I was looking into the possibility that I read in a news report that Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska, who has been critical of the war and the President over the war, might be running for President...
Chuck Hagel...at Wikipedia...
When I happened upon this fairly comprehensive review of potential Presidential candidates in 2008...
Wikipedia review of the 2008 Presidential election...
I've been saying for a while, given the falling poll numbers for the President, that a Democrat was likely to win the Presidency in 2008...
But the poll numbers don't seem to bear that out...
If you'll scroll down to the bottom of that page...
You'll find a list of polls of potential races between Democrats and Republicans...
John McCain seems to be the slightly better candidate, in terms of facing off with potential Democrats, over Rudy Guliani...though polls of Republicans just a little bit lower on that page seem to indicate that, at this point, Rudy seems to be the slightly favored choice of his party...
Jeb Bush, apparently, would be beat by almost every Democrat put against him (as it should be with his rightward lurch in all the wrong ways Florida, right now)...
And though Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner among Democrats right now...
She would be beat by both Rudy and John according to those polls...John Edwards could edge out Rudy, but not John...
I think I could even vote for John McCain over Hillary Clinton, actually...even though he is pro-life...and he and Ms. Clinton are pro-choice...
Abortion isn't likely to get more restricted much, I don't think...which is just fine with me...though removing restrictions would be a fine thing in my mind...so Rudy and Hillary have appeal to me on that front...
And I am no fan of campaign finance regulations that John would impose on campaign spending...I agree with John's aims...while looking squarely at what to me seems like the pretty clear evidence that campaign finance regulations -- like drug control and gun control -- are regularly circumvented by politicians...Tom Delay being one offender among a whole sea of them in Washington, D.C...it's kind of laughable, really, to have Washington riding Major League Baseball about steroids as a federal offense when so many of their own get away with a much more serious moral, nevertheless legal, offense against American democracy...
Having said that...I oppose campaign finance regulations (this was not always the case...I supported them and one of their other major supporters, Bill Bradley, in the 2000 election) as an unrealistic, counter-productive, and ultimately speech-limiting influence on American elections...George Will did a very nice column on this last facet of this issue that he is so rightly passionate about referring to an abrogation of free speech, I believe, in an August 22nd, 2004 editorial for the Washington Post...
Campaign Cops and Car Ads...
...that outlines the very sad case of Russ Darrow, the Republican challenger to Congressional campaign finance champion Russ Feingold...whose used-car business ads were challenged by Common Cause, the leading non-profit champion of campaign finance regulation, in their 2004 Senate campaign...
And, as George argues...essentially because Russ Darrow was running against Russ Feingold...who Common Cause saw as their man to end the ugliness of money having so much influence in Washington and over the political process...
Having said that...
I like John McCain's integrity a lot...like Bill Bradley...though I disagree with them on one of both of their signature issues...
I like them as men...
I like the kind of temperament (I like John's temper, frankly...tells me he lays everything out on the table...and doesn't hide it under layers of pretense and denial) and gravitas they would bring to the office of the Presidency...I like both of their genuine desires to look out for the little guy and the underdog...
Bill was pro-choice...as is Hillary Clinton...as is Rudy Guliani...which I prefer...
But Rudy's stances on crime I take issue with him...again...clearly I agree with his intent...but Rudy both took way too much credit for the bettering crime situation in New York I think (which had started -- both in some of the constructive approaches and in their consequences, before his Administration)...and engaged in some really questionable practices to reduce crime in the Big Apple, his signature issue...
Rudy Guliani...Wikipedia...
I love that Rudy is both pro-choice and supports gay rights (staying with a gay couple while he was divorcing his first wife...and I don't like that he cheated on his wife, of course...but I prefer a sinner to the self-righteous, any day...so it kind of endears me to him, actually:):):)...as it endears me to John McCain, as well, whose shown a lot of remorse for cheating on his wife...though I imagine Rudy feels some remorse, as well)...
But the best thing that I love about all of these candidates...
Is that there are some very fine, decent, intelligent people running for the office of the Presidency in 2008...they have disagreements...I have disagreements with them...I'm sure everyone does...
But they would all make fine Presidents...well...each of these would...and many of the others running for office would, as well...
It's not a perfect process...democracy...including American democracy...
But that's the beauty of it...
That it is so diverse...that there are so many different ways at coming at issues...and that we learn to respect one another, as much as possible, in the meantime...I've learned that sometimes people need a little check on their democratic behavior when its aggressive and not civil...but...all in all...learning to respect and embrace and support one another as people...is far more important than any of the issues, alone...
We so lose track of this in politics, I think...
That the whole purpose of the whole spectacle is to help people...to support them...not just in the abstract...but real, live, breathing people...including the politicians who volunteer to enter the muck that is American and democratic politics, much of the time...and to still try to do some good amidst all the cynicism and assumptions of bad faith...
The reason why I think each of these people would make fine Presidents, actually...is because I've now had the pleasure of meeting the politically cynical and apathetic, up close...
And the truth is that cynicism in a democracy is one of the most corrosive influences within it...
Idealism really does matter...and it is a damned shame when people lose track of the ideas...to validate their bitterness and disappointment that the world doesn't live up to their expectations...
Rather than simultaneously to having better expectations for the world...making their expectations more realistic for the world we live in...rather than being perpetually disappointed that the world we live in is not the world we wished we lived in...
I'm disappointed by that quite a bit, actually...but in the context of also accepting people as they are...and expecting them, realistically, to get better:):):)...
And...the more time I spend doing them...expecting more from people, really, as I do from politics...
As Alexis DeToqueville quite insightfully noted almost 200 years ago...
American...and all democracy, really...is more dependent on the quality of the efforts by its people...than just by its politicians...
And Americans and democratic citizens all over the world...perpetually get a pass in how they corrode their own communities and societies with their cynicism...
And then...for whatever asinine reasons...they're completely and utterly surprised when the world matches their cynical expectations...
Rather than making their expectations more realistic and more idealistic simultaneously...developing an idealism that is not romantic...but that is based squarely on the realities in front of you...
That is democracy at its best...and these candidates do a fairly good job of doing it...and the American and democratic peoples all over the world need to do a better of it, as well, I think:)...
Many of them do...despite my concerns about democratic backsliding in the last 4 or 5 years, or so...
This is one of the most robust times for freedom and democracy in the history of freedom and democracy and humanity and the world...
The enlightenment thinkers who made all this possible would be quite proud, I think...that we have so surpassed their expecations...by far, I imagine...
We take those thinkers so for granted...when they made so much of the freedom and equity that we love possible for us...
When they dreamed of a better world...when there was much more darkness in that world...and only glimmers of the light...
We live with more light in our world...and with the possibility of even more light...if we open up the dark places within ourselves...and find room for the light in our own hearts and minds...
It takes work...loving and caring about people...it takes a lot of work...
But it's work well worth it...those who wanting to hope and believe that we can be better with and to one another...
I believe...more and more each day:):):)...
Have a great day, everyone:):):)...
Love,
Ben
