Last night in the part of New Hampshire we call Massachusetts North, Wolf Blitzer actually asked the baby ducks to raise their hands on different hypothetical issues just like in school. But it makes no difference what the little ducks say or do, it is all about Wolf Blitzer. The ducklings are only the partial and secondary aspects of Wolf Blitzer and the Mother Ducks who dominate the political process.
The only purpose of these early primary debates is to advance and control the agenda of the brooding and dominating Mother Ducks who dominate the political culture. Al Gore, in his recent comments on Charlie Rose recalls the idea that by asking the questions, you control the debate. This is how Mother Duck controls her ducklings.
The Huffington Post, blogs like the Daily Kos other new on-line journals are the only venues today asking other questions. These journals are entering the new century first. New voices are coming through in the Huff Post like Jon Soltz’s of VoteVets.org, and some good old voices, some of which have long been silenced or exiled by Mother Duck; the voice of Gary Hart, the Democrat’s brilliant foreign policy commentator who accurately predicted the way things would go in Iraq; of novelist Erica Jong and activist Tom Hayden and the creative and versatile Nora Ephron, who represents us collectively at times better than anyone.
These new venues and voices should establish their own debates and ask their own questions. New organizations like the Fighting Dems might join in with them. If they still want to hear the voice of the enigmatic and gnarly codger – which brought creative spark to both parties in earlier New Hampshire debates, they will have to move it up here way north into the mountains. I’d propose holding alternative debates at Dixville Notch, NH, maybe, way at the top of the state, where Wesley Clark won with eight votes in 2004, John Kerry came in second with three and John Edwards was third with two votes.
