Letters to the Editor
Ben Alpers
Published Letters: 74 Editor's Choice: 2
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@kufir77
[Read the article: Who will Obama choose as veep? Nope, you're wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You get the farleft with Obama and the moderate left with Hillary, and you'll win.
What are you talking about?
These two candidates are nearly identical on the issues. Neither of them is remotely far left. Both are centrists. The far left candidate in the race was Dennis Kucinich and he got nowhere, in part because the left wing of the Democratic Party is still willing to support pretty much any centrist.
This in turn means that there's effectively no need to ideologically balance the ticket (unfortunately, IMO, but there it goes).
But an Obama-Clinton ticket would be anything but ideologically balanced.
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Feinstein Voted for War on Iraq
[Read the article: Who will Obama choose as veep? Nope, you're wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Obama would be crazy to put anyone on the ticket who voted for the IWR in 2002. To do so would seriously water down one of his principle advantages over McCain.
In addition, he would be smart to select someone from outside the Senate. There's a reason that no Senator has one the presidency since 1960 (though one obviously will this year). Leavening the ticket with a candidate with very different experiences would be a smart move for Obama.
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@bernbart
[Read the article: Who will Obama choose as veep? Nope, you're wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This argument still makes no sense.
Well he would sure be picking an opposite in Fenstein. Like Hillary, Feinstein is a centrist.
A centrist is not the opposite of Obama. Obama is himself a centrist. What were his policy differences from Clinton (who you're calling a centrist)? Only two, really.
He opposed the war on Iraq; she supported it. If this is the definition of centrist, I suppose Obama isn't, but he'd be crazy to put such a person on the ticket. Obama's war position is a tremendous advantage in this election and he'd be a fool to water it down.
But centrism consists of many things. The other major policy difference between Clinton and Obama involves healthcare mandates, on which Clinton is to Obama's left (though only just).
In short, if Clinton is a centrist, Obama is a centrist.
As I've already said, from a purely strategic point of view, I don't think Obama needs to balance the ticket. Progressives in the party have long since given up on getting a candidate on the ticket from the party's left (see the lack of enthusiasm for Kucinich, the one candidate from the party's left running this year).
But Feinstein wouldn't be an "opposite" to Obama on anything other than the Iraq War, which is the last issue about which Obama wants contrast on the ticket.
The true opposite to Obama would be someone like Kucinich, Gravel, or Barbara Lee. And there's simply no energy at all on the party's left demanding such a candidate. More's the pity.
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@Renegade Iconoclast
[Read the article: Who will Obama choose as veep? Nope, you're wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are a lot of other examples, but that is a very good example, and you can't argue with the roll call. Really. You can't!
Well if you can't argue with the roll call vote, that makes McCain a liberal. McCain voted with Obama on the linked vote. Clinton voted on the other side with Kennedy, Sanders, and Whitehouse, among others.
Sorry, but I'll continue to argue with both the roll call vote as ironclad evidence of "liberalness" and with the notion that Obama is notably less centrist than Clinton, though this rollcall vote does highlight an area of disagreement between the two, however small. But the division between the Yeas and Nays on that roll call doesn't seem to track along any generally held idea of liberal vs. centrist/conservative within the Democratic caucus.