Salon tells you what's wrong with the leading Dem. presidential candidates

superdave · Mar 13, 2003

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/03/13/dems/index.html

This timidity {about criticizing Bush on the war} is Reason No. 392 for the political question vexing Democrats right now: Why is it that polls show President Bush losing the '04 election to an "Unnamed Democrat," but beating all the Democrats who are currently in the race?
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But the best stuff is on the 2nd page.

Some reporters have taken to covering Iowans' obsession with the war as one of those eccentricities the primary system subjects us to every four years, like the overweening influence of the right-wing Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, or the candidates' justifiably ridiculed obsession with ethanol in the 2000 Iowa contest. Last week I watched a Des Moines Register columnist on CNN explaining his fellow Iowans' worries about war as though he was describing the offbeat cultural beliefs and habits of an exotic, isolated tribe that happens to sit on suddenly valuable land.

In fact, Iowans are very much in the American mainstream, and they're way ahead of the Democratic pack. They know that sadly, war matters most right now, and Democrats who complain about it don't deserve to win Iowa, let alone the presidency. What the befuddlement about war shows is that even the best of the current crop are campaigning to be managers, not leaders; they're at home with the business of fundraising and event-scheduling and policy briefings; they seem at a loss to respond to the ever-changing, life-and-death circumstances of a world on the verge of war.

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Ouch.

And this

They've {the Dems as a whole} been treating Iraq like a tough campaign curveball, rather than a test of leadership and conscience, since before the midterm election.
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I absolutely agree. If you give people a choice between a Republican and a Republican, they'll choose the Republican every time.

BenReilly · Mar 13, 2003

Political analysis should be dispassionate. Unfortunately, that article was anything but. The only thing a reader would get from that article is that the writer, Joan Walsh, is against the war. Whopee.

joseph pakovits · Mar 13, 2003

Originally posted by BenReilly
Political analysis should be dispassionate. Unfortunately, that article was anything but. The only thing a reader would get from that article is that the writer, Joan Walsh, is against the war. Whopee.
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Not true. You also learn that the Dems are a bunch of pussies.

Smiley321 · Mar 13, 2003

Originally posted by joseph pakovits
Not true. You also learn that the Dems are a bunch of pussies.
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You needed Salon to figure that out? What will you do when it goes under?

To put this in context, the analysis would have worked in 1991, too. Clinton was never touted as another Churchill. But neither have the Bushes, Limbaugh excluded.

Godot22 · Mar 13, 2003

Originally posted by BenReilly
Political analysis should be dispassionate.
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Why?

Ian McCracken · Mar 13, 2003

All I can say is that I'm shocked that it's March and Salon is still in business. Weren't they supposed to go under in February? I think Loney and superdave and Pakovits and Universal must've pooled their pennies and became majority stock holders.

Nate505 · Mar 14, 2003

Originally posted by joseph pakovits
Not true. You also learn that the Dems are a bunch of pussies.
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Well, that's been known for quite a while....