I've been saying for months that
whomever the Democratic nominee is, the Republicans will run ads (like they did against Max Cleland) morphing the face of Saddam Hussein into that of the candidate.
I was wrong on two counts. First, it was Osama Bin Laden (my second choice), not Saddam Hussein, and second, it was Democrats, not Republicans, who first ran the ad.
Congratulations, Democrats. Karl Rove would be proud. And Nader's comment that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans stands revealed not so much as factual, as prescient.
The Democrats need to take a long hard look at their soul right about now. We are turning into exactly that which we once fought. We're adopting the policies of Geroge Bush and the tactics of Karl Rove. While there may still be more than a dime's worth of difference between these "Democrats" and the Republicans, you aren't going to get a quarter in there.
The Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, and Clark campaigns need to denounce this is the strongest fasion. As should the Democratic leadership- Pelosi, Daschle, Terry McAuliffe, Bill Clinton, etc. The people involved in this- well, I don't think we can kick them out of the party (an invitation to the world should be issued however), but they should be ostracized.
Wether they will or not is still open to debate. Just checked the Kerry, Gephardt, and Clark blogs, and nothing was there. Nor anything on Democrats.org. Because the goal of actually helping people has been replaced by the goal of simply winning elections. We're so caught up in wrestling alligators that we've forgotten we're here to drain the swamp. And then the goal narrowed still further- from simply getting a Democrat elected to getting this Democrat elected.
The problem with this attack is that it's destructive to all involved. It wins elections by driving people away from the polls- and as such is fundamentally antidemocratic. But it's also futile. Gephardt, Kerry, Clark- if you win the nomination this way, you lose the election. You're doing George Bush's work for him.
I can't help but wonder if this is yet another effective of corporatism. I define corporatism as the political manifestation of the philosophy that what's good for GM is good for America. It's not liberal or conservative, so much as just pro-big-business. I can not beleive that an honest Eisenhower/Goldwater conservative isn't horrified by the current Administration. If you actually beleive in fiscal responsibility, a smaller goverment, and law and order that you would support the Bush administration. Corporatism is a poison to both parties.
Actually, not so much a poison as a drug. One can almost imagine a pitch like the proverbial drug dealer- "hey, little Politician. I've got what you need right here. It'll help you win the election. The first hit's free." And big business has a lot to offer a candidate- a supplicant media, buckets of cash, a cushy sinecure job on retirement, etc. You can rationalize it- tell yourself you're doing more good than harm, or at least keeping someone who would do even more harm out of office. But then there's always the next election, and another opponent, and the corporations want you to support this unpopular bill, which means you'll need that much more money to get re-elected...
How else do you explain the increasing convergence of the Democrats and the Republicans? The only other two explanations I can come up with are that the Democrats have sold their soul to Satan to get elected (or worse, there was a slight typo in the google search, and they instead sold their soul to Stan, which would explain a lot), or Republican agent saboteurs.
Nader is a truer Democrat as a Green than Robert Gibbs, David Jones, and Edward Feighan are. And that is a fundamental truth.