Cactus at Angry Bear says All Three Remaining Presidential Candidates are Turkeys:
Someone's got to say it, and nobody is, so I will: all three remaining presidential candidates are jokes. Bad jokes. That isn't to say there were good candidates in the race earlier on - perhaps these three really are the best of a bad lot - but let's call it like it is and note that these are three turkeys. They may be good campaigners, but they don't seem to be "do-ers" when they get what they've been campaigning for.
I'm actually pretty excited for an Obama-McCain matchup. Not, mind you, because I think that either of them will usher in a magical new era of prosperity and freedom--or even do much of anything that I approve of. But after The Clinton Wars, the increasingly bitter elect-a-fool contests in the last two presidential elections, and the current froth of steaming hatred directed at Hillary Clinton for the crime of lacking personal charm . . well, you know, it's kind of nice to think about seeing a contest between two people that almost no one actually hates. I'm not saying everyone wants them both to be president, but neither attracts the kind of visceral nastiness that has dogged recent campaigns. Moreover, they're both clean campaigners . . . could it really be that we can go an entire three months without sly race-baiting, or venomous ads claiming that McCain invented scurvy? Then there's the hope that both of them inspire in large swathes of the population. To be sure, this faith in politicians seems utterly misguided, but at this point I will take a little sunshine wherever I can get it.
I don't know about going through a general election without sly race baiting or personal attacks. I find it hard to believe the outside interest groups will rein back their rhetoric just because the candidates themselves won't do it directly. Granted, it'll be nice to have candidates who won't do it themselves (I'm George Bush, and I approve this message of hatred and fear!), but you can't control the Swift Boaters on either side, so to speak.
The problem isn't that we'll have an unpleasant campaign, it's that one of them will be president for four years.
That is the problem- everyone wants a "doer" in office. If we could elect the vegetative to office, I would recommend it.
"the current froth of steaming hatred directed at Hillary Clinton for the crime of lacking personal charm "
Are you genuinely claiming that the strong feelings about Hillary are because people don't like her laugh? I feel the same way about Hillary that I do about her husband, and he has plenty of charm. It's the rest of the package that I object to.
"you can't control the Swift Boaters on either side"
But 'Swift Boaters' can't appear unless they have direct personal evidence on something relevant to the campaign that wasn't previously known/discussed. That's not a random event - it depends on what the candidates have in their background.
A Burkett/Rather/60 Minutes type attack, on the other hand, doesn't require authentic evidence or direct knowledge and thus could be directed at anyone.
I am sure an Obama-McCain campaign would be at least as edifying as the Obama-Keyes Senate campaign.
/*Irony OFF*/
I'm with Yancey. Hillary's campaign takes shots at Obama for being too inexperienced to get things done in Washington. I think that's a feature, not a bug.
mike,
That would be a feature if it were true. Unfortunately, I think Clinton or Obama both could get lots done. I think McCain is the candidate that could accomplish the least.
could it really be that we can go an entire three months without sly race-baiting
I'm not shocked at all that Jane Galt missed these sleazy thoughts. It's too bad Bush can't run again, I'm sure she'd like a chance to endorse him just one more time.
I wouldn't get all excited.
I'd say I'm fine with either McCain or Obama. It looks like were stuck with congress running the executive desk, that's nothing to be excited about.
Atleast both should be fine at the President's primary function of figure-head.
I doubt I'll be voting anytime soon (except if we get a redo in the Michigan Primary). I don't care whether Obama or McCain wins.
I would have made it out to vote for Bloomberg (for all his sins, I doubt he'd be a threat to gun rights).
And, I'll make it out to the polls if Clinton becomes the candidate... to vote against her.
I agree, the anointed candidates are nothing to get excited about. More of the status quo, as always. But isn't that what the American political system is designed to ensure? I think things would be a lot better, or at least more interesting if we could get rid of the electoral college and first the post, or heck, move towards a parliamentary system, or even abolish political parties entirely (remember what Washington said).
I do have to admit though that I really hoped that the 2004 election would finally show that the Democratic party had basically reached the point of irrelevance and it could finally go away and be replaced with something that could offer more than simply resistance-in-name to the Republican party. It's supposed to happen every couple of hundred years; parties have in this country slowly died off and been replaced as they became irrelevant. The way it is now, the US is practically a single party state; our ideology is "centrism" instead of "communism". Would the Soviet Union have been any more free if the people could vote between the bolsheviks and the mensheviks? But here we are again in 2008, with everyone still pretending that things are really going to be all that different whether it's McCain or Obama or Clinton (though I do find Clinton's dynastic succession particularly repugnant). Ah, well, that's why only 40% of people vote in this country, I guess.
a contest between two people that almost no one actually hates
Yet.
"neither attracts the kind of visceral nastiness that has dogged recent campaigns"
You obviously weren't reading some of the more conservative blogs lamenting McCain's rise throughout the Republican primaries. Maybe they'll quiet down now that it's a done deal, but there were some really nasty names thrown about.
And I can't believe that some of Hillary's died in the wool supporters aren't saying some nasty things about Obama.
I'd like to think you are right, but I think you're engaging in wishful thinking here.
"Would the Soviet Union have been any more free if the people could vote between the bolsheviks and the mensheviks?"
Yes. If they had to compete for popular support, I'm sure one of them would have introduced a no-Gulag platform before too long. If both major US parties are relatively centrist, presumably that's because they both think that's what the majority of voters want.
And I can't believe that some of Hillary's died in the wool supporters
So you're calling her supporters...fleas? Skin mites? Victims of an unfortunate and probably Darwinesque industrial accident?
(i.e., The expression is dyed in the wool, referring to yarn that was dyed before spinning and is is extremely colorfast ;-)
"You obviously weren't reading some of the more conservative blogs lamenting McCain's rise throughout the Republican primaries. Maybe they'll quiet down now that it's a done deal, but there were some really nasty names thrown about."
That's different. Most of the people who really hate McCain have actually met him.
anony_mouse_,
It is a common misperception that the phrase is "dyed in the wool", but "died in the wool" is actually correct. It is an old Scottish phrase indicating someone was trampled in a sheep stampede.
You're polling my lag.
McCain is widely hated. Just not by Democrats. :)
While I don't defend the murderous excesses of Stalin, the sort of gulag you're thinking of went out with his death, and it didn't take a vote to do it (further, even during the Stalin years the treatment of common criminals and "politicals" in the gulag was rather different). By the time of Brezhnev the gulag was probably little different than a fine American maximum security prison.
Though I am really exaggerating things (the mensheviks did provide some alternative to the bolshevik way of doing things and Russia may have evolved in quite a different way if they were taken into the political system instead of "liquidated"), the point I was trying to make is that, people might vote bolshevik or menshevik, but either way they're most likely going to get dictatorship of the proletariat. Certainly communism, in any case. Maybe there's a bit of difference in the details but any sort of fundamental change within the system is impossible. Is it choice, or the illusion of choice?
The fact that both major parties of the US are centrist is at least as much (if not more) a consequence of the way in which the system is structured as it is that it might be what "the majority of people want to hear". Is it really what the "majority" wants to hear? The "majority" of people don't even vote in this country. Even in the contentious Bush-Kerry election, there was less than 50% voter turnout. There are probably a lot of different reasons for this, but I like to believe that the biggest one is probably that people think there isn't any point to it. What if you wanted an alternative to centrism? It's not like there is a choice. How much of the forty-some odd percent of the folks that do vote even vote on the issues, versus things like "likability" or blindly voting for a particular party? (it seems, some people support political parties like they do athletic teams)
The political spectrum is so broad there is no one true "majority". In America today, we've just got a larger (or more vocal, or better organized) minority oppressing a bunch of smaller (passive, fractured) minorities. That's not democracy, and to me, it stinks.
"While I don't defend the murderous excesses of Stalin..."
I just wanted to say, without having read more of this comment, it isn't a very promissing first line.
Now, back to reading it...
To state the obvious, McCain is the "McCain-" in "McCain-Feingold". If that's not enough to inspire visceral hatred, I'm not sure what is. It certainly puts him right up there with drug warriors and gun-grabbers in my book. Obama may have silly ideas about health care and trade or what-have-you, but McCain is a TYRANT.