Posted on 07/11/2004 8:25:50 AM PDT by PhiKapMom
Mark Green, The Oklahoman
July 11, 2004
WASHINGTON - Thanks, John Kerry. Bring it on!
You've made sure the months leading up to the quadrennial presidential derby will be exciting and no holds barred. As they say, that's entertainment.
Kerry is indeed pro-choice. His selection of fellow senator John Edwards to be his running mate means we will have clear ideological choice in November. The namby-pambies who always complain about the lack of contrast between Democrats and Republicans can just shut up. Houston, we have contrast!
Even now voters are awakening from their four-year slumber to an eye-gouging, hair-pulling contest in the making. Editorialists and pundits are happy, their troughs filling with choice fodder. Vice President Dick Cheney has been spotted thumbing through a thesaurus, searching for new verbs and adjectives to employ in the upcoming veep debate.
Now, the safe pick for Kerry would've been someone like Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt or Sen. Bob Graham of Florida. Both are old war horses who would pass the experience test a significant hurdle for Edwards, who looks 23 and hasn't yet completed a full term in the Senate. Either Gephardt or Graham also would've given the Democrats a shot at a key toss-up state.
That's fine, but those two would've been bor-r-r-r-r-r-ring.
Instead, Kerry went for sizzle and as a byproduct, the country gets a clear, unmistakable election ballot variety.
By now probably everyone knows John Kerry is numero uno in the Senate when it comes to liberal pedigree, put there by the nonpartisan National Journal. According to the publication's analysis of voting records, Kerry is more liberal than Hillary Rodham Clinton, even more liberal than Teddy Kennedy. But guess what? So is John Edwards!
Edwards comes in at No. 4, which means the two of them together average out at 2.5. That's way, way out there. You have to flip back to Mondale-Ferraro (1984) or McGovern-(Eagleton)-Shriver ('72) to find a tandem as liberal. I think it's safe to say the Democratic Party's strategic, centrist tack under Bill Clinton was a detour. And it's over.
Terrific!
Democrats trying to reside in the moderate middle just confused voters, anyway. They were like the folks who move into the neighborhood and immediately decorate the front yard with an old junker on cinder blocks.
Again, the Naderites and Greens and Mugwumps can't complain that the two national tickets are just alike. Not this year.
Republicans will go with a team that is Reagan conservative. Democrats are decked out in Great Society retro. Lots of choice, little echo.
Look at the major issues. Tax-cutters vs. bigger spenders. Free traders vs. thinly veiled protectionists. Family values vs. gay marriage. On foreign policy, the Bush doctrine of protecting U.S. interests first is matched against the Kerry doctrine of first checking with the United Nations to see if protecting those interests is OK.
Edwards is a pretty face, a syrupy drawl and a compelling life story. But he's also like Alka-Seltzer to the Electoral College watchers in the GOP, who were worried sick that Kerry would pick Graham, gift-wrapping Florida's 27 electors for the Democrats and making Bush's re-election pretty dicey.
Edwards doesn't really deliver any state to Kerry. For every vote in North Carolina or Louisiana gained by the aw-shucks drawl, there'll be two or three lost when folks see that most of Edwards' positions get a big hug from Michael Moore.
Edwards' trademark "two Americas" speech plays well before red-meat Democratic audiences, but it just sounds goofy and conspiratorial to the average bear in America. As one business community rep said on a national radio talk show this week, there are two Americas: the one that works to create wealth, and the one that works to redistribute it.
Most Americans are glad there are rich people in this country, because they themselves want to be rich some day and are working toward it. Most don't believe the rich got rich by victimizing the rest of us, one of the central themes in Edwards' "two Americas" rant.
In a way this smells like a Republican set up. Those rascally Republicans! They won a nail-biter in 2000, and they've watched with glee as Democrats stayed angry indeed, got angrier. Now it appears the Dems have given in to their fury by trotting out a far-left ticket.
This is as clear a choice as America has seen in two decades. I think Republicans are glad Democrats did them this favor.
Green is national editorial writer for The Oklahoman.
Thanks SuziQ. I agree.
I agree with those comments. That's just one of the main reasons why I come down on illegal immigration the way I do. If just ten of that million plus that came over the border last year were hopeful terrorists, wouldn't it be best to stop the illegal flow.
The terrorists do indeed wish to crush our religion, behead behead our citizens christian or not, and kill our children. Even at best, remember what these loathsome individual's plans would be for our daughters. I doubt they receive better treatment than their own daughters get.
Why did you wait until a mismanagement of energy policy and the State budget to recall Davis? Why wasn't Bill Lockyer recalled when he advocated for the plaintiffs? Where was Superman/Lone Ranger/Underdog Tom McClintock during this outrage?
Why do you choose to bring in illegal immigration as a modifier to your "I'm not voting Reform Party/Badnarik in November" faux Bush support on this thread?
Regarding your heroic history of GOP support: I have noted on this forum that the most vociferous critics of George W. Bush's inhuman betrayals qualify their attacks with stories of walking neighborhoods the size of a Wolverine's "home range" knocking on doors for him in 2000.
Yep. Sure they did.
Tax cutters v. big spenders? Not true. Dubya is one of the biggest spending presidents in decades.
Yes, Mike. Vote for Badnarik! Ain't a dime's worth of difference between Dubya and Kerry though I would guess that Kerry would not spend as much because the GOP in Congress might finally grow a background it it was back in opposition.
Gee, ya think maybe THAT'S your problem?
How in blue blazes did that happen DoughtyOne? On your citizenlywatch moreover.
By the way, the systematic "I'm planning to vote for Bush in November DESPITE (insert litany of evil betrayals)" routine is the preferred modus operandi of oily anti-Bush operatives and internet con artists.
LOL! That's hilarious!
Wonderful mini-rant! Thanks, as always, for the pings, and for laying it on the line as you have so succinctly done.
YOU GO, GIRL!
There sure are.
LOL !! That is hillarious, Grampa !In a sign that Mr. Kerry’s unwanted embraces may be taking their toll on the newly-minted vice-presidential candidate, Mr. Edwards departed from his prepared remarks, telling hs audience, “There are two Americas – one that gets to grab ass, and one that gets its ass grabbed.”
Pic by PhilDragoo .....
Just remember, he made that $50 million by defending the little guys. You know, the one's without any money.
Terrific tag line, and soooooooooo true!
When the aforementioned become active participants in the spate of "George W. Bush is the Less-Than-Wonderful Wizard of OZ" illegal immigration threads around here I'll include them in my comments.
Until then, I'll just focus on guys like you who eagerly insert the contentious issue into unrelated threads and actively participate in the designedly putrid FR threads.
The demagoguing of the vital challenges facing border security and immigration control is a concerted and ugly campaign by a few on this forum, and it's not intended to bring honorable enlightenment or solution to the issue. The issue, rather, is framed to marginalize this site and the Conservative mission. Toward the subversion of Bush electoral victory in November. A Brigadier should understand that energy.
And that ... is ... that.
That's backbone, not "background."
You did make your support for Bush/Cheney clear, and I apologize if you felt offended by my post. I started to address you, and ended with a response to others on this thread who seem to have fallen off the wagon. There was an implication that you had joined them that should NOT have been there.
I hope that you will accept what I said as substantial agreement with you - I did intend it that way, but got distracted.
You left of center moderates won't win over us Conservatives by calling us names. The Kennebunkport frat boy could have had our votes had he taken his oath of office to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States of America seriously. Instead he has sided with Feinstien, Clinton and Schumer on their anti-2nd Amendment jihaad and signed a bill (CFR) he himself said was un-Constitutional.
No man that breaks the oath of office will get my vote. It's that simple.
Those are not my words, it was from a poll I took..
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