask? Pretty much every moderator they've had has been downright hostile.
Democratic Candidates
Barack Obama – You know why there was a lot of shine on Obama at the start of this campaign? Because he hadn’t done anything yet! There was nothing (or at least little) mud to sling at him because he’d yet to get his hands dirty. I watched as he smugly proclaimed that he always opposed the war, neglecting to mention that when the war started no one outside of a certain section of Illinois had ever heard of him. So I take Schadenfreude in seeing Obama proclaim that kindergartners need more sex education and that we should withdraw from Iraq to invade Pakistan. The Obama supporters I’ve talked to usually think that by supporting Obama they announce themselves as sensitive and worldly, when really they’ve just been suckered by his ridiculous hype machine.
Hillary Clinton – Those who have talked about the Clinton’s with me after I’ve had a few know that my opinion of them hovers somewhere between that of George Clooney and Pol Pot. I hate what they’ve done to politics in this country and that I spent my whole childhood with them in the White House. So it’s saying a lot when I confess that she is my favorite of the Democratic frontrunners. Really, I’ll be stunned if she doesn’t end up being the next president. Nothing I’ve seen indicates that anything short of God himself is taking the Clinton’s down.
John Edwards – He is doing it for the poor but lives in a palace. He hates Wal-Mart but shops there. He demands that Hillary return her Murdoch contributions and yet makes money off of Murdoch corporations. He made his money suing doctors into oblivion, but I assume that he utilizes their services to help his wife. I don’t know how much more I can say about John Edwards without using language that my favorite professor would lightly scold me over, but rest assured it isn’t positive.
Bill Richardson – One of the best records on guns of any candidate in either party, I used to kind of like this guy. But his campaign has came across to me as a flop. His language is commonly vitriolic (even by primary standards) and his grasp of the issues appears weak to me. Perhaps he’d make a good vice-presidential candidate.
Joe Biden – He captured my attention when he was the only Democratic candidate who gave an answer regarding Iraq that seemed halfway honest and not something cooked up for what George Costanza might call the “bonehead mass audience.” Browsing through his record, I see very little that I actually like, but I’d like to at least fantasize that there is a Democratic candidate I can mildly respect.
Chris Dodd – This guy could put a rampaging dinosaur to sleep. Possibly the greatest waste of debate time since Carol Moseley Braun.
Dennis Kucinich – The favorite of university professors and pipe store owners everywhere. At least he is honest about his embrace of socialism, as opposed to desperately trying to conceal it like his colleagues. Possibly the least presidential of all the candidates, both sides.
On education - Did anyone watch that pathetic YouTube debate? There was a question about which Democrats sent their kids to private school. Candidates from Clinton to Obama to Biden fumbled to explain why they sent their kids to private school in the same way a seriel killer would try to explain just why he needed to rape and hack up all those middle schoolers. This raises the obvious question of why so many politicans on the left insist that everyone should have to send their kids to a public school, be it good or a death trap, while their kids can go to private school?
3 comments:
I watched only the first part of the first reel of the YouTube debates and I knew it was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen. But the education question, which I didn't watch...
I'll bet the democratic candidates are tired of the poor-quality education that public schools provide, which is the fault of republicans who costantly yank education tax dollars in exchange for smart bombs and nuclear subs. If only we could throw more money at public schools, we wouldn't have such terrible education, and the rich democrats wouldn't have to send their kids to private school, they could safely send their kids to public school and still get a quality education. (Sarcasm)
You know, about halfway through the second part of your comment I just knew you were joking. But that seriously is the argument made. Just a few million more dollars and everything will be okay, nevermind that we already outspend every other country by far in education.
Hillary Clinton said something to the effect of "it was one of the hardest decisions of my life" to send her daughter to a private school in Washington D.C. instead of the public school, but that they media would have just harassed their daughter to death if they didn't. Because if it weren't for the media the Clinton's would be content placing their daughter in the most dangerous school system in the U.S.
Personally I think that education dollars are being wasted at higher levels than actually matter. What really needs to happen is the creation of some sort of incentive to recruit and retain quality teachers. Many educators burn out in their first few years because of the lack of a support system, huge classroom sizes, uncaring administration, etc. I think we (those people that read james' blog) tend to have a skewed sense of the education system as we grew up in the midwest where public schools still actually teach rather than babysit and classrooms generally have less that 30 students.
But yes, youtube debate was stupid (I watched it on youtube). I can't believe that those were the best questions they got.
-6 to the internet for fielding such morons.
+1 for the education question.
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