Radical Avenue

New Hampshire actually has a law mandating that they hold the first presidential primary in the nation. Can you be any more arrogant? The other 48 states should all pass a $10 surcharge on New Hampshire residents wishing to travel outside the Granite State. We could call it an “I’m someone special.” tax.

The citizens of New Hampshire and Iowa will put forth a million reasons why they deserve to go first in the presidential primaries every four years. But they’ll never mention the massive influx of revenue it generates for them. That’s because it’s all about the money.

Let’s face it. Iowa is not exactly a recreational hotspot. New Hampshire has skiing, but that’s only for winter sports lovers. However when election year rolls around, millions are spent on local TV and radio advertisements. Campaign staffers and journalists spend millions more on hotels, motels and restaurants. Small businesses that cater to tourists get their slice as well. It’s a recurring dream come true for the local chambers of commerce. And the additional tax revenues generated by all this spending benefits everyone in the state.
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Iowa loves Barack Obama. Turning out in big numbers, Iowans gave Senator Obama a solid win in the first night of voting that counts. Obama’s ability to attract independents and new voters bodes well for his candidacy going forward. If he can keep winning over independents, the presidency will be his to lose.

Hillary made things worse for herself after her third place finish on Thursday. She again tried to sell herself as an agent of change while surrounded on stage by a who’s who of former Clinton administration officials. Her reaction to the verdict in Iowa suffered badly in comparison with Obama’s stirring victory speech.

Senator Obama deserves credit for sticking with his positive message when opinion polls showed him behind Clinton and talking heads advised him to go negative. Instead Obama relied on an inspirational stump speech and a timely endorsement from Oprah to take an early lead in the race for the presidency. Now the Illinois Senator has all the momentum going into New Hampshire.

The urbane Mr. Obama offers a stark contrast to the current White House occupant. Obama is sophisticated, eloquent and not from a political family. The country needs a new direction and Obama seems ready to lead the way.
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Back in 1996, the Republicans nominated Bob Dole for president. Since he’s been appearing in those Viagra commercials, Dole fairly oozes middle aged sex appeal, but back then he was kind of a stiff (pun intended). In 1996 Bob Dole wanted to build a bridge to the past. But Dole had run for president before, was a hot shot in the Senate and was next in line for the GOP.

John McCain may find himself next in line for Republicans this year. Romney flip flops like a fish. Social conservatives will never stomach Rudy Giuliani. And the anti-tax zealots dislike Huckabee. That leaves McCain and the Sleeper, Fred Thompson. McCain wants the Republican nomination very badly. Does Thompson?

Senator McCain wants the GOP nomination so badly that he’s left the Straight Talk Express parked in the garage. Now McCain cruises around in a Loosey Goosey Lamborghini.

John McCain rightly criticized the Bush tax cut of 2001 as unsustainable. Indeed the current massive federal deficit indicates that McCain was prophetic. Nevertheless, McCain now favors making those tax cuts permanent.
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Political guru Karl Rove gets a lot of credit for building the Republican working majority that has governed America over the past seven years. The Rove strategy requires constant pandering to conservative voters.

In keeping with the Rove game plan, George Bush completely ignores the concerns of Democrats and left leaning independents. Now even moderate voters have tuned out the president.

For the past two years or so, Bush has seen his approval ratings stuck in the mid to lower 30’s. The 30% of Americans still in approval of the president are the hard core conservative Republicans that Rove has been courting so assiduously. And since Republicans still support Bush, most of the GOP presidential candidates continue to follow Rove’s lead.

While moderates have drifted away from the GOP, factions on the right have gotten used to calling the shots. Conservatives know that if Bush can’t get their support, he’ll have nowhere else to turn. That’s why the president’s initiative on immigration failed so spectacularly last summer.

Social conservatives expect presidential candidates to wear Christianity on their sleeves. Club for Growth conservatives require all politicians to swear a solemn oath to never raise taxes under any circumstances. And the neo-cons want the next president to continue a strategy of imposing democracy through the barrel of a gun. None of these policies appeal to a majority of Americans anymore.

Even “maverick” John McCain sounds like he’s proposing a third Bush term. We’ll see how that works out. Expect Republicans to call in the swift boaters again this summer. Hillary never fought in Vietnam right?

Republicans, Karl Rove, George W. Bush

When did Mitt Romney become a pretzel? He’s always absurdly twisting his words to impress cultural conservatives and ending up tied in a knot. Here are few bloopers from the highlight reel.

December 17, 2007 - Romney Slams Huck with Rubber Chicken
The former governor of Massachusetts is peeved over an article Mike Huckabee wrote for the January/February 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine. In the article, Huckabee said that “American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out.”

“The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad,” Huckabee wrote. “My administration will recognize that the United States’ main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists.” Mitt thinks Huck should apologize for the editorial on Bush.

Straight Line: Former Governor Huckabee is dead on in his assessment of Bush’s foreign policy of course, but Romney likes to stand up for GW.

December 7, 2007 - Freedom Requires Religion
At a speech to the faithful earlier this month, Romney proclaimed that “Freedom requires religion”. Here comes that rainy day feeling again for Atheists and Agnostics.

Straight Line: Romney desperately needs to have evangelical Christian voters in his camp.

October 16, 2007 – Lawyers Decide on War
Asked if he would obtain congressional authorization before taking any military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Romney said, “You sit down with your attorneys and they tell you what you have to do, but obviously the president of the United States has to do what’s in the best interest of the United States to protect us against a potential threat.”

You sit down with your attorneys? I guess all of that time in divorce court teaches lawyers everything they need to know about mortal combat.

Straight Line: Although Article 1 of the Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to declare war, Romney likes to look decisive. He would never bother to ask members of Congress for approval before invading another country, especially not Congressional Democrats.

August 8, 2007 – Young Romneys No Help to Uncle Sam
When the former Massachusetts Governor was forced to explain why none of his five sons were serving in Iraq, he responded “Well, the good news is that we have a volunteer army and that’s the way we’re going to keep it.”
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Perhaps America needs a bed time president. After the election we can all drift off into a healthy slumber and forget about the fact that our military is dealing with two quagmires in the most dangerous part of the world.

Maybe we’ll wake up one day to hear that the US has followed the British lead, declared victory in Iraq, and completed a full withdrawal. Wouldn’t that be a morning in America? I guess if you’ve tried everything else and failed, why not sleep on it?

Fred Thompson’s pillow soft approach shows that he has the right stuff to reach drowsy voters. It all started with his rather late and relatively lackluster entrance into the presidential race. And while Mr. Thompson does generate some excitement with his move star status, he compensates for it with a dull stump speech, loose grasp of the facts and relaxed schedule. Hazy Americans, Fred Thompson is the man for you.

While the other Republican candidates fight it out, Thompson sits quietly by and waits for the nomination to come his way. Of course the former Senator is the sleeper candidate in this election. Just look at the less than inspirational crowd he’s up against:

• Rudy Giuliani – his penchant for dressing in drag doesn’t help him.
• Mitt Romney – he may like hunting varmints, but he’ll never be a regular Joe.
• John McCain – the GOP doesn’t trust him.
• Mike Huckabee – he pardoned murderers instead of sending them to the chamber.
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At the 1996 Republican national convention, Bob Dole offered himself up as a bridge to the past. He invoked a simpler time when gas was cheap and we all liked Ike in the White House. Dole mistakenly believed that American voters would welcome a return to those good old days.

Democrat Bill Clinton mocked Dole’s maudlin rhetoric by announcing that he would build a bridge to the future in his second term. Americans chose the future over the past in 1996.

In 2007, Hillary has followed the Bob Dole playbook. She has mistakenly assumed that America wants a return to the Bill Clinton years. That casts Barack Obama as a bridge to the future.

Every four years, presidential candidates repeat the same old mistakes. They believe that they can chat up their extensive experience, pick up a few key endorsements and play it safe in pubic settings. The strategy never works. You don’t win the presidency by default. You win by capturing the voters’ imagination.
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Rudy and Hillary reek of old school politics. Rudy has taken the Republican surge of scare tactics to whole new level. He’s full of bluster and surrounds himself with cronies. Rudy has the neocon wing in the bag.

Meanwhile Hillary is running a Dick Gephardt style presidential campaign. She touts her experience. She plays it safe. Even-handed. Boring. And like Gephardt four years ago, Hillary has finally realized that she might not breeze through Iowa. And so in a blink she’s gone sharply negative on her major rival. Iowans have seen it all before.

Hillary has another problem in that it’s not clear how many of her supporters are drawn to her husband rather than to her. Does Hillary really excite people or do Democrats just want a repeat of Bill’s presidency without the sex scandals?

Ms. Clinton has exacerbated the problem by touting her “experience”. But this experience includes the time when Bill was running the show, not Hillary. No one elects a first lady. Hillary is building a bridge to the past. We saw how well that worked for Bob Dole.

Rudy’s problem is more straightforward. Americans quickly tire of living in fear. We are an optimistic, forward thinking people. By now we’ve seen that Saddam actually posed no threat to us. It turns out that Iran isn’t so scary either.
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It seems that every depressingly familiar story on the evening news these days reminds us of how badly we need new leadership in our country. Some kid from Middle America grabbed an automatic weapon and killed several innocent people before taking his own life. There is a video which may show federal employees mistreating prisoners, but the evidence has since been destroyed. We now know our president has vastly overstated the threat from a country in the Middle East. And the guys who actually attacked us on 9-11 continue to taunt us via poorly produced videotapes from a country we treat with kid gloves.

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee both present a stark contrast to George W. Bush. They come across as easygoing and relaxed, like the smell of home cooking after a long day at work. America may be looking for someone with a good sense of humor. These candidates appeal to our optimistic point of view.

Some voters consciously tune out the nasty accusations that fly back and forth this time of year. They’re hoping that some candidate will inspire them to get behind a worthy cause. Hillary and Rudy are good at scaring people, not so good at inspiring people.
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Our country gives presidents too much freedom to govern according to their own agenda. We place more constraints on the chief executives of our states than we place on the chief executive of the country. Governors don’t just deal with state legislatures. They must also work within the framework of laws established through the referendum process.

Ballot initiatives give state voters a chance to directly intervene in everything from school funding to stem cell research. But we have no referendum at the federal level. And this affords the president and Congress tremendous leeway in establishing national priorities.

Lately Democrats and Republicans have taken to offering a vastly different set of plans for the country. When control of Congress switches, funding for various agencies changes dramatically. Some programs get dropped or lose their funding. There’s no continuity. Long term strategies have no chance in this environment.
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Incumbents rule the roost in this country. Every ten years, state legislatures get to map out their own Congressional districts. And these maps are carefully drawn to maintain the status quo. The people in charge want to stay in charge and this is how it’s done. The practice is also known as gerrymandering, but by any name it’s a lousy deal for voters.

In the 2004 election in California, not one seat in the state legislature changed hands. Every district represented by a Democrat before the election is still represented by a Democrat now, and every district with a Republican representative prior to 2004 still has a Republican representative today. True competition does not exist in California politics.

In other states, one party with a clear majority sometimes draws the electoral map so that they can pick up a few more seats. The goal is never to make races more competitive or voting districts more diverse. It’s all about winning and staying in power. And the voters always lose. Why vote when you already know the outcome of every race? Congressional districts should be drawn along county lines.
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Extreme partisanship makes governing difficult in the United States. Every issue becomes part of a zero sum game. One side doesn’t win unless the other side loses and lawmakers end up bragging about legislation that didn’t get passed.

The never ending election cycle is partly to blame for this excessive partisanship. Politicians believe that they must constantly raise money for their political campaigns, so they have increasingly less time to do what we pay them to do.

Twenty four hour cable news stations and modern media don’t help either. High drama brings in the ratings and in politics that means sharp contrasts and an argumentative tone. Who wants to watch people working toward a compromise? It’s boring. There’s a reason C-SPAN is not at the top of many viewing lists.

Another problem we have in our country is the dominance of two political parties. In virtually every legislative district in the country there will be only two viable candidates in the next election, a Democrat and a Republican.
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When Barack Obama talks about the politics of hope, he’s appealing to the basic optimism of the American people. Our country’s economy and worldwide political influence have been on the rise for over a century. American students attend some of the finest universities on the planet. We have long coastlines on two oceans, friendly neighbors, natural resources and unprecedented prosperity. In short we have much to be thankful for. That’s why we like positive, self confident presidential candidates.

After World War II the United States helped our former adversaries Germany and Japan recover. As a result, two nations that were once mortal enemies are now strong allies. So we have reasons to feel optimistic about our ability to positively influence other countries.

In the last three decades we’ve also seen an end to the Cold War. Now democracy has replaced totalitarianism as the established form of government in countries across Eastern Europe and all throughout Asia and the Americas. Given these hopeful signs, we need a forward thinking president who will build on our recent foreign policy accomplishments.
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Here is what Vice President Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign War on August 26, 2002.

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.

As we now know, Cheney was either dishonest or spectacularly wrong on that day. When we’re about to invade a foreign country, America can’t afford to make mistakes like that. Recently Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul shared a much more honest assessment of Iraq.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On Iraq, as you know, the president, all your fellow Republicans say the U.S. has got to stay there in one form or another to fight Islamic extremism. Why are they wrong about that?
REP. RON PAUL: Because our presence there makes extremism worse. We’re more vulnerable to terrorism because we’re over there occupying their country, and they resent it. We would resent it if China occupied our country. What if China came? They look different, they have a different religion, they’re going to impose their religious values and their political values on us. We’d be furious, and yet we’re over there, so we incite the radicals against us. After 9/11, we went into Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, we’ve occupied two countries now. They were already complaining that our support for countries like Saudi Arabia and our military presence in Saudi Arabia was one of the inciting reasons for them to come here. So we did exactly the opposite of what we were supposed to do. Now we’re in worse shape.
Our military is run down. We’ve spent a half a trillion dollars. We’ve lost all these men and women. We’ve had 40,000 serious casualties. And all we can do is dig in our heels and say, “Well, we can’t leave because there will be chaos.” We’ve created chaos. The longer we stay the more chaos and the more expenses we’re going to have.

Here are Mr. Paul’s thoughts on Iran and the CIA.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You’d do away with the CIA, I saw. Is that correct or not?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, not all of the functions, but essentially so. The CIA is what gets us into trouble. I mean, the CIA is what really started things in the Middle East, because the CIA went in and overthrew Mosaddeq in 1953. We put in the shah. The CIA murdered Diem, or participated in the overthrow of the government in Vietnam, which leads to trouble.
It’s a secret government. Congress has no idea what the CIA is doing, because nobody knows, other than what the CIA is. It is one of the things that is not characteristic of a free society.

It’s too bad we can’t elect three of the presidential candidates to share presidential duties for the next four year term. Mr. Paul has the right take on foreign policy. Our Constitution does not describe an empire. We declared our independence from the British Empire back in 1776. Is that too long ago for anyone to remember?

Here are some reasons why the United States should get out of the empire building business.
- We insinuate ourselves into the internal politics of foreign countries and it blows up in our face.
- Innocent people get killed.
- We end up taking sides in civil conflicts and compromising our principles as a result.
- Policing the world is expensive.
- It puts our military in untenable positions. Quagmires don’t end well.
- We have plenty of internal problems to deal with.
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No one listens to the leader of the free world anymore. Bush made a speech asking world leaders to join him in condemning the brutal repression of pro-democracy forces in Burma. No one did. It’s business as usual in Burma. In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf has declared martial law over the objections of the Bush administration. Musharraf is supposed to be our ally, but he takes our money and goes his own way. Vladimir Putin ridiculed our Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense when they visited Russia about a month ago. George Bush has virtually no influence on the world stage.

Traditionally other nations follow the US out of either respect or fear. But countries neither fear us nor respect us these days. Our enemies see the US Army bogged down in Iraq with no help from our allies, stuck in the middle of a brutal civil war with no feasible plan for withdrawal. So they know that the most our military can do is drop bombs on other countries. And no one respects our President because he’s never shown any respect for the opinions of others, especially those with whom he disagrees.

The shortcomings of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy should be obvious to everyone by now. Bush’s attitude never changes. It’s always my way or the highway. When it comes to world affairs, most of our allies have chosen the highway. Now that we’ve traveled down the long road in Iraq, our soldiers could sure use some help. But no one is there for us. Even the British troops are pulling out.

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