What Others Are Saying About The Election
Apparently the rest of the world is as anxious for the Bush years to be over as people in the US are, if a listing of articles at Watching America is any indication. One article in particular caught my eye because it showed that not only is the rest of the world interested in our current election, it is following it very, very closely. From Germany's Sued Deutsche:
It seems that George W. Bush is leaving his party only scorched earth: Eight out of ten American citizens (and one out of two Republicans) think the nation is on the wrong course. At the beginning of the election year 2008, the Grand Old Party lies in rubble and ashes. And nowhere in this gray pile is a Phoenix to be seen.
In its malaise, America’s right-wingers have emerged as an ancestor-worshiping cult. Everyone yearns for the long-departed Ronald Reagan – America’s 40th president – who during the nineteen eighties managed to unite the differing and often contrary wings of his party and forge them into a powerful army for his conservative revolution. None of the current aspirants exudes such an aura.
John McCain, for example, war veteran and aging senator, attracts moderate voters. But he appeals only to that segment of the party that places a strong military and national security above all. Meanwhile, the religious right, until now the most faithful conservative supporters, gathers around former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
Powerful economic conservatives, at the same time, incline toward Mitt Romney, ex-business manager and former governor of Massachusetts, who won the Michigan primary vote. An interim review of Republican self-discovery – three primaries with three winners – reveals there is no leader to bind the party together.
Obviously written before Mitt Romney "suspended" his campaign, the article still is right on the mark when it comes to the candidates' reverential invocation of Ronald Reagan and why that isn't such a good idea.
In the midst of this emergency, each of the Republican candidates campaigns for the right to the halo pronouncing him the rightful heir to Reagan’s throne. It is precisely this competition that leads the party off the track. Reagan's political mixture - military rearmament, religious renewal, radical tax cuts, including reducing government - is not a cure for current problems: The nation can no longer cope with billions more for the Pentagon, ever more fanatical Christian zeal against abortion and gays, and more tax relief for the wealthy at the expense of already impoverished communities. More of this kind of drastic remedy à la Ronald would drive the country to ruin. The popular desire for change, long rumbling amongst the people, is beginning to rumble in the Republican ranks as well. A good third of party supporters call for a strong state - not only as a guardian of law and order - but also as a guarantor of social and economic security at a time when Americans fear recession more than they fear the situation in Iraq. [Emphasis added]
Going back to the "good old days," which weren't really all that great, is not what people on either of the political spectrum want, especially since those "good old days" are what started us on the road to where we are now. Apparently the GOP candidates don't get the concept of "change."
As a Democrat, I sincerely hope nobody educates them.
It seems that George W. Bush is leaving his party only scorched earth: Eight out of ten American citizens (and one out of two Republicans) think the nation is on the wrong course. At the beginning of the election year 2008, the Grand Old Party lies in rubble and ashes. And nowhere in this gray pile is a Phoenix to be seen.
In its malaise, America’s right-wingers have emerged as an ancestor-worshiping cult. Everyone yearns for the long-departed Ronald Reagan – America’s 40th president – who during the nineteen eighties managed to unite the differing and often contrary wings of his party and forge them into a powerful army for his conservative revolution. None of the current aspirants exudes such an aura.
John McCain, for example, war veteran and aging senator, attracts moderate voters. But he appeals only to that segment of the party that places a strong military and national security above all. Meanwhile, the religious right, until now the most faithful conservative supporters, gathers around former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
Powerful economic conservatives, at the same time, incline toward Mitt Romney, ex-business manager and former governor of Massachusetts, who won the Michigan primary vote. An interim review of Republican self-discovery – three primaries with three winners – reveals there is no leader to bind the party together.
Obviously written before Mitt Romney "suspended" his campaign, the article still is right on the mark when it comes to the candidates' reverential invocation of Ronald Reagan and why that isn't such a good idea.
In the midst of this emergency, each of the Republican candidates campaigns for the right to the halo pronouncing him the rightful heir to Reagan’s throne. It is precisely this competition that leads the party off the track. Reagan's political mixture - military rearmament, religious renewal, radical tax cuts, including reducing government - is not a cure for current problems: The nation can no longer cope with billions more for the Pentagon, ever more fanatical Christian zeal against abortion and gays, and more tax relief for the wealthy at the expense of already impoverished communities. More of this kind of drastic remedy à la Ronald would drive the country to ruin. The popular desire for change, long rumbling amongst the people, is beginning to rumble in the Republican ranks as well. A good third of party supporters call for a strong state - not only as a guardian of law and order - but also as a guarantor of social and economic security at a time when Americans fear recession more than they fear the situation in Iraq. [Emphasis added]
Going back to the "good old days," which weren't really all that great, is not what people on either of the political spectrum want, especially since those "good old days" are what started us on the road to where we are now. Apparently the GOP candidates don't get the concept of "change."
As a Democrat, I sincerely hope nobody educates them.
Labels: Election 2008
posted by Diane at 4:26 AM
14 Comments:
Here in Stockholm everyone asks me about the election as well. They all want to know you will be the next president, Hillary or Obama? None ask about the republicans. But they all really, really hate W.
All that Obama gets about "change" remains stuck at the concept level. "Change you can believe in" is looking more and more to be this election cycle's "compassionate conservatism"--a hollow slogan that appears to mean something. Just what is the change being proposed? Obama is asking the country to believe; to have faith in his vision, his leadership skills to take us to the promised land. His followers scand "Yes we can". Yes you can, what? Get him elected? Great, then what? Great oratory skills and revivalist-style, feel-good meetings will not be anywhere near-enough to counter a McCain candidacy, let alone take on the huge problems facing this country. We don't need another inexperienced leader with a vision thing who supposedly will make up for the lack of experience with top-notch advisors. We need hard, cold proposals to confront hard, cold problems. Call-and-response won't suffice; stirring speeches shake nothing up, but apparently they are all that Americans yearn for. They help us feel good about ourselves and that is all that matters--believing that we are a "shining citadel on a hill". The Republicans aren't the only ones evoking Ronald Reagan's rotting corpse.
Uh, stunted, maybe you should try reading. Obama has put forward specific proposals for revising the federal tax structure and for single-payer health care, for example. It is dishonest to say he hasn't put forward proposals. Just because you can't be bothered to learn about them doesn't mean they don't exist.
"As a Democrat, I sincerely hope nobody educates them."
As a Democrat, I devoutly hope that the GOP *does* get the concept of change. There will still be substantial GOP minorities in the house and senate. If this country is to repair the disasters of the Bush Administration, the GOP will have to embrace change.
Obama?
Well, Joel, leaving private insurance companies in charge of health care doesn't much sound like change. How would Obama's plan, or Hillary's, have spared that 17 year-old girl in need of a liver transplant? What both of the Democratic candidates are espousing as universal health care is very far-removed from a single-payer system. I'm thrilled that he feels the tax system needs tweaking; less thrilled by his blind support of the Jewish lobby, his approval of credit card companies' extortionist interest rates, his habit of voting "present" on hot-button issues. I don't see too much change there, even when I read; even when I retain what I've read. The Obama crowd needs to assimilate criticism without circling the wagons. Assuming that those who criticize just haven't done their homework is the arrogance of the believer. Some of us may need more info, more facts before coming on-board.
Needing more info would naturally lead to obtaining more info if that were the impetus. On the other hand, spreading vindictiveness against each other would be a product of wishing Dems to fight with each other and weaken their chances of ending the past 7+ years of disaster.
from my comments as Sideshow;
'We don't need to go through another term or two of catastrophe, and don't think the war criminals aren't hard at work in the effort to make us hit out at each other. The congressional GoPerv line that Congress isnt doing anything, which their obstruction is making as true as they can possibly make it, is hardly an argument for keeping Dems from a majority sufficient to serve the public interest. On the contrary, it is an argument for getting the Dems into power now while we have anything left to save.'
Well, stunted, now you've changed your tune. Instead of your earlier claim that Obama lacks "hard, cold proposals to confront hard, cold problems" you now acknowledge he has proposals but that you disagree with them. I disagree with some of them, too, but that's not the same as your disingenous claim that the campaign lacked proposals.
"Assuming that those who criticize just haven't done their homework is the arrogance of the believer."
Anyone who criticizes Obama because his campaign lacks policy proposals, as you did, has not done their homework. That you are no longer prepared to defend your earlier criticism, but are now willing to admit that he does have proposals, shows (a) that you have done your homework and (b) that your earlier post was disingenous. Let's chalk that one up to the arrogance of the disbeliever, shall we?
Joel said "Obama has put forward specific proposals for revising the federal tax structure and for single-payer health care, for example.
Joel, he's done nothing of the sort. Sounds to me like you're projecting.
NO ONE has put forth a single-payer plan. Clinton has a government run insurance option as did Edwards but Obama DOES NOT.
Neither the Edwards or Clinton government run insurance plans are single-payer, but, in Edwards' case could have LED to single-payer.
I also have trouble understanding why anyone would want to support a candidate (Obama) who favors PRIVATIZING Social Security. That's right Obama's chief economic advisor Jeffrey Liebman is a Social Security privatizer.
Obama's economic advisors are right of center marketeers that HE chose. Obama's economic team is a closed circle, he will not reach out to center left economists.
neither candidate is perfect. neither one moves anywhere near what we need in healthcare reform, though clinton does, i believe, make opting into medicare possible for at least lower income folks (need to double check that).
single payer is the only real way to go with health coverage for everyone. it would likely be political suicide, though, for either of our candidates to promote taking the private companies out of the health insurance biz.
i have no doubt that the swiftboating we've seen in the past doesn't even come close to what we'd see if either clinton or obama openly proposed that. the insurance biz is almost obscenely profitable and costs increase in healthcare all out of proportion to inflation.
the private providers for medicare do what insurance companies always do: raise costs, provide less service, leave people holding the bills w/no way to pay.
private doesn't work. will never work. never. i wish clinton or obama could say that but they can't.
Joel, maybe you can explain for all of us why you believe that Obama represents something new in light of this:
Exelon Nuclear’s power stations in Dresden and Braidwood (Illinois), for more than a decade, had leaks of radioactive tritium into groundwater. At Braidwood, on two occasions, more than three million gallons of radioactive water spilled onto the surface, soaked into groundwater, ran offsite over shallow drinking water wells of neighboring residents, and did not disclose these spills until a constituency of community organizers began to raise this issue, noting that they were concerned about these spills, and cancer clusters and pediatric brain cancers around the facilities.
The communities came to Barack Obama, and he wrote legislation requiring mandatory reporting by the utilities to local communities. But the Nuclear Energy Institute and Exelon (a major Obama contributor), got Obama to pull the teeth out of the legislation. The result was a meaningless bill that never got passed. The communities are still vulnerable to unreported leaks.
Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, worked as a consultant to Exelon Nuclear. Exelon said Axelrod’s company has helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002.
Since 2003 Exelon executives have contributed at least $227,000 to Obama’s campaigns for the USD Senate and president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, and John W. Rogers Jr. are among his largest fund-raisers. Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
And about that Social Security privatization thing, everyone’s payroll tax would go up 1.25 points. That money would be directed to Wall Street.
Now joel, can you name for us the top three recipients of contributions from the financial services industry (both parties) during this primary season?
If you answered Barack Obama, Rudy 9/11 and Hillary Clinton you’d be right. By now, since Rudy dropped out, Obama’s probably the leader.
Tell us again why you think Obama is all about change?
@Cal1942:
"Joel, maybe you can explain for all of us why you believe that Obama represents something new . . . "
Didn't say that. I said that Obama does have policies. I didn't say you liked them and I didn't say I liked all of them. Why do you feel you have to posture next to a straw man in order to make your point?
"Tell us again why you think Obama is all about change?"
Point out again where I said I think Obama is all about change.
Sheesh, what a bunch of angry illiterates here. Why can't you just read and respond to what I wrote instead of making stuff up?
MY, how delicate our democracy is, where intra-party disagreement is equated with wishing for party implosion. I guess we need to watch what we say. Call me disingenuous, but the Obama health proposal isn't serious enough to qualify as change; it can be called change because its different than what is now in place, but its light years from being change you can believe in. It can be called a proposal because he proposed it; just not serious enough of one to face the problem head-on.
@stunted,
I agree with you that the Obama proposal is a far cry from what I'd like to see, and I was wrong to call it single payer. But, contra your post at the top, he *does* have a proposal:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
It represents incremental change, and IMO is not enough. It is a step in the right direction, and if you can't tell that this, and the rest of Obama's policy proposals are a change from the Bush Administration, you are willfully obtuse.
Sorry, Joel, I thought he was running against Hillary for the nomination; you know, the audacity of hope vs. the weight of experience. Call me willfully obtuse, then. Good night and good luck.
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