Posted on 08/01/2003 11:00:40 AM PDT by dvan
It strikes me that the Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination for next year’s election aren’t receiving the attention they warrant. Kobe’s making the headlines. Uday and Qusay. Now the distressing revelation of the breakup of Liza Minnelli and David Gest is dominating the news. How could a made-in-heaven marriage with Michael Jackson as the best man and Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Warner Burton Fortensky as the maid of honor have gone so wrong?
The Democratic presidential contenders are having difficulty getting out their message and basic information about themselves. Being the strictly nonpartisan observer that your humble servant is, I want to help by providing some background on the candidates.
Florida’s Bob Graham is serving his third term in the U. S. Senate. Mr. Graham has a hobby. For over 20 years, he’s detailed what he eats, what he wears and other minutiae of daily life in color-coded notebooks. Three years ago Time magazine reported on a 1994 day, as described in one of his notebooks.
The Senator had rented Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. He jotted down what time he rewound the tape and the time he returned it to the video store. Then he noted what clothes he changed into, what football game he listened to on the radio, the game’s final score, and where he dined that evening and what he ordered.
Such attention to detail has served Senator Graham well. Just the other day, on Fox News Sunday, he explained that he’s come from behind in another election: " . . . I was seventh out of seven in this same relative period to the primary, and eventually became the Democratic nominee and was elected and served two terms as president of Florida."
That must be quite a job.
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean fires up his party’s base by declaring himself a representative of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. Occasionally, Howard gets himself a little too fired up perhaps.
An example is when he announced he’d voted against a congressional resolution approving sending U. S. forces to Iraq. This was a singular act, especially when you consider
Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich is actually a member of Congress. He’s introduced legislation that would establish a new Federal agency, a Department of Peace.
According to Kucinich, the agency will "address violence in the home, spousal abuse, child abuse, gangs, police-community relations conflicts and work with individuals and groups to achieve changes in attitudes . . . Thus it will help with the discovery of new selves and new paths toward peaceful consensus."
New selves. New paths. Dennis is a visionary in other ways. He has said, "The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe." Guess we can see who’s trolling for that crucial Moonbeam vote.
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman wants to be at the top of the ticket this time around. He’s showing that he can be his own man, that he’s an original.
He emphasized that recently when he appeared to offer NAACP head Kweisi Mfume a Supreme Court spot. Said Joe: "We didn't realize it at the time, Al Gore and I, that we not only needed Kweisi Mfume fighting for justice here in Florida counting votes, we need him on the Supreme Court, where the votes really counted. Maybe that will happen some day."
Now there is some really creative thinking. Mr. Mfume isn’t a lawyer, but that’s probably just a minor technicality.
Congressman Dick Gephardt from Missouri said last week that, "George Bush has left us less safe and less secure than we were four years ago." And Dick is doing his darnedest to something about it. As of last month, he’s missed 89 percent of the recorded votes in Congress so far this session.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, know as "Ketchup Boy" in certain circles, has been fading fast in recent polls. It’s rumored that he’s a combat veteran, but Mr. Kerry has always been so very reluctant to confirm this.
Reverend Al Sharpton is playing up his devotion to diversity. An illustration of this is when he commented that "white folks was in the caves while we was building empires...We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it."
North Carolina’ Senator John Edwards is only in his first term, the sole elective office he’s held, but believes he’s already qualified to be president. Maybe he is. He’s been a trial lawyer, which surely gave him extensive experience in spending other people’s money.
Former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley Braun is ready and willing to prove that 2004 will be another year of the woman. Sure, she once promised never to run for elective office again, but a gal’s entitled to change her mind, isn’t she?
Quite a lineup the Democrats have. I love these folks. And I’m hoping that all Americans will get acquainted with them just as soon as possible.
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