Look! A Real, Live Democrat!

JOHN EDWARDS FOR PRESIDENT

Am I missing something here? What the hell is wrong with the Democrats? For the first time since George McGovern thirty-six years ago, we have a Democratic candidate for the presidency who actually sounds like a Democrat. There's nothing vague about John Edwards' message - you know where he stands on every issue of any importance to average Americans. Unlike Barack Obama, whose heart is in the right place but who talks in poetic generalities, and Hillary Clinton - who is heartless - John Edwards has a definite, tangible vision of the new direction he wants to take America. Why isn't he catching on? Why are the American people so easily led - like sheep - by the corporate media? What in tarnations is goin' on here???

One could only be deeply moved by Senator Obama's primary victory in South Carolina last night. And Caroline Kennedy's endorsement in this morning's New York Times really hit home. In an opinion piece titled, "A President Like My Father", she wrote:

"I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me but for a new generation of Americans."

If Obama is the eventual nominee, I'll be happy and proud to have him as the Democratic standard bearer. It's foreseeable that someone like him would even be able to bring the likes of me back into the fold (I left the Dems ten years ago). But with all due respect to Ms. Kennedy, it seems to me that John Edwards could be just as inspiring to that same new generation of Americans. As I've stated on this site before, John Edwards, Like Franklin Roosevelt three quarters of a century ago, knows that corporate America is the enemy of the people; Barack Obama just doesn't seem to understand this. His insistence that he will allow the huge drug and insurance companies a seat at the table when trying to hammer out a solution to this nation's health care mess is dangerously naive. Maybe he is trying not to appear too bold. Maybe he really does understand the serious crisis this country is facing with respect to the hammerlock that the plutocracy has held on the American economy for the past twenty-seven years. One could only hope so. That he is an intelligent man is undeniable. But my problem with Obama's message is that it's too vague. John Edwards, on the other hand, is offering us a concrete new deal. I agree with Caroline Kennedy: Barack Obama is an inspiration. But so is John Edwards.
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And let us not forget that the odds of history are on the side of John Edwards! This might seem to some like a trivial point but sitting senators and congressmen tend not to be elected to the presidency. The reason for this is the fact that Americans prefer Governors. The latter are known for their administrative ability - as opposed to the former who are merely legislators. The last sitting senator to be elected was John F. Kennedy in 1960. The last sitting congressmen to be elected was James A. Garfield in 1880. The fact that both of them were assassinated is a mere coincidence, I assure you. But the truth remains that when a party nominates a active legislator, they're taking a huge statistical gamble. History proves as much.
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Whether the eventual nominee is Obama or Edwards, one has every reason to believe that either one of them will be the next president of the United States. Not since 1932 have the Democrats had a better shot at reclaiming the White House. But it should not be forgotten that they also have a positive genius for screwing up a good thing. Last year, I ended a piece on The Rant this way:

"Hey Democrats! You want to know another reason why I left your party almost ten years ago? You people are just dumb enough to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton! Prove me wrong, Dems! Please prove me wrong!"

Aye, there's the rub!

The Clintons are the reason I am no longer a Democrat. I don't want to go back there and neither should you.

This can not be emphasized enough: If Hillary Clinton is handed the nomination at next summer's convention, it is a certainty that the Republicans will retain control the executive branch of our hideously broken government until at least 2012. That is a chance that we can't afford to take. It is a sure bet that a Republican president will pardon George W. Bush and that he will be able to escape the punishment that is due him for the crimes he committed against the people of the United States in general, and the men, women and little children of Iraq in particular. Justice demands that he be sent to federal prison for the rest of his life. That will never happen if Hillary Clinton in nominated. The time has come to face some unpleasant facts: She can't win the general election. Let's be honest here, folks: everyone is sick of the Clintons! It seems more-than-likely that the next Republican nominee will be John McCain. Do you seriously believe that middle America will choose the Queen of the focus groups over the one-time inmate of the Hanoi Hilton?? As Frank Rich said in his column today:

"Billary can't even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departure from conservative orthodoxy...."

The only way a Hillary Clinton candidacy will motivate the Democratic party's base will be by inspiring a third-party uprising. If Al Gore had only remained true to that party's core philosophy, Ralph Nader would not have run in 2000. The choice between Hillary Clinton and any Republican is, in reality, no choice at all. And let's not forget this: Do you really think that it's a wise idea to hand the presidency over to a group of people who have emulated the campaign tactics of Karl Rove? Their methods used in smearing Senator Obama during the South Carolina primary are the most despicable used by any Democrat in at least a half a century. They should just go away - far, far away. If Hillary Clinton is chosen as the nominee this summer, for the first time since I became eligible to vote thirty years ago, I'm not even going to bother. What's the use?

"So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is - fear itself: nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

March 4, 2008 will mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The rules and regulations that his administration set into place that saved capitalism from its own excesses worked beautifully for a half a century. Then in 1981, with the dawning of the Reagan Revolution, the New Deal came under assault. Twenty-seven years later, as in 1933, the American economy finds itself on life support. John Edwards is the only candidate who understands that the New Deal desperately needs to be resuscitated. His time has come.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:
The Best of Times:
America In The Clinton Years
by Haynes Johnson