Hey Seattle people, Dean’s going to be in town this Sunday, 6:30, Westlake Center.
I can’t wait for the anaylsis of his speech by his mezmorized fanbase here at QT3…
Went to this with a friend of mine. Impressions:
He can really do a stemwinder of a speech. And you should have heard the crowd when he talked about “Saddam trying to get uranium from Iraq”; hoo boy. A few mentions of Ken Lay, who apparently isn’t quite forgotten yet. Segued back and forth between health care, Iraq, “big money”, etc. A surprisingly large amount of “movement” style lines - “you have the power,” “I can’t fix everything for you,” and so on. I’d say he spends a bit too much time wacking the Democratic party for going along with the President, but then I remember it’s 4 months until the first primary; it sure doesn’t feel like it.
It was pretty much your average crowd; the nuts were far between. Though the fucking LaRouche people managed to get some dipshit with a sign up front.
I don’t think any of the other Democrats have a chance, really; well maybe Wesley Clark, if he gets in and starts throwing some red meat out there, but that’s hard to imagine. Kerry’s too boring, Gephardt’s a relic, and Edwards has no constituency. An insurgent who’s both the front runner in the polls and leading in cash, all months and months before the first primary…
There are LaRouche people? :wink:
There was a somewhat big rally here in Little Rock over the weekend for Clark. Couple of hundred people came out, some “Draft Clark” speaches, some Bush-bashing. I think people look more to the idea of Clark running, and being a guy that can actually win, than him actually running. Hell, even die-hard Republican friends of mine here say that, in a Clark-Bush race, they’d really have to think about who they’d vote for.
Clark entering can do nothing but good for the race. It has the “a general running as a democrat… whah?” wake up factor as well as (hopefully) moving democrats into the “Bush fucked up on foreign policy, and here’s how we fix it” camp. I think everyone agrees that the Democrats need to address defense/foreign policy coherently if they want to win.
But yeah, Kerry? Gephardt? Edwards? Yawn.
The general suspision is that Clark is a moderate when it comes to social and fiscal policy. Which is a good thing, cause I guarantee someone labeled “Tax and Spend Democrat who wants to raise your taxes to send it all to welfare moms as well as let all the terrorists win” (which you know is the way Karl Rove is gonna attack the candidate) is going to get blasted in a general election.
No offense, but simply hurling cliches at a candidate isn’t going to matter this time around. Just as “everything has changed” since 9/11, so has the conventional wisdom.
How about: The “Tax-Cut & Spend” Republicans who are are sending all the debt to the states, as well as letting the terrorists escape?
Any Dem with some cojones and a backbone made of something besides wheatina is going have plenty of material, and a damn good shot at the White House. Admittedly that may be hard to find, but it’s pretty obvious after the statements Dean made over the weekend that he and Clark are hatching something, and they seem to have spine.
I wonder if the Repubs are still excited by the fact they chose to place their convention in NYC as close to the 9/11 anniversary as possible?
Wesley Clark is a nonentity, and a piss-poor military analyst since his retirement. At least Dean seems to have some character and a little backbone. And moderate on guns, if nothing else…I would love for some prodding in that direction to come at the president from that end of the court for a change.
Why the fuck are guns such a deal breaker for folks? Gun control/freedom is the LAST issue I care about on my list.
When I hear someone say, “Gun control/freedom is the last issue on my list,” I actually hear that as, “Freedom is the last thing on my list.”
I don’t necessarily put guns above all else. What I treasure are my personal freedoms - Many of which have been stripped away over the years for various misguided reasons. I group them all under a category called “civil liberties,” and when a candidate doesn’t support several of those, then he’s right out.
So - there’s a group here in Michigan starting up a local chapter of what is apparently a national organization: Gays for Guns. Gays who are pro-gun, anti-gun control, etc.
I imagine it will be hard to label these folks as Republicans or Democrats, from what I’ve read (which really pleases me to no end.)
When I hear someone say, “Gun control/freedom is the last issue on my list,” I actually hear that as, “Freedom is the last thing on my list.”
I don’t necessarily put guns above all else. What I treasure are my personal freedoms - Many of which have been stripped away over the years for various misguided reasons. I group them all under a category called “civil liberties,” and when a candidate doesn’t support several of those, then he’s right out.[/quote]
If you say guns are equivalent to freedom and the preservation thereof, you’re saying some pretty wierd things about democracy and political theory. Not to hijack this thread, but there’s a really wierd undertone to this stuff.
“All power comes from the barrel of a gun” - Mao Zedong :roll:
Can I join, even though I’m not gay? This sounds like a whole lot of fun.
Maybe they qualify as Log Cabin republicans, though.
Dean’s a few bucks away from raising a million dollars in the last 4 or 5 days, which I think it some sort of record for a Democratic candidate. Even Clinton couldn’t pull in that much.
How much of that came from the Republican party? ;)
Heh. If so, they’re donating in $46 increments…
Would you put it past them? :P
Like what, we don’t need to protect ourselves because our democratic neighbors will alturistically keep watch over our fortunes and sacred honor?
That’s a good one McCullough, I’m sure you believe that only the police, millitary, and other “authorized personel” should be allowed to own firearms.
No, I think everything short of “military hardware” (automatic weapons, mortars, what have you) should be legal for private ownership, subject to the standard felon/insane/whatever checks.
I just think the implicit reasoning most gun lovers use - namely, that the only thing stopping the jackboot fascists is the threat of assassination / difficulty suppressing an armed insurrection if they get too uppity - is fundamentally at odds with the concept of having a government at all, much less a democracy.