If you had the power, which U.S. Senator would you clone?
Update [2010-3-24 14:25:3 by BooMan]: For your wingnut friends, the White House just sent over an analysis of what health care reform will do district by district and state by state. Pass it along.
Bernie Sanders.
99 more Al Frankens. mostly because of my joy at seeing the rightwing go apeshit.
both Sanders and Franken are good picks… Both appear to be listening to those who voted them into office, as opposed to the lobbyists trying to buy their influence.
I think that’s what drives the Right batty—a Senator who isn’t owned by the Corporate interests, who is genuinely listening to their <voting> constituents…
Both of the above, please.
Or if they were taken, I’d be perfectly happy with Boxer, Durbin, Brown, Kerry, or several others. To my chagrin, not so sure about Feingold ATM.
Another vote for Franken. His style is brilliant and refreshing.
Barbara Boxer
Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders and Al Franken.
In fact, if the Senate could be made up of people, I’d pick those 3 to make up the entire Senate.
I am crazy, nuts for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. I still remember the speech he gave back in December 2009 before the vote for the healthcare reform bill. He was just amazing. He ripped the Republicans a new one. He really has a way with words.
Basically, what he was saying is that once the healthcare reform bill passes, it will be time for the Republican Party lying to end.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/290819-3
(Whitehouse starts are the 15:25 mark)
That was a great speech. He’s one of my favorites, without a doubt. As a matter of fact, I think Rhode Island is fortunate in both their senators. Reed has been a pretty consistent liberal/progressive legislator.
“…it will be time for the Republican Party lying to end.”
Well we’ve been waiting a long time. It was in the mid-fifties when Adlai Stevenson quipped, “If the Republicans will stop telling lies about Democrats, we’ll stop telling the truth about them.
Plus ça change and all that…
I do agree with your choice of Sheldon Whitehouse. He’s been awesome in committee hearings.
Franken, Boxer, or Feingold. Depends on which day of the week you ask me.
Al Franken, Russ Feingold
There’s already a Boxer, Feingold, Franken, Whitehouse, Harkin, and a Sanders in the Senate, so I’d use cloning technology to bring back some of the greats. Bob La Follette and Ted Kennedy for sure. Maybe Paul Simon, Hubert Humphrey, or Birch Bayh. We don’t need to clone Al Gore Jr, just recruit him to run again. And LBJ for Majority Leader.
perfect post.
I am partial to Dick Durbin, only because he’s done a really good job, not to mention his words to some junior senator of his state,”Dammit. Take the ball and run with it. Run for president. Now is the time.”
Pity I forgot who got his sage advice.
I was going to mention Birch Bayh, whose son obviously didn’t learn much at his father’s knee when he was growing up, as someone I wanted to bring back from the dead. Then I learned that he was still very much alive and living with his wife in D.C.
Kind of interesting how the names that keep coming up the most–Boxer, Feingold, Franken, and Sanders–are all Jewish. What’s the deal with that?
What does their religion have to do with anything?
Merkley and Whitehouse are pretty good, and they’re not Jewish. There’s definitely a progressive Jewish rump caucus in the Senate that is generally good on most issues.
Actually, that was the question.
That’s an astute observation. Perhaps it’s because we Jews are not afraid of expressing minority viewpoints?
Or maybe it’s just an artifact of the fact that Jews are among the most reliably politically liberal groups in the country, rivaled only by African-Americans, who don’t tend to get elected to the Senate in the first place.
Cute. I like that. I have found that jews have as many opinions as there are individuals. HAH! We have you beat, hands down!
In Lithuanian society, if you have a gathering of 3 people, I guarantee that you will find 4 political parties there.
That said, I attended an early ceremony, when the rebirth of Lithuania took place. They took a former synagog, (the soviets turned it into a museum), and they returned it to its former self, and had an ancient rabbi (who returned from Siberia) to make it active again.
It brought tears to my eyes.
I’m glad you bring this up – I didn’t realized that three of those great progessive senators were jewish and I was getting nervous that so many people on my list of most hated politicians are: emanuel, lieberman, baucus, netanyahu et al. I would rattle off the people who have ruined health care reform and then worry that I sounded anti-semitic.
Not that Netanyahu can be blamed for the HCR disaster, although I’m sure he’d poison that too if he could.
Al Franken is obviously the hero of progressives for the moment, but I want to speculate why that is. I assert that any smart, passionate, hardworking “outsider” is going to inherently be a very effective progressive legislator. These things go hand in hand, IMO.
I’d like to also define what it means to be an “outsider,” but unfortunately for me it’s a little like pornography- I know it when I see it. I would love to have someone better than me try to define what an “outsider” is, because our party and our country desperately needs to recruit more of them.
Any one that does not owe big favors to big corporations.
Which means…none.
And if there actually was such a thing, then that senator would have to be one who actually own such a corporation. A future Senator Bloomberg for example, if his imperial ambitions were to stoop that low on the totem pole of absolute power.
Unless the control of the entire corporate-sponsored (and/or owned outright) hypnomedia establishment over what we laughingly refer to as the minds….and thus of course the votes…of many millions of mainstream Americans is stopped, it will be crooked business as usual in DC. (And don’t hold yer breath waiting for that one, Booman. Their game is too good plus it’s a closed shop. Bet on it.)
AG
I’d clone Whitehouse, Sanders, Franken and Feingold and send the rest, and their lobbyists, and the corporate execs who pay those lobbyists, to a penal labor colony on one of the moons of Jupiter.
Sherrod Brown. He worked hard for the health bill. I’m proud he’s from my state.
Glad someone else remembered Sherrod Brown!
I like Sherrod Brown, Bernie Saunders, Sheldon Whitehouse, and definitely Al Franken. And John Kerry has certainly earned his share of respect, too.
And then there was that really talented guy from Illinois… oh, yeah. He got promoted… (why didn’t we clone him before he moved on?)
Patty Murray
Sherrod Brown, without a doubt.
Sherrod Brown, Al Franken, John Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse, Patty Murray
NatTurner
Al Franken or Bernie Sanders without a doubt; I’d have to toss a coin. But why stop with one. I’m also fond of Reed, Feingold, Sherrod Brown, Durbin, Boxer, Merkley, Harkin, Leahy, Whitehouse.
And, if we could clone the dead – Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone.
Senator Feingold.
bernie sanders