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.
Good luck with Coburn. Did you ever notice that almost all docs in the Congress are pubbies. I think the only one the dark side has is McDermott, a shrink from Washington.
You and me both. Glad to hear about how you guys are getting out the vote. That is what is so important -- everyone needs to be out there volunteering. Our local candidates need volunteers as well if there is not a Bush-Cheney campaign in their states.
Here in OK our State GOP is printing Bush-Cheney yard signs and bumperstrips so we can blanket the state even though we are already in the Bush column. It will help our other candidates down the line.
I missed that one! Wish I would have heard him. He is going to turn out to be my favorite Senator. He doesn't back down and knows what he believes.
Doesn't that figure McDermott is a shrink?
Dr. Coburn has challenged the RAT Carson to debate health care -- I cannot wait for that debate.
Thanks so much for your "mini-rant". It is much needed since it seems there are some on these forums that think otherwise.
Yes, America's future is much too important to waste your vote on either Bush or Kerry. On every important point, they are the same.
Both will continue the war, with the draft almost a sure thing by mid 2005.
Both will sign an assault weapons extension.
Both are big spenders. The tax level is not important if the spending is way ahead of revenue with or without the tax cuts. The total spending is still taken from the economy one way or the other.
Neither proposes to repeal the Patriot Act, FISA or all the other unconstitutional horrors now in effect.
Neither gives a fiddler's f*rt for the constitution or our rights.
Vote for your own best interests, not out of party loyalty or foolish pride. Vote for Badnarik!
Your children and grandchildren will thank you.
The culture war has not yet been lost, but it's not clear at all that our side is going to win.
Strategery! LOL!!!
LOL!!!!!!! That made me burst out laughing!
It works for me!
Thank you I needed a belly laugh this morning.
Bush/Cheney '04
Obviously you did not read the article and posted your usual claptrap! Do you know how dumb it looks on here but then you are a 3rd party type voting for someone who has no chance to win so you can whine about the winner not meeting your standards!
BTW, who is this guy you are supporting -- never even heard his name here in Oklahoma. But then what do we know, we are just fly-over country conservatives who happen to represent the values of America and who believe that Kerry/Edwards are the worst thing that could happen to this Country.
We won't if we don't fight it, all the way to the Supreme Court. Why the SCOTUS thought state sodomy laws within Federal jurisdiction is beyond me. The Congress should end it.
AMEN!
BTTT!!!!!!!
Thanks for that terrific post. I am just frustrated with what I have been reading and want people to be more optimistic on here that we are going to defeat these liberals.
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