Oh, Ralph, you've done it again!

It's hard to get angry at someone like Ralph Nader. Try as I might, it is next to impossible to store up any real degree of animosity for a guy who has spent almost half a century fighting for the rights and safety of all Americans. His controversial and groundbreaking 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, exposed the inherent safety and design flaws of the infamous Corvair automobile. The weight of the engine, placed in the rear of the car, would cause the driver to lose control of the steering at certain speeds. This was the same vehicle in which comedy legend, Ernie Kovacs (photo on left), was killed on a rainy January night in 1962. It was because of the herculean efforts of Ralph Nader and the people on his team - known as Nader's Raiders by the Press - that the Corvair was finally taken out of commission. Who can say how many lives were saved by this one feat alone?

Yesterday, on NBC's Meet The Press, Ralph announced his candidacy for the presidency. To no one's surprise, this nasty little bit of news sent the Democrats into a positive hissy fit. The general consensus of opinion seems to be thus: "He's going to cost us the election just like he did in 2000!" Note to the Dems: 2008 is not 2000. But it could be....

First a little background:
I supported Ralph Nader's run for the White House eight years ago. As I've stated in these pages before, at the time it seemed like a safe, even responsible thing to do. Eight years of Bill Clinton had moved the party of Franklin Roosevelt so far to the right, they were being called Republican lite. When the Democrats nominated Al Gore over Bill Bradley, a man who was at least talking like a Democrat, I bolted the Dems and registered as a member of the Green Party. I ran for the position of Supervisor of the town of Goshen, NY that same year and, two years later, ran for the New York state Senate. I lost both races handily.

In 2000 Al Gore won the political lottery. As luck would have it, the Republicans that year nominated a hideous, half-witted little frat boy named George W. Bush. Casting a vote for Ralph Nader didn't seem like too much of a gamble in New York - a state that Gore was expected to (and did) win easily. Who would have thought that so huge a segment of the American electorate would actually be foolish enough to vote for a corrupt, mentally unbalanced little piece of shit from Crawford, Texas? Who would have even dreamed in a million years that the Bush Mob would be able to steal the state of Florida by illegally removing 57,000 African Americans from the list of eligible voters? Who among us could have possibly imagined that so thoughtful and intelligent a man as Al Gore would run one of the dumbest campaigns in American political history?

It would be easy to blame Mr. Nader for the Democrats' defeat eight years ago - easy but unfair. Ralph Nader didn't lose the election for Al Gore. Al Gore did that all by himself. The former vice-president, to his credit, has admitted as much.

When he ran again in 2004, the Nader campaign was not a factor in the results. John Kerry, like Al Gore before him, ran a jaw-droppingly stupid campaign. He would have lost with or without Ralph in the running. Which brings us to the sixty-four dollar question: Will a Ralph Nader candidacy mean certain defeat for the Democrats in 2008? Maybe yes. Maybe no. That all depends on whom the eventual nominee is. As I've noted in earlier postings, one of the noted attributes of the Democratic party in recent years is their positive genius at taking a bottle of fine, twelve-year old scotch and turning it into donkey piss. Ralph Nader's entrance into the race yesterday morning has given them an opportunity to turn a bag of nasty tasting lemons into a nice juicy glass of thirst quenching lemonade.

The plans are now in the works to steal the nomination from Barack Obama by having the so-called "super delegates" vote for Hillary Clinton. The Clintonistas are also trying to get the Michigan and Florida delegations seated at the Democratic convention this summer. Having moved their primary dates ahead in violation of the rules put forward by the Democratic National Committee, the people of those two states were told that their votes would not be counted. That being the case, many of them stayed home on primary day. The fact is that Hillary Clinton's victories in those two states were accidental! Had the voters known that their delegates were going to be seated, the result might have been very different indeed. The delegates of Michigan and Florida should not be counted because not everybody had a chance to participate in the primary. End of argument.

What the Democrats need in 2008 is a candidate who will inspire the base - the ideological heart of their party - to turn out at the polls en masse on November 4. Ralph Nader's appearance in the campaign will once again inspire those who are fed up with the corporate overthrow of this once-great nation that has been going on since the people foolishly sent a feeble-minded "B" movie actor by the name of Ronald Reagan to the White House a generation ago. For real progressives, Barack Obama is an acceptable (if depressingly imperfect) alternative to Ralph Nader. Hillary Clinton is not. If she is nominated this summer a lot of pissed off Democrats will flee to Nader - or just stay home. If she is the Democratic nominee in 2008, count on President John McCain taking the oath of office on January 20, 2009.

I don't hold anything against Ralph Nader for wanting to seek, yet again, the presidency. New York being such a reliable blue state, I might even vote for him again. If Hillary is nominated, I'll definitely vote for him. I think he has actually been a real plus for the Democrats. Why? Because he is forcing them to come face to face with serious issues and problems that they have been ignoring for decades. It has been Nader, alone, who has held up a mirror to the sick and hypocritical face of corporate America. He is not doing what he is doing to satisfy his ego. He is forcing all of us to face the sick and unsettling reality of what America has become. For that he does not deserve our scorn, but our eternal thanks.

The United States has been sold down the pike to the lowest corporate bidder. The Democrats could have stopped this prior to 1995 when they were in the majority and yet they stupidly let it happen. That is the reason I said "Later" to that party almost a decade ago. I left and never looked back (OK, occasionally I take a little peek but that's all, I promise). The ensuing years have only re-enforced my decision to leave. Their cowardly behavior since re-gaining a majority over a year ago can only be described as disgusting. And now many of them seem hell-bent on nominating a woman who has been able to win only a small handful of primary contests. And don't forget that it was Hillary Clinton who thought that it was just a dandy idea to give the First Fool and Dead-eye Dick the authority to invade a country that was a danger to no one but itself. Trust me on this one, campers, the very last thing this country needs is another four or (Heaven forbid) eight years of a Clinton White House.

If history teaches us anything, it is this: When given the choice between a real Republican and a phony Republican, the electorate will choose the real one almost every time. True, while the Democrats are taking a decided roll of the dice by nominating Barack Obama, giving the nomination to Senator Clinton is the equivalent of throwing the dice out the window. All I can say to anyone who seriously believes that she can defeat John McCain in the general election is, "Have another sip, Bub." The fact that she is being beaten so soundly by a virtual unknown in her own party's primaries should tell us that she is unelectable. If I had it my way, John Edwards would today be the nominee. Since that's not going to happen, I'm sticking with Barack. All thoughtful progressives should stand behind him.

We are literally on the verge of a new era in this beautiful but troubled country. The new direction we need to take will only come from Barack Obama (or Ralph Nader). Why he has inspired so much enthusiasm across the country is perfectly clear: he is telling people not just what they want to hear, but, like Nader, he is telling them what they need to hear; what they have to hear if this country is going to survive. The hopes of a country divided are wrapped up in the words of this one, lone voice, just as they were one-hundred and forty-eight years ago by the words of another obscure statesman from Illinois....Hey! That's a pretty good analogy - Not bad, Degan!

The entrance yesterday of Ralph Nader into the race may very well be (for purely accidental reasons) the best thing to happen to this country in a long time. Then again it might mean certain disaster. That's up to the Democrats.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

An Unreasonable Man: The Life and Times of Ralph Nader
available on DVD

John McCain: Radical Lefty??

The Republican party has moved so far to the right of center, they're in serious danger of falling off the face of the Earth. No other example illustrates this fact better than the radical right's reaction this week to what can only be called the inevitable nomination of Senator John McCain of Arizona. To hear people like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram, Michael Wiener and Ann Coulter put it, you would think that McCain's political mentor was Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. In fact, it was the late Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement and a man who was known in his day as, Mr. Conservative.
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The fact of the matter is, were Barry Goldwater to seek the GOP nomination today, it's more than probable that he would not be able to win a single primary. Looking back on his 1964 presidential campaign against incumbent, Lyndon Baines Johnson, you would think that today he would be a patron saint of the right wing: he was dead set against the Civil Rights Act signed into law that year and had equal trepidations about the proposed Voting Rights Act which came about in 1965. The guy was also a decided, stone-cold hawk. It is believed by some historians that the Gulf of Tonkein incident that summer which was the spark that ignited the American escalation in Vietnam, was actually manufactured by Johnson in order to keep Goldwater from being able to accuse the president of being "soft on Communism" during the upcoming campaign, a favorite accusation among Republicans of that bygone era. Today they accuse their opponents of being soft on terrorism - New day. Different ism.
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Truth be told, Senator Goldwater who, like McCain, represented the state of Arizona, was never comfortable with the extremist direction his party seemed to be taking. At the end of his life, he was in collaboration with John Dean on a book that was to be a condemnation of the kooks, criminals and fools who, twenty-eight years ago next January 20, succeeded in hijacking the party of Abraham Lincoln. Dean finally completed the book two years ago. The finished product, Conservatives Without Conscience, is required reading - or hearing (I listened the audio-book version. Hey! I can't be expected to read everything! Cut me some slack, Jack!)
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So what the hell is their problem with McCain of all people? To portray him as a liberal doesn't pass the giggle test - not by a long shot. Although John McCain is not the typical, half-witted extremist, so predominant in the modern GOP, he is - and has always been - decidedly right-of-center. The fact that the bloviating gas bags who serve as the media spokespersons for the Republican party are trying to define him as the modern-day Norman Thomas is positively surreal.
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The right's main problem with McCain goes back to the campaign of 2000. If you'll remember, it was during that period that he bravely stood up to the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and condemned them as "agents of intolerance". That was when Karl Rove's goon squad destroyed McCain's candidacy in South Carolina with a "phone poll" which asked the musical question, "How would you feel if you found out that Senator McCain has an out-of-wedlock child with a Black prostitute?" This was a cynical reference to the beautiful little dark-skinned girl, visible in many news photographs, whom John and Cindy McCain adopted a number of years before from one of Mother Theresa's orphanages. To no one's surprise, the Republican voters of that state - just about the stupidest people this side of the Milky Way - swallowed it whole. The Bush operation in 2000 was the most despicable in American electoral history.
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The reaction of the far right wing to the candidacy of John McCain is instructive if one is trying to understand what has happened to the party they've had a total grip on since 1980. Some of them are threatening to sabotage the McCain Campaign in various ways, as Ann Coulter did when she said she was seriously thinking of campaigning for Hillary Clinton. They remind me of unstable, none-too-bright children, throwing a tantrum because the toy they got for Christmas wasn't exactly like the one shown in the television commercial. Laura Ingram's rhetorical question to the senator, "Just what have you done for us [conservatives] lately?" was the ultimate in arrogance. A Representative is not supposed to serve only one fractured section of his or her constituency - they represent all of the people. This is something that the conservatives (let us call them by their real name, "the plutocracy") have never been able to figure out. That is why they will very soon be consigned to history's trash bin. The times, they are a'changin', baby!
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Watching the agents of the "Reagan Revolution" implode before my very eyes is truly a great joy! The American people are finally waking up to the unavoidable reality that the deregulation of American society - put in place by the Gipper nearly three decades ago, passively enabled under Bill (and Hillary) Clinton, and given massive doses of steroids under Bush 43 - has done real and long-lasting harm to our beloved republic. It will take generations to undo all of the damage that has been done by these foolish and unenlightened people. There is much healing that needs to be done. As the ancient Chinese proverb says:
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"The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step."
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We need to take that first step on November 4.
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I have a real sympathy for John McCain. For all of his faults (and there are too many to even mention in this short piece), he at least seems to be a basically decent man. And it can not be denied that he did, at times, go against the extremist doctrine of the modern day Republican party. Should he miraculously be elected in November (and if Hillary Clinton is nominated, he will be - COUNT ON IT), we can only hope that the maverick spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, his political hero, will manifest itself. It's a slender hope but it is all we have.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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THIS JUST IN (2/21/08):
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It is reported in this morning's New York Times that some members of John McCain's staff were "convinced" that he was having an improper relationship with a lobbyist, one Vicki Iseman, and that he was voting on certain bills and writing letters to the FCC that benefited the company she represented.
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This is kind of weird, being put in the position of defending a Republican candidate for the presidency. But it has to be stated for the record that there is something about this story doesn't sit right. It is based on insinuation and no one, thus far, has been willing to go on the record. My suspicion is that this is a Rovian-like scheme concocted by McCain's detractors on the uber right to derail his candidacy. Does the fact that it is being reported by the Times give the story any legitimacy? Two words: Judith Miller. 'Nuff said? Eventually, the big headline behind this story will not be the allegations themselves, but how it was reported.
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Stay tuned.

America's Eternal Shame

When President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation became the law of the land on the first of January 1863, it wasn't the end of anything but the beginning of the long and difficult road to America's spiritual recovery. The very fact of our slave-holding past has lingered, undying in our national psyche for almost a century and a half. We are now at a point in our history where we can take a real, major step toward our national salvation. Sending Barack Obama to the White House on January 20, 2009 won't erase our past; it won't even bring a happy ending to America's deplorable history with respect to race - but it may very well mean the dawn of our healing.

As was mentioned on this site last month, America has been ready for an African American president since March 5, 1770. That was the day that Crispus Attucks - a Black man - became the first human being in history to give his life for this country. Barack Obama would not be my ideal candidate in any year. As moving a speaker as he no doubt is, he is short on specifics. If he is to survive into the convention, he needs to come up concrete proposals; he needs to fine-tune his solution for America's health care nightmare; and he definitely has got to be made aware of the reality that a successful administration will not involve "bringing Democrats and Republicans together". That's never going to happen. The next president of the United States has got to understand that he or she will be in for a long and bloody political fight with the GOP. Instead of talking about bringing the political parties together, he should be imploring his audiences to vote for Democrats - PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS (Not pathetic cowards like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi) - in order to save the country.

But it cannot be denied that, of all of the major contenders now in the race, he is the best and the brightest. Like John F. Kennedy in 1960 - a candidate who was also short on specifics in many areas - one cannot help but look at him and see the promise of a new era, a new deal for the American people. Unlike Hillary Clinton and John McCain, one looks at Barack Obama and sees the potential for growth. Unlike George W. Bush, you know that he's not going to surround himself with half-witted "yes" men. Unlike George W. Bush, he's going to appoint men and women to his administration whose qualifications are not their loyalty to him, but to the Constitution of the United States of America. Unlike George W. Bush, Barack Obama's natural constituency will be working men and women - not the plutocracy, not Corporate America, not any political party - and certainly not the oil companies who have raped this country's treasure. Unlike George W. Bush, he will not be remembered as the worst president in American history. The Senator from Illinois has the potential to be a great president.

One of the things that people keep pointing to when arguing against an Obama presidency is his youth. True, when comparing him to the bulk of American presidents, he is relatively young. But he wouldn't be the youngest - not by a long shot. Without doing any research, here is a list I was able to come up with - just by memory - of men who were younger than Senator Obama will be January next when they took the oath of office:
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James K. Polk
Theodore Roosevelt
John F. Kennedy
William Jefferson Clinton
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And here are three other facts to consider: He'll be only two years younger than James A. Garfield was when he was inaugurated in 1881. He'll be only two and a half years younger than Franklin D. Roosevelt was when he took the oath of office on March 4, 1933. When the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan to be their standard bearer in 1896, he was ten years younger than Barack Obama is now! No. An administration of a President Obama won't be setting any major milestones - with respect towards age, that is. The "youth" issue should be hurled right out the window.
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And now for the real milestone: RACE. There has never been a black family in the history of this once-great nation who have called the White House "home" - unless it was the domestic staff, of course. It's time we had such a family living on the third floor living quarters of the Executive Mansion - High time!. We've had a lot of White women living there - and don't kid yourselves: Helen Taft, Edith Wilson, Eleanor Roosevelt - Hillary Clinton - History proves that these gals had real power! After President Wilson suffered a stroke in September of 1921, Mrs. Wilson was the defacto president for the rest of his term. Eleanor Roosevelt, it was said, was "the President's legs" for the entire twelve years he was in office. Not only that, she was his conscience. She had more influence than any First Lady in American history...that is, until Ms. Clinton came to town. Hillary has had her chance. For eight years she was the power behind the throne. It's Barack's turn.
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Please understand, I'm not, in any way, trying to disparage the two centuries-long struggle for equal rights for all women. I desperately want to see a woman elected to the presidency in my lifetime - but not Hillary Clinton. Anyone but Hillary Clinton. Her judgement as Senator has been - to be polite - appalling. At least John Edwards and John Kerry have been wise enough to admit that their initial support for the obscenity our country is now committing against the men, women and little children of Iraq was a dreadful mistake. Five years after the fact, I'm still patiently waiting for Senator Clinton's mea culpa. I'm not going to hold my breath. You shouldn't either.
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Sending Barack Obama to the White House will send a powerful message to the planet. Think of the symbolism! We would be saying to the rest of the world: Yeah, we realize we made the worst mistake in our history when we sent this disgusting, half-witted little guttersnipe from Crawford, Texas to Washington. But we're going to correct this deplorable situation by choosing a man, the likes of which we've never even dreamed of electing before. That type of man is personified in the very image of Barack Obama. But not only his image; his ideas as well. His elevation to the presidency would heal many of our stupidly self-inflicted wounds.
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The reality must be faced head on: Sending a black guy to the Oval office is an idea that's long overdue. And we're not just talking about any black guy. He's not Jesse Jackson - and he's certainly not Al Shrpton! What we're talking about here is someone who is one of the most extraordinary candidates to come down the political pike in a very, very long time.
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Barack Obama's day has come.
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NOTE TO THE DEMS: Some of your operatives are hinting that there is a plan in the works that will deny Obama the nomination even if he wins the most votes, via the so-called "super delegate" process. If that happens, count on President McCain taking the oath next January. Your base will bolt the party so fast, you won't know what hit you. That's not a threat. That's a fact. You've got a good thing going here. Don't blow it.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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AFTERTHOUGHT 2/15:
I just posted this on the comments page:
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"If I had my way, do you know who the next president of the United States would be? Eleanor Holmes Norton. No one - man or woman - ranks higher in my book".

The Shuster Affair

If there is one thing over the years that I've learned about Hillary Clinton, it is that the woman is utterly without shame. This has been reflected in the type of campaign she has chosen to run and the people she has chosen to run it. Her latest attempt to play the sympathy card can only be described as disgusting. And it is all being done at the expense of the career of one of the most promising, young political reporters on television today.
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Last week, during an appearance on MSNBC's Tuker Carlson program, David Shuster took note of the fact that lovely, little Chelsea Clinton (who is a grown adult, by the way) had been making late night phone calls to the hosts of ABC's The View, asking them to endorse her mother. Shuster said that he thought it a bit unseemly that the Clinton campaign seemed to be "pimping" the darling little thing. That was all Billary Inc. needed to hear. They instantly went into full outrage mode, making pious condemnations against Shuster and MSNBC, threatening to boycott the next debate sponsored by the network if immediate, disciplinary action is not taken.
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Here is an absolute certainty:
Hillary Clinton would "pimp" her daughter at five bucks a shot on the corner of Tenth Avenue and Thirtieth Street if she thought if would get her the nomination.
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As it happens, I was watching the Carlson program that evening. When Shuster said what he said, so help me, I didn't even blink. 99.09 percent of the people watching didn't blink. Why? Because the Clinton campaign is pimping Chelsea! (Figuratively speaking, of course). The following morning, when he made an on-the-air apology for saying what he said (without actually quoting himself) I thought back on the previous night's program and couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. The only people on the planet who "blinked" were the Clinton campaign operatives, desperate for a non-issue they can cynically exploit. She and Bill tried playing the race card during the South Carolina primary a couple of weeks ago and it blew up in their faces. They were desperate to get on the sympathetic side of some kind of "attack" - any kind - (as Barack Obama was able to do last week when he was unfairly pounded by the Clintons down in Dixie). The only thing they could come up with was David Shuster's harmless, off-the-cuff comment. Had he said that Mitt Romney was pimping his sons on the campaign trail (an argument that can easily be made) no one would have made a sound. The mistake he made was referring to precious little Chelsea, whom most people still picture as the impish little thirteen-year-old, romping through the halls of her new home in the executive mansion way back in 1993. Pathetic.
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Here is another question which needs to be answered: We must assume that Whoopee Goldberg and the other regulars on The View (I don't know their names because I never watch the show) have unlisted numbers. How was Chelsea Clinton able to acquire them? Does her mother receive some kind of special treatment from the phone company? What is that all about? It is impossible to obtain an unlisted phone number, believe me. I once tried to contact my own cousin who was unlisted and I couldn't. How was Chelsea Clinton able to get her hands on Whoopee's number? Think about it.

DISCLAIMER:

Okay! Okay! Okay! I watched The View once (The Ron Paul appearance). But that was only because I had three friends in the audience and I taped it for them. So sue me!
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I first noticed Shuster a couple of years ago as the political correspondent on the Hardball program with Chris Matthews. His knowledge and insight were impressive from the start. The guy is on top of and in tune with the American political process and politicians. Lately, the geniuses at MSNBC have sought to loosen up his image, placing him in comparatively informal settings such as co-hosting the Morning Joe program. In these kinds of situations, it is natural that he would let his guard down somewhat - as he undoubtedly did last week on the Carlson show. It is my humble opinion that the tampering of Shuster's public persona is not working at all. They should just let him do what he does best - political reporting; he's pretty damned good at it. Stop trying to turn him into a comedian.
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The reason Hillary Clinton is able to get so much mileage out of this incident is precisely because it was said by someone with the integrity of Mr. Shuster. Do you think for a moment that they would have even attempted to raise such a stink had the comments been made by Bill O'Riley or Rush Limbaugh? Had they done so, people would have just shrugged their shoulders. In other words, saying that the Clinton campaign is "pimping" cute and innocent little Chelsea is not, in itself, "shocking". What is shocking (I'll use the word "surprising") is the fact that it was said by someone with the journalistic gravitas of a David Shuster. One would hope that the suits at MSNBC will not over-react the way they did ten months ago when they foolishly fired Don Imus. Shuster is a brilliant reporter who will have even less trouble than the I-Man had finding another network on which to work.
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Face it; we live in dirty times: dirty politics, dirty politicians, dirty policies - DIRT, DIRT, DIRT - everywhere you look. Nowadays Howard Stern rules. A humorist with the intellect and gentle outlook of someone like the late Fred Allen, would not be able to find a job today. In fact, his skit, Allen's Alley, performed weekly on his radio show during the 1940s, would today be viewed as so politically incorrect, he probably wouldn't even be able to find a single sponsor. The inhabitants of the alley - a southern politician (Senator Claghorn), a Jewish housewife (Mrs. Nussbaum), a New England rube (Titus Moody) and an Irishman (Ajax Cassady) - were all asked a different question each week pertaining to whatever domestic problem America might have been dealing with at that particular moment. It was topical, it was clean, and, most importantly, it was as funny as it gets:
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Fred Allen: "Well, if it isn't Mrs. Nussbaum!"
Mrs. Nussbaum: "You were expecting maybe Emperor Shapiro-hito???"
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No. The Fred Allen Show, as brilliantly satirical as it was - as undeniably popular as it was - would be viewed today as too ethno-stereotypical by today's whiny, hypersensitive audiences. The Clinton campaign would probably issue a policy paper denouncing Allen as unfit to transmit over the people's airwaves. He would never stand a chance in today's climate. There is no doubt that the sewer that American culture has become in the fifty-one years since his death would have broken his heart.
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Like it or not, these are the kind of times in which we live. Hillary Clinton - and everyone around her - should just grow up and act like mature adults. On my very first day of school (way the hell back in 1963) my teacher, Mrs. Anabelle Peevey, God rest her soul, gave me the following bit of sage advice that I take to heart to this very day:
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"Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you."
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Damn! That old lady sure was hip! Then again, I can't help but wonder how she might have reacted had I brought the latest Lenny Bruce album in for Show and Tell. That would have been interesting, indeed!
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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SUGGESTED READING:
Treadmill to Oblivion
by Fred Allen
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Photograph to left of column is of Fred Allen 1894-1956, circa 1938

Uber Tuesday

Yesterday, I had the strangest daydream. It involved the writer, Frank Rich. In my little dream, he never evolved into the brilliant political commentator he has become - but was still the same New York Times' theater critic that he had been for so many years. All of the hundreds of thousands of words he had written since 2001, criticizing the nightmare administration of George W. Bush, turned out to be merely an extended review for an overly long, extremely badly written play....

[sigh]
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On this Super Tuesday, it is difficult to get worked up to any real degree of excitement as to what the eventual outcome will be. It is a certainty that the Republicans will hand the nomination to John McCain - the man who is predicting a century long occupation of Iraq. Nice! Keep your eyes on the man McCain chooses as his running mate. If that man is Mike Huckabee (who is in the process of positioning himself to be just that), pack your bags and move to Canada. So desperate is he to mend fences with the half-witted right wing base of his party, there is every reason to believe that the Arizona Senator will choose a kook like Huckabee to be second on the ticket. As bad as that may be, given his age, there is a better than fifty percent chance that McCain will die during his first term. That may not be a very pleasant thought - it might not even be a nice thing to say - but it is an undeniable fact that everyone seems to be ignoring.
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"President Huckabee"....I used to live in Toronto. Lovely city - very clean.
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Another one who would like to run as Agnew to McCain's Nixon is poor, pathetic Joe Lieberman. The theory (incredible as it may seem) is that a McCain/Lieberman candidacy will be seen as some kind of "unity ticket". I'm not makin' this up! As if someone like Joe could even be marginally perceived as a Democrat. The really funny thing to watch in the next few months will be the stampede of people, desperate to get the GOP's vice presidential nomination. Watch Mitt Romney as he tries to make nice after the bitter fight in the primaries. If the Democrats are foolish enough to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton, the next president of the United States will be John McCain. If that happens it is more than probable that he will be succeeded by his V.P. These clowns are going to fall over themselves to get the number two spot. This is really going to be a laugh riot to watch. Dust off your knee slappers, kiddies!
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This should have been their year. Not since 1932 did the party of FDR have a better chance to take back the executive mansion. Leave it to these stupid, goddamned Democrats to turn caviar into donkey dung. They had extraordinary candidates on the block early on in the primaries - and they're all gone. What we're left with is the Queen of the focus groups and a freshman Senator from Illinois who speaks beautifully but is painfully naive in too many areas to even mention. All we can hope for at the moment is a deadlocked convention this summer that nominates John Edwards as a "compromise candidate". When was the last time that happened? 1920? Good luck.
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The next President of the United States will appoint a minimum of three Supreme Court Justices. That will mean a judiciary controlled by the far right for at least the next forty years if John McCain - or any other Republican for that matter - is elected next November. Call it a hunch but I really don't think we want to go there. PREDICTION: If the GOP retains control of the executive on January 20, 2009, the Dickensian institution of debtor prisons will return to this troubled nation within five years. Does that sound like a bit of a stretch? It isn't. They've already made it impossible for the average citizen to declare legal bankruptcy; Debtor's prison is the next logical step. Think about it.
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A victory for the Republican party nine months from now will mean a four year extension of the Bush White House. The fact that we'll have a new president won't mean a thing. The fact of the matter is that we'll be still living with the same, disastrous methods of governance that have all-but ruined a country that used to be a nice place in which to live - Business as usual. "He'll cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low". That's the message of the most recent McCain campaign ad. What must be understood is the fact that America's future depends on a huge tax increase. Our social and economic infrastructure has been nearly destroyed by twenty-eight years what can only be described as the reckless mismanagement of America's treasure. When they speak of "wasteful spending", what they're really talking about are the social safety nets that have assisted the poor and elderly for seventy-five years now. Since the dawn of the so-called "Reagan Revolution" on January 20, 1981, the plutocracy have been able to loot and plunder the American economy. That trend needs to be put in reverse immediately. It's payback time, baby!
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The blowhard mouth pieces of the far right - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter (that crowd) - are positively beside themselves with woe with respect to a McCain candidacy. One has the vague hope that their fears are well founded and he is just talking the conservative talk in order to secure the nomination. Might he revert to the roll of the maverick that everyone used to perceive him to be? Might he tell his party to bugger off and emulate the behavior of his historical hero, Theodore Roosevelt? Again, it's only the vaguest of hopes but it's all we have.
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By tonight, we should have a much clearer, if not a decided picture of who will be named standard bearer of their respective parties. To be brutally frank, there's not a hell of a lot of reason to get excited by any of this. Sure, history is being made on the Democratic side: For the first time in history, an African American man and a woman have a shot at the nomination and, thus, the presidency. What so many Democrats insist on ignoring, though, is the inherent weaknesses of both of these candidates. While my heart is with Barack Obama, my intellect tells me that the Dems blew a good thing when they gave John Edwards the boot. What the hell is the matter with them?
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I never had much interest in sports. While the rest of the country was watching the Super Bowl, I was watching a re-run of Bill Moyers' Journal. Truth be told: I didn't even know what team New York was playing against until Monday morning. The Patriots - I get it now. When I was a kid some people suspected I was gay because of my total indifference to who would win the World Series. The fact that I loved figure skating only added to their suspicions. I never quite understood this. Watching a bunch of guys in tight fitting uniforms hopping around a field was never my idea of the perfect way to spend an afternoon. Those figure skaters, on the other hand, were gorgeous! My sport is the sport of politics. My Super Bowl Sunday is Super Duper Tuesday. One hundred years from today, the fact that the New York Giants won the Super Bowl on February 3, 2008 won't matter to anyone. No one will remember it or care. What happens on Election day 2008, on the other hand, will indeed matter to a whole lot of people a century from today. If you don't agree with that statement, consider this question: Do your parents or grandparents appreciate their monthly check from Social Security? They can thank the long-dead Franklin Delano Roosevelt for that. Had Herbert Hoover won re-election in 1932 we would be living in an entirely different world. 'Nuff said?
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This will probably be remembered as the most fateful election of our lifetime - maybe even in history. We're now at a crossroad. We can either take the course of progressive enlightenment or we can continue a repetition of the insane, voodoo economic policies that have ruined this country. The choice is as clear today as it was on Election Day 1932 when the American people decided that the time had come for a new deal. Conservative philosophy of governance has failed completely. We can go right or we can go left. The choice is still ours to make....I think.
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By the way, Montreal is a nice place, too.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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AFTERTHOUGHT (7:00 PM):
It is days such as this one that I miss being a Democrat the most. The last primary I voted in was in 1996. I'd love to be a participant, but I can't. The Dems have a lot of fences to mend before I'll even consider coming back into the tent. So there!
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FLASH: THE POLLS JUST CLOSED IN GEORGIA. IT'S OBAMA! YES!!!