The Democrats....

Many people are asking me whom I support in the 2004 Democratic Primaries. Well, I’ll give you a short history of my political thought on this subject and bring you where I am today. First I was adamantly pro-Dean. I believe the only one who can take on Bush is going to have to be tough, someone who cuts the chase and tells you how it is, someone who won’t sugarcoat and meander around all the important issues. I also liked Dean because from all reports, he was a very moderate governor – fiscally conservative, but still had his social priorities straight – like health insurance for all children in the state. He also seems to know how to mobilize otherwise politically apathetic voters.

Then Dean seemed to be pandering farther and farther to the isolationist left. I don’t mind at all that he didn’t support the war in Iraq, and didn’t pull a Kerry by supporting it just so it’d look better on the campaign trail. But he started talking about repealing “every cent” of the Bush tax cut, balancing the federal budget even when the economy is sinking, and supported withdrawing US troops from Iraq to be replaced with international troops. To me, all of these are really bad ideas. Not only are they bad ideas, but they’re unelectable ideas. One cannot expect to get voted into office under the promise of taking back at least $200 from almost every American family.

So I then threw my conditional support to Clark, someone who just recently joined our fair party. He’s a four-star general, which is about at tough as it comes, and an intellectual as well. He even taught economics at West Point, which is not exactly a bad trait for a President. He seemed to hold all the best traits of Dean, but also seemed very electable. Who better than a former NATO commander to refocus the war on terror, and not sound like a hippy peacenik by opposing the Iraq war?

Well, my support for him has fizzled. I still think he’s the most electable of this motley ensemble. But he’s come out against financing the rebuilding of Iraq, which is a terrible idea. Even as an ardent fighter against this war, it is our mess nonetheless and I believe we need to clean it up – no matter what the cost. This is war, and this is the price of war. Furthermore, he stumbles around – he flip-flopped on his position on Iraq. Now I hear he supports a flag burning ban amendment to the Constitution. Wow... (not that I support flag-burning, but a Constitutional Amendment?! When we learn out lesson about prohibitive laws against the citizenry in the Constitution)

Most of the Democratic candidates, Lieberman aside, are in pure reactionary mode. They want to revoke and undo everything that Bush has done in his 3 years thusfar, and that’s just empty rhetoric. I want substantive ideas, not regression. We need to work with what we have, not pretend we’re going to pick up where Clinton left off in 2000. The fact of the matter is Bush has changed the course of America in his 3 years, and doing a 180 in reaction wouldn’t be more disasterous than his own foreign policy.

I don’t fully support any of them. I almost trust Bush better with foreign policy now, simply because he’s obviously contained/preoccupied – if not humbled – and will more than likely not embark on any more “regime change” adventures in the Middle East. He broke it, he needs to fix it. I honestly would feel very queasy about handing Iraq over to Dean, who will muddle it up worse by withdrawing under fire. One does not withdraw from combat because of a 2/10ths of a percent casualty rate. That’s a surefire way to ensure the war on terrorism is skewed towards to Jihadist.

Dean is right that the Democrats lost the mid-term elections because they did not distinquish themselves from the Republicans. Bush-lite is not a viable option for a Democratic presidential candidate who wants to win the general election, but it unfortunately like only the Anti-Bush will win the nomination. We Democrats need to learn some lessons from the the Republicans - find leadership, create a solid agenda and push it hard , let the American public see these leaders push and explain this agenda, and maintain tighter party discipline.

Tags: Treyopia Current Events Spinnaker, Democrats Primaries 2004 election Dean Kerry