Letters to the Editor
mdlewis
Published Letters: 56 Editor's Choice: 5
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Give us an inspiring candidate please!
[Read the article: The virtual John Kerry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gore? Kerry? Mrs. Clinton?
Isn't it paradoxical how when Democrats pick a mediocore candidate (an "inoffensive" candidate) because he or she's "electable" they don't seem to get elected?
Give us Barack Obama. Give us Howard Dean. Give us John Edwards. Give us Wesley Clarke. We need candidates to vote for, not just candidates to not vote against. We need candidates that we like, not candidates we're not offended by. Let the John Kerrys of the world get us the money while the Barack Obamas win the elections.
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Hmm didn't Nixon try something like this a ways back?
[Read the article: Newt goes off message]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Right so maybe someone can correct me on this, but from my understanding, Nixon rode to fame on anti-Commie propaganda and highly partisan rhetoric as well as a questionable record on honesty. Then he went from the Senate to the vice-presidency and after a few years to the presidency, making every effort to appear somewhat moderate. He promised a successful end to the Vietnam War and warmer relations with the Soviet Union and China. (Which I will grant was a plus.)
And well the rest is history, isn't it? Now we have Newt, distancing himself from his past as a partisan hack and recreating himself as a bipartisan intellectual.
Kudos for the speech, but the past is still the past. And no one should be labeled a partisan hack for pointing it out.
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Candidates vs. The Republican Machine
[Read the article: Barack Obama's Republican edge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So it seems to me that when you get right down to it, the argument one always always hears for Hillary Clinton is "Well she's electable." Everybody who makes this argument is some sort of Clinton apologist who despite not agreeing on any number of policy positions (Iraq for starters) continues to support her as the winner for '08.
But let's look at this electability issue for a moment. Sure, both candidates are both smart politicians and smart people. But you know what Obama has? Charisma. He falls into line with some of the great politicians of the modern age from both sides of the political divide. (Reagan, JFK, Willie, FDR.) Whether you agree with the policies of these presidents or not, they carried an energy to their campaigns that brought the independents into their tent and deflected whatever opposition was left. After all Reagan was called the "Teflon President." Hell Clinton was impeached, joining the elite company of Andrew Johnson, and he still has electability.
By comparison, Hillary Clinton has money and experience. But no charisma and a hell of a lot of baggage. That's a combination that even the weakest of likely Republican candidates (Rommney) can win against. Don't believe me? Take a look back at the Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis campaigns and their pre-election poll margins, and tell me I'm wrong.
Bottom line, toss out the polls, because if electability is your issue, Obama is your man.
Now to all those policy questions...
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Here here Keith...
[Read the article: Deconstructing Tim Russert vs. the Clintons]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is a contest. I'm sick of Hillary supporters effectively tell us that the race is over, and we should roll over and accept it, lest the evil Republicans fight against us. She's a bad candidate, and if all you can respond with is to tell us to shut up about how bad she is, then it seems to me us lefties aren't the only ones with problems with Mrs. Clinton.
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Re: Third Party issue
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Chad Vader"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kotonchiic said
Even when a former PRESIDENT (Theodore Roosevelt) ran as a "Progressive" Third-Party Candidate in 1912---he was trounced and merely succeeded in denying William Howard Taft a second term (and a seat on the Supreme Court).
Actually Theodore Roosevelt did fairly well in that election. He finished second to Woodrow Wilson. If my numbers serve me well, poor Taft won only two states in that election. Roosevelt was really only held back from winning because Wilson had the Solid South behind him.
There's also of course Ross Perot, who was in fact leading the polls before he dropped out and seemed to go a little crazy
You could argue that these are just exceptions that prove the rule, two successful but losing campaigns in the last 140 years or so from a former president and an eccentric billionaire.
Still Ron Paul has a lot of enthusiastic support behind him this time around from a lot of different parts of the political landscape. Plus he has a lot of money coming in, and even people who disagree with him respect him.
I'm not saying I would vote for Ron Paul, but in an election between, say, Mitt Rommney and Hillary Clinton, I could see someone like Ron Paul pulling a lot of support from alienated voters, particularly independents and liberal Democrats(This would be a serious issue. Think the Democrats are going to be able to argue they're anti-war with Hillary at the lead? Don't bet on it.) I won't guarantee a win, but he'll have a fighting chance. And hey, maybe the social conservatives will do what they keep threatening, and form their own party too which will split up the Republicans. And hey, there are those rumours about Bloomberg too. We could have a five person race!
Good news for us Democrats, of course, would be that such a race would almost certainly end up in the Democratic House of Representatives (doubt anyone would win the electoral college outright). How could this possibly go wrong?
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And a big thank you to my moderate Connecticut brethren...
[Read the article: No Democrat wanted Joe Lieberman's endorsement]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For voting this corrupt whiny little runt into office, because well gosh he's just so moderate, and Ned Lamont was an oh so crazy liberal with a position that we all kind of believe, but you know Joe is so moderate and Ned was so crazy...
GAAAAAAAHHH!!!
My fellow Connecticut citizens: Pay attention next time! We get what we deserve if we keep voting for scum like this man.