Choose which of the Democrats running for President I would most like to see win in November 2008, and I cannot believe I am about to write this, it would be Hillary Clinton. Why? Because of the three left (I am discounting any chance for Gov. Richardson) she is the only one who seems to understand the situation in Iraq. Clinton seems to understand that the United States cannot simply withdraw all of our troops and leave the country. She understands that doing so would leave the country open to implosion in civil war, massive slaughter of Iraqis that assisted Americans, and of the Westerners still in the country, by the Islamic extremists and terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere. Essentially our withdrawal from Iraq in the near future spells wholesale murder and mayhem in the Middle East.
While I do not buy Clinton’s argument that her time as First Lady gives her enough experience to be Commander In-Chief (my wife has been married to a mortgage broker for thirteen years and heard countless phone calls about the business and process, that said I would not say she has the experience to handle clients’ transactions), nor that her eight years in the Senate gives her enough experience to be the CEO of our country, I do accept her position on Iraq. Nobody, at least nobody I know or have read or heard, believes American troops should be on permanent deployment in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. The differences are under what conditions is it safe to bring them home and cease deployment in the region. Obama and Edwards, and Paul on the Republican side, feel that we should immediately disengage all U.S. Forces from Iraq and let what is going to happen happen. While upsetting much of the “base” of the Democratic Party —“base” to read the MoveOn.org crowd and others on the far left — with her position of maintaining American military personnel in Iraq until it is safe for withdrawal Clinton is showing on this one position that reality trumps politics.
Unfortunately this current Presidential campaign started way too early on the Democratic side — sometime about December 2004; and it allowed the amateurs too much time to gear up their campaigns. The most experienced and perhaps best opportunity for the Democrats to have anything close to a guaranteed White House victory in 2008 was undermined in the mid-term primaries when Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was defeated courtesy of George Soros and others with cash on the extreme left. There went perhaps the most experienced candidate and one that would attract not only huge amounts of Independents but many Republicans as well. After Iowa last week the next two candidates with the most experience were taken out of the race in Senators Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd — while I do not agree with much of any of their politics or stances they did have significant experience in government and Washington. So the experience of the Democratic front runners is a man with eight years experience at the State level and three years in the U.S. Senate (Obama), a one term then done U.S. Senator (Edwards) and a one and a half term U.S. Senator (Clinton). The Democratic team seems to be relying on those called up from the minors to get them through the playoffs; no executive experience, no administrative experience and no management experience. There is a big difference being part of a legislative body and leading a democratic government. Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster has more experience that qualifies him to be President of the United States than any of the three Democratic contenders.
Now with a vacuum of experience in the remaining candidates none of them can run on that position—so they are now shouting who can change the most. Who is the one who will instigate change, create change, and facilitate change. Essentially the same things we heard from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in the run up to the 2006 mid-term elections. The past year has shown us that despite the “mandate” for change that put them in the majority the only thing that has changed is which side of the aisle is getting the most corporate contributions now. I am waiting for someone to ask, “you keep speaking about change, but what change are you speaking about? Bush is out of office so we will have change no matter which party is elected.”
With no experience, similar voting records on all the issues, similar rhetoric about change without any indication of what that change may occur and the complete lack of any direct answers to policy questions, the only issue I would base my vote on in the Democratic primary is national security and continued avoidance of terrorist attacks within the United States. On this issue alone Hillary Clinton separates herself from her Democratic foes.
Yech, that left a sort of sour taste in my mouth…
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