Okay, let's see if I can bring this blog up to speed on the presidential campaign, which is finally becoming the entertainment extravaganza I expected it to be. As of today:
Wesley Clark is out of the contest for the Democratic nomination. His candidacy looks in retrospect like a dry run for 2008 or 2012. Yes, Clark learned from mistakes he made on the campaign trail, but he was running for an office that leaves little if any margin for error for whomever holds it.
A group of reactionaries are attacking John Kerry for his war record, calling his protest against the Vietnam War after he returned home a disgrace and likening him to Jane Fonda because he stood two feet behind her at an antiwar rally. Hey, I thought Vietnam was an unjust war, but to be honest I certainly wouldn't vote for a presidential who was asociated with a Hollywood actress after she visited Hanoi in August 1972. Which is why I'm voting for Kerry if he's the nominee. His very brief acquaintance with Fonda took place in September 1970. By August 1972, Kerry had moved on and was running for the U.S. House.
Democrats worry that Kerry hasn't been tested enough by a tough campaign in the primaries that would allow him to wage an effective campaign against Bush in the fall. Oh yeah, a bitter primary fight produces a really formidable nominee to go against an incumbent President. Just ask Walter Mondale.
Howard Dean is trying to sink his jaws in Kerry, to be sure, but he's fallen so far down in the polls that he looks like a Chihuahua trying to bite a rhinoceros.
Is Al Gore a curse? He endorsed Howard Dean for the nomination, he was the 2000 Democratic nominee, and he was the first presidential candidate to bring Willie Horton up against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Everything Gore touches leads to a defeat for either for his party, his endorsed candidate, or himself. He's bad news.
John Edwards says he doesn't want to be Kerry's running mate. What that means is that he does want to be Kerry's running mate.
Dennis Kucinich is, when last I heard, still at large somewhere. He says he's not running to make a statement, and I believe him, because I'm not sure he even has a statement. He's so far behind - even Al Sharpton has more delegates - that he should try to go for broke and propose something radical, like a campaign for more public transit and increased fuel economy standards that would make SUV's obsolete. He has nothing to lose. He should confer with his delegates - both of them - on the matter.
Bush finally admitted yesterday in Pennsylvania that people need jobs. He finally read a newspaper, I take it. Meanwhile, his chief economic adviser called the export of American jobs overseas merely another way of trading in the global economy. Meaning what? We trade good jobs for cheap underwear at Wal-Mart?
That is all. On to Wisconsin. (The Democratic primary there is Tuesday. Expect Bush to be there on Thursday.)
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