David Plouffe says that any moderate or centrist Republican who is thinking of running for president should have their head examined. I know what he means. No moderates need apply to the current Republican Party. Making the attempt would be an effort in futility and wasted time and money. But, Plouffe is wrong. Any centrist Republican who has the profile and connections to make a serious run should have their head examined if they don’t make the effort. No, they almost definitely won’t win any primaries or caucuses, but that’s not why they should run.
I’d love to see Lincoln Chafee or Olympia Snowe or Colin Powell or Larry Wilkerson or even Bob Barr make a run for the presidency. What would their platform be? To stand up on that stage with all the other Republicans and tell the goddamned truth. Tell the truth about Bush. Tell the truth about the deficit and what caused it. Tell the truth about who is a socialist and who isn’t. Tell the truth about Fox News. Just go in there and tell the truth in debate after debate and forum after forum.
Why should they do it? Because the truth is so desperately needed. The biggest crisis facing this county isn’t jobs or terrorism. The biggest crisis is our inability to deal with our problems because one party is completely dishonest and delusional, and they have the power to obstruct everything.
One candidate who is willing to run and who is willing to tell the truth with relentless consistency would do more good than an ugly campaign of hate and demagoguery could ever hope to accomplish. Anyone who can do it and decides not to just because they won’t win needs to have their head examined.
What’s worse? The Hill comments, or YouTube comments?
One candidate on the Puke side did do that in 2008. Ron Paul. And look where that got him. Of course he’s a crack pot, but he was the most truthful guy there. And why would Bob Barr run as a Republican? He ran as a Glibertarian in ’08, as nuts as that is.
Ron Paul told the truth about 10% of the time. He doesn’t even know what the truth is. He’s a blind squirrel.
Nothing pisses me off more than the left’s adoration of Ron Paul simply because of his views on war and drugs. Even though his ends are correct, the means are largely incorrect. He would likely say that intervening in Rwanda during the genocide was not our business. Or that with the drug war ended, no federal money should go towards rehabilitation programs.
Uh…. Bob Barr is a good ‘ol southern bigot. You may wish to re-consider your including him in that group of “moderates”.
Colin Powell lied at the UN about WMD and Iraq.
With Papa Bush, Powell kept mum when the lie about babies being tossed out of incubators in Iraq was being circulated.
The President has never asked for anything that he thought the congress would not pass. He has never risked political defeat in the name of principle.
And you ask it of Republicans?
You mean like closing GITMO? You mean suffering the embarrassment of having the most “progressive” members of congress saying, ‘not in my backyard!’. That kind of “principled” defeat?
Campaigning is not a holiday lark. It puts a lot of pressure on a candidate and his or her family life and personal health. Relations with family, friends and associates are strained to the breaking point by constant begging for more money, especially since the greediest among the wealthy are the most politically involved Republicans. Why should someone from the ragged rearguard of rational Republicans wreck their lives to tell the story Democrats and the news media can’t or won’t?
Why does Gary Bauer flip pancakes in New Hampshire or Dennis Kucinich roam around Davenport, Iowa? Because they have a point of view that they think needs to be part of the conversation. The new fringe candidate is the mainstream Yankee Republican.
What transformative effect did Bauer and Kucinich have on the presidential campaign trail? They are both considered jokes within their own parties.
Fringe candidates have to be crazy enough to be fringe candidates.
Out of power mainstream Republicans (indeed a lot of mainstream Democrats too) used to campaign the old-fashioned way–buy their way into office. Now that seems to be the province of the totally unhinged nouveau riche and outright charlatans and crooks (who have successfully fleeced folks of their money). As soon as Bernie Madoff is out of prison, watch him run for office as a mainstream Republican (Wall Street Branch). 🙂
The only “moderate” who has successfully done this lately is Michael Bloomberg.
Do you think anyone seriously looked at their views, BooMan?
When I told people in the Young Dems who I was supporting (Mike Gravel), they looked at me like I was a nutcase. I canvassed and made phone calls for him, and people didn’t know who he was or looked at me strangely.
They’re seen as fringe, and automatically dismiss them. The Very Serious People have “real things” to talk about.
So, you think Colin Powell or Olympia Snowe or Lincoln Chafee would be treated like Mike Gravel?
Let me tell you something. Mike Gravel was out of office for almost 30 years by the time he ran for president. And he wasn’t exactly high profile when he was in the Senate. In addition, he had no infrastructure, no money, no support within the party, and no chance.
You can’t compare that to someone who has recently won statewide office, or who is currently serving in Congress, or to a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State.
Ok, Dennis Kucinich. He was my second choice.
Is he looked at seriously? You mention him to anyone, and they go “Isn’t he the one who talks about UFO’s? He’s a little nuts.”
People don’t take Kucinich seriously, and he’s brought some of that on himself over the years (chemtrails?).
But find a member of the House who has been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Notice I didn’t suggest that Bob Inglis run for office. I only mentioned Bob Barr because he came out against Bush while he was still president. He actually attended Netroots Nation in Austin. So, he’s already been telling a little bit of truth. But, no, he’s not the right vehicle. He doesn’t have enough star-power.
Never knew DK had got into the chemtrails issue, but really, how wacky is it to speculate that the USG/Pentagon, with all their checkered history, might be experimenting on populations secretly for some undisclosed purpose or otherwise acting in ways not authorized by law. Can’t discredit him too much for at least looking into what many folks were in fact seeing with their own eyes (not that I know what it was was anything other than benign contrails).
Didn’t hear him mention this in 2004 and 2008; my sense of it is he got more flak from the MSM for his proposal of a Dep’t of Peace to replace the Pentagon. Now that really crosses the line into outrageousness!
To be fair, it was actually one Timothy Russert who seemed eager to talk about UFOs. Poor Dennis K. was just stuck trying to deal with that snicker-inducing topic meant to make a joke of him and his “oddball” candidacy.
He probably should have come back harder with the Reagan-ufo sightings and reminded Russert that he and his corporate bosses at GE seemed to worship someone who not only saw flying saucers in the sky but often seemed to be worried that the space aliens were about to attack Earth.
But, yeah, Dennis K. never was considered seriously for other reasons, some substantive some silly — just a congressman repping a too-liberal district, small guy in physical stature with those unfortunate big ears which made him look like a character out of Tolkien, the disastrous time he was mayor of Cleveland, being a vegan prematurely in political terms (i.e. years before Bill Clinton), friendship with professional new ager and channeler Shirley McClaine.
Dennis wasn’t nuts (– that might have been Mike Gravel). For the reasons noted above, he was just always going to be considered “odd man out” in any presidential field.
Right, and I thought that was BooMan’s point.
To expand somewhat: the news media will not do their job, if their job is defined as keeping citizens of a democratic republic informed as to their interests on current issues. They will not talk about the content of policy questions, except to report what one side or the other says about policy. Since the age of Reagan, they see their job as reporting on the second order question: how effective is one side or the other being in its presentation of policy questions, not the actual content and implications of the proposed policy itself.
So, for example, it is against current journalistic standards to simply say, “What Republicans are calling death panels are in fact end of life consultations to help a person codify the circumstances under which certain medical procedures should or should not be undertaken should they be unable to do so themselves.” That is strictly a job for the Democrats to do as far as the media are concerned, because to do otherwise would involve them in choosing sides in a partisan dispute. It is what Edward R. Murrow called “balancing the truth with a lie.” It is today’s journalistic ethos.
But Democrats are hardly blameless in the fact that a party of right-wing loons is held to be the exact and opposite equal of a party run by Eisenhower Republicans (i.e. moderate Democrats) to the detriment of our sovereign citizens’ being able to figure out what the hell is going on.
First, there is an emergency on for a vast number of Americans and Democrats don’t visibly portray that we understand that fact. There’s no drama.
Second, we are in fact in bed with the rapacious wealthy, and citizens are getting screwed. It’s hard to make that look good.
Third, the fact that citizens vote against their self-interest makes us frustrated and contemptuous of them, instead of making us redouble our efforts to communicate with them and do something for them.
Fourth, we don’t call out the Radical Republicans ourselves. We continue to call them conservatives. We continue to act as if they gave a shit about what happens to the country – i.e. the common citizens – and keep hoping for their cooperation, instead of recognizing that they are 100% about taking power for their clients, and do not care if the country they take over is ruined, as long as they are in charge.
Democrats keep bringing reason and logic to a knife fight and wondering why we get stabbed repeatedly.
“Democrats” is an awesomely broad category. This is a logical error that critics within the Democratic Party often make.
There are a fair number of Democrats this year who have taken the gloves off. Alan Grayson’s “Taliban Dan” ad comes to mind. Jack Conway’s ad about Rand Paul seeking a $2000 deduction on Medicare comes to mind. Tarryl Clark has been hitting Michele Bachmann hard.
Too many handwringing progressives are taking their impressions from the national media, and that is not where the fight is happening — or even can happen, for the reasons you have stated. But there is local media, which most places still is independent of the national media bias even if owned by the same companies. And ads are not limited to television. There have been some stunning radio ads as well, and those are relatively cheap to air and more tailored to geographical and lifestyle markets.
And the fight is also in the get-out-the-vote campaigns, which are always more important than the advertising.
I did say “a party run by Eisenhower Republicans,” i.e. the leadership of the Democratic Party. But you are right. All politics remain local, and I will not only agree but strengthen your point about local media: the best reporting about politics nowadays is done by the plodding, old-fashioned “who, what, why, where, when and how” reporters who haven’t caught the post-modern “nothing is knowable” bug.
All very well and good and would be a breath of fresh air for progressives who would have an honest-to-goodness opposition party.
But how would ordinary people determine that these moderates were telling the truth even if they were. It’s a “post-modern” world, you know; there is no truth but what narrative creates and irrational action confirms. Like dog against dog, it’s one belief system against another.
Philosophically and practically, how do we get out of that frame of reference?
Good point. Especially for the GOP, which imo isn’t so much post-modern as largely Reaganized in its increasing propensity to accept truthiness for objective truth, fact, and sound logic. Bush 43 continued that trend faithfully last decade, and if anything the anti-fact disease has penetrated deep into the GOP, leaders and followers alike. One indeed wonders how many over in that party would be left to not only tell the truth but hear it as such.
Not Reaganized, Rovian. They create the reality that other people have to respond to while they create the next reality that other people have to respond to.
And not post-modern. Liars.
Post-modern refers mostly to the cowardice of the observers and analysts in the media and other elements of our culture–who believe that truth is impossible to determine so why bother.
At a minimum you first have to confess that there is something that approaches absolute truth, that there is such a thing as Right and Wrong, True and False. The problem, of course, is that as soon as you make that confession the next question is how do you discern Truth from Truthiness, and who is the arbiter of that Truth? If there is no Truth or everyone determines their own Truth then we’re right back where we started – meta-narrative writ large – otherwise we will have to confess submission to a higher authority.
I think it’s safe to say that Postmodern America would rather commit seppuku than submit – the sanctity of the autonomous self can never be breached…
My answer is to take it out of it’s philosophical frame and put it in a practical frame.
Zeno’s paradox argues that if a brick is falling toward your head, it halfs the distance in a certain amount of time, then halves that, then…infinitely so that the brick never hits your head. Logically that is true. Practically that is not true. Events happen. Evidence is always imperfect.
The economy is faltering for lack of demand not too high taxes. We have tested that practically for the past two years. Business does not start spending when the government stops spending. That is a simple, practical truth that is being actively ignored because the implications run counter to the political ideology of the past 30 years. Although it was an accepted truth by most folks as late as 1975. Guess when middle class incomes began to decline.
“Standing on principles” has become, in this political climate, standing on nonsense. And “progressives” are not immune from this. Just different beliefs.
Looking at this from a practical point of view you would have to define “We” – my guess is that there is a direct correlation between those who benefit from the current state of affairs and the support for those who “stand on principle” in the face of contrary evidence. In other words, they’re not actually interested in the well-being of the people that they claim to represent. No surprise, but I suppose it needs saying. It’s why I rarely take GOP argumentation seriously – it’s merely pablum for the masses, not an attempt to actually win the argument.
Anyone who has a point of view that they think needs to be part of the conversation is already branded a nut case.
It doesn’t matter how smart, clean, articulate, talented and presentable you are. Once you’ve been branded you have a reputation that everybody knows.
Our vaunted love of diversity is a joke.
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