Oh, 2008 and we FINALLY are in the correct time frame for these ass clowns to run for president. DAMN!!!! I thought I would be glad to be done with 2007....
Let’s go through the candidates, it will not reflect as an endorsement, not as a YOU MUST VOTE FOR ***** or anything. I give you all more credit than this. And I will stick with the people still officially in the race. Which is 4 on the democratic side (Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Kucinich) and 6 on the Republican side, (Romney, McCain, Huckabee, Giuliani, Thompson and Paul)? Yeah yeah, I know... Mike Gravel is still running. But when the guy advocates using Mary Jane over alcohal (which I actually understand) but he fails to induce full irony by not waiting to say this till around 4:20... how can I take him seriously?
REPUBLICAN PARTY:
RON PAUL R-TX. Libertarian whack job who espouses many things I can agree with. Death to Title one, massive downsizing on the Department of Education, complete withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Here are my problems. HE MAKES ROSS PEROT LOOK SANE!!!!! His coziness with the racist segment of America is frightening.
FRED THOMPSON R-TN. Okay, which is worse? A member of the Washington elite, or the Hollywood elite? God, after being part of both he better have a hot wife. His tenure as minority counsel during the Watergate hearings still leaves many things to be desired. To me at least, in retrospect (and full disclosure, before I was born, so I can only view it in a historical and politically retrospective manner) seems that he was more concerned with doing damage control more than seeking justice.
MIKE HUCKABEE R-ARK: Other than the fact that after 8 years of the Clinton’s, I believe being from Arkansas should be a DISqualifier for President until at least the year 2100 aside, how can we elect someone who is so socially conservative to make me laugh, while also being so fiscally liberal to make even democrats laugh. He is the one true outsider in this group. Kucinich and Paul are both representatives in the house, while Huckabee was the head of Arkansas. HE is the one person outside of the establishment who is even scaring the true conservatives of the Republicans.
RUDDY GULIANI R-NY: An egotist to the tenth degree. He is more concerned about his own stature in his own mind than with the well being of America. His inability to able to separate ANYTHING from 911 is insulting on the basest of levels. I am sure, if you asked, he would blame his last divorce and subsequent third marriage on 9-11. His foreign policy experience is limited to keeping Arafat and Castro from the Un’s 50th birthday party and managing to piss off every immigrant group (other than the Jews) in New York City. Add to the fact, that having him reside in the oval office would be the same as Bill Clinton residing there. Nice for the tour, but don’t touch anything, you don’t know where it’s been.
MILT ROMNEY R-MA/MI/UT: I jest; even the people from Utah say he is too liberal on social issues for them. A Huckster who can only sell himself on a limited stage such as Governor of Massachusetts, he literally has changed positions for nothing more than his own convienance, even more blatantly than most politicians are capable of. His claim as an outsider rings hollow, as he is the son of a governor of Michigan and presidential candidate, a former governor of Massachusetts and the head of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee. And you don’t get the last gig unless you are an insider.
JOHN MCCAIN: A straight talk express who is the latest in a long line of Republicans who will win the nomination because it is his turn. (Nixon, Regan, Ford, Bush, Dole, Bush.) A person who talks straight IF it is a topic he feels he can be straight about. An old time American hero, who is just that, OLD TIME. I mean not in age, but in practice. He is a throwback to the cold war era, where domestic sense is thrown away in lieu of concerns about foreign enemies. He is more concerned with how the world should cower and worship at the idealistic of American glory without much concern for how we are actually treating our own citizens here at home. While of all the candidates I agree he is the one with the most foreign policy insight, experience and has spent the most time rationalizing out his position and plans. I believe the actions he wishes to pursue and emphasize in that office are flawed and will continue to lead America down a path of world wide disdain.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY
DENNIS KUCINICH D-OH: The former mayor of Cleveland and registered UFO sighter. The most plausible thing he may have come across being as someone who saw a flying object he was unable to identify. I personally think if he turned his radio on or answered his cell phone, he would have found out it was his people’s mother ship wanting him to come home. From all of us everywhere, we beseech them, please come back and take him home. Joking aside, he is the one candidate who truly believes what he preaches, truly believes in his message and the ideals in which he has invested his career. Go figure, the most honest politician in also the craziest. Maybe it’s not him as much as it is us.
JOHN EDWARDS D-NC: The Democratic populist in the race (Huckabee is the Republican one) who has come across to America as a hypocrite. Yes, he has worked himself up from the bottom, has made himself who he is. But this is what he is. Someone who is a horse trader by nature. A confrontationalist who while speaking a good line, and commanding in his presentation, still has no record of a positive effort in any job he held. Someone who demands allegiance but rarely gives it to others, including running mates. By taking his stances, he has alienated half of America. While agree with a lot of his stated principals, he should become governor of North Carolina and get them to work there. But from where I sit and have heard, (from real friends, not the press) they don’t want him back.
HILLARY CLINTON D-NY (ARK) Let’s get something straight, she is not the candidate for change. She is the status quo. The return to this vileness of partisanship that has permeated the American political atmosphere since 1992 would follow her into the White House as it followed her husbands ride. A candidate who is the product of ambition and political gamesmanship, Hillary is what everyone fears when the worst of Washington is discussed and the hopes when it comes for someone who understands how to manipulate the system for the good. (Even if it is what she and her husband view the good as.)
BARAK OBAMA D-IL: A candidate who carries the charisma and oratory command of Bill Clinton with none of the baggage. Someone who’s views, while not totally known, has been able to play the media game with his presentation more than substance. The knocks against him are also his positives. His lack of experience has been played at he doesn’t play the old boy network games. His only serving two years in congress and a few others in the Illinois state house can be played as a resume he shares with Abraham Lincoln. A minority candidate from Chicago, he plays as someone who has been through the parts of American society that the Washington elite have forgotten. To a point, Bill Clinton is right. Do you take a risk on a candidate who spins others words to reinforce what others are looking for and nothing else, or is he the idealist he truly portrays himself as?
I don’t have the answers, I don’t know the results. The truth is, except for two candidates on this list, I see a status quo. Those two candidates both come with positives, but also instill fear in other ways within me. There is no clear message this election. The Republicans wish to invoke Regan; the Democrats invoke Bush (in a sense opposite of Regan for those who need it explained). I wish for once they invoked themselves in ways that didn’t make all of us cringe.
I sit here writing this on January 15th, what would have Martin Luther King Jr’s seventy-ninth birthday. A man who brought to the forefront the best and worst of the clash of societies in America during his brief but utterly poignant time at the forefront of America’s cultural discussions and discourse. His supporters, detractors, followers and haters all still in abundant numbers around us.
In August of 1963 he gave a speech since referred to as one of the greatest oratory presentations this country has ever seen. A speech based on race, and on the reality of the civil rights movement. My favorite quote is the most famous.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have that dream as well, not just in race or creed, but in religion, politics and reality as well. Mr. King was referring to a singular section of how society was at that time, and in certain ways is today as well. But today, it is not as much about race as it is about affiliation. Right wing nut jobs, left wing sympathizers, social conservatives who condemn those who don’t value the same Christian values as them, who say that everyone deserves to be treated equal, yet endorse leaving a significant section of America unable to enjoy the same legal rights with people they love as others seen as "traditional". Atheists who declare all religion must be driven underground even though religion does hold such a deep seated center to others.
I have a dream, when America finally learns to grow the fuck up and remember we are a nation, not a bunch of kindergartners who were suppose to learn others can be who they are while we can be who we are.
Here Endeth the Rant