It's rotten:
In the 60 pages of words, there's hardly a major new idea or an idea that departs significantly from the Democratic Party's agenda since the New Deal. It's all here: the activist government, the ambitious programs without reference to costs, the appeal to some people's sense of victimization. There is also one striking omission--a list of anything that Senator Obama has actually done in the course of his brief career to advance any of these goals.
The point is that there is nothing here to back up a candidacy that is based on bringing the nation together to effect change. It's a rehash of the same policies and programs that the Democratic Left has been pushing--largely without success--for the last 40 years. For some people, as least, the era of big government is not over.
I continue to be amazed at the willful self delusion on the part of the Democrats that either of their candidates are electable.
Rand,
They probably are just as electable as the candidates the Republican party likes nominating. Quite frankly if there was a voting option "c) none of the above", and if that vote won the majority neither of the party's candidates would get in, I bet that we'd go a couple of years without a president.
Of course, people could also point out that a lot of Republican rhetoric over the past few years has been a rather sad rehash of the Cold War, this time instead of with a nuclear armed superpower, it's with a whacked-out conspiracy theory about Caliphate reforming towelheads taking over the world...Such fears were probably seemed reasonable enough on 9/12/01, but continuing to wet the bed almost 7 years later when it's pretty obvious that we're not facing a Soviet Union level threat put Republicans almost as low in my opinion as the Democrats.
~Jon
They probably are just as electable as the candidates the Republican party likes nominating.
Empirically, that's not the case. The Dems haven't had a candidate who could win a majority since Jimmy Carter (only 50.1%), whereas the Republicans have done it with Nixon (once with a landslide), Reagan (two landslides), Bush, and Bush the younger (on his second run). The only reason that the Republicans haven't held the White House for twenty-eight years straight was because of Ross Perot. Bill Clinton only got 43% of the vote in 1992.
If Obama gets the nod, I think that it will be a repeat of 1972, which was a blowout (though it depends somewhat on McCain's running mate).
Such fears were probably seemed reasonable enough on 9/12/01, but continuing to wet the bed almost 7 years later when it's pretty obvious that we're not facing a Soviet Union level...
The reason we may not be facing that kind of threat (if indeed we are not, as only time will tell) is that we fought back. How soon people forget.
Jonathan,
The reason we may not be facing that kind of threat (if indeed we are not, as only time will tell) is that we fought back. How soon people forget.
Well, that *is* one possible hypothesis. But I'd say there's good reason to question that interpretation of events. Another explanation (and IMO a far more likely one) is that Al Queda never was and never would have been an existential threat like the USSR was, whether we fought back or not.
~Jon
...is that Al Queda never was and never would have been an existential threat like the USSR was, whether we fought back or not.
That's true, however they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are a threat. Granted the threat was less than that of a nuclear superpower, allowing us the option to go hunting as we did. Still, its laudable that we took this action because an attack against us on OUR soil should never be tolerated.
Well, maybe that's the reason to vote for Obama.
If the man was an arm-twisting LBJ who could ramrod legislation through Congress, that is one thing.
The man hasn't done anything and he doesn't vote for anything controversial -- that is the perfect government stasis and gridlock that is so good for stock market value and the rest of the economy. The government that governs best governs least and all that.