Tell ya the truth, I am not all that excited about either of the frontrunners. I liked Edwards, loved Clark until he went to Team Hillary, and will support whichever candidate eventually ends up in front.
HOWEVER... I don't think it really much matters which Dem becomes President of the USA. There are a number of reasons for this I will go into below the jump, but the bullet points are:
- The Repubs don't really want to win this one. The neo-con frat rats have trashed the White House, maxed out the credit cards and are leaving the country in a mess. That's why they are only fielding dogs and the old WarWhore McCain.The next Prez will have agiant clean up job to do, and get all the blame for the mess.
- We thought things would change when the Dems gained control of Congress. ROFLMA... Yeah, right. So why will a Dem Prez make a difference?
Both the Dems have LOTS of corporate baggage and backers.
Let's start with the Republican angle first. The neo-cons, and their kool-aid drinking zombie followers in the repub rank and file, have completely trashed the Constitution and the country. We are in a disastrous war, headed for another one and teetering on the brink of a financial meltdown. This did NOT happen without Democrat enablers.
McCain wants to be Prez so bad he brings a giant tube of K-Y whenever he meets with Bush... no other Repub with half a brain and a chance in hell wanted to be the candidate tis time.
It's lose-lose. If you get beat by the Dems, you lose and won't get to run the next time, when the electorate may be ready to shift blame to the Dems... and if you do get lucky and beat the Dem this time, then you're atuck with the FUBAR squared mess left by Bush and his bully neo-cons, and the electorate will blame you next time as well.... better to sit this one out.
On to the Dem winning scenario. The next occupant of the White House will have to come up with a realistic plan of getting the US out of Iraq, deal with a bunch of obstructionist Repubs in the Senate, figure out how to avoid a complete financial meltdown of the US economy and still push through promised reforms in health care, global warming, etc.
And that does take into account that BOTH of the current leading candidates have serious corporate money in their campaigns. Hillary has even been making nice with Mr. R. Murdoch, he of FOX News... anyone want to bet on the odds for rolling back media consolidation and Net Neutrality on her watch?
The other reality that we progressives for REAL change have to face up to is that the Dem control of Congress has not meant a whole lot when it comes to issues that matter. Dems take coporate money too. And they are afraid of being called "soft on terror" by the Repubs.
What this all means is that the REAL WORK facing us here on KOS, as well as progressives everywhere, is to maintain a constant vigilance over how a Dem President and Dem congress critters are running the country in our name.
We need to take name, keep score, run primary challengers who understand why we want to dump incumbents, write letters to editors, help build up local Dem organizations... in short, do the chop wood, carry water work of politics. Just getting a Dem in the White House and Dems in control of Congress will NOT be enough.
In fact, the battle will have just begun. The Repubs will use the next years a a breather, regrouping their troops, piling as much blame on the Dems for the Republican made mess as possible. Their running dogs in the corporate media will be right there with them.
We will have to fight long and hard to get the Constitution and our rights restored... Dems love police state powers as much as Repubs... Net neutrality and rolling back media consolidation will not get any easier...
The Repugs will put up a million traps for our Supreme Court candidates and federal judges and the current Dems will probably back down as usual..
Like I said, no matter who wins the White House, the REAL WORK will have just begun.