Chapter 72.5: Is Inspiration Enough?

I wasn't alive during the time of John F. Kennedy, and during brother Robert's tragically short campaign I was too young to understand anything that didn't mean "food." So I don't know exactly what it's like to have lived while a politician was able to inspire us. The closest thing to an inspirational leader was the fictional Jed Bartlet during the West Wing years, and even that wasn't really inspirational.

So I read George Packer's story in the New Yorker with great interest. So too, Paul Krugman's essay on the lasting effect of John Edwards on the campaign.

Packer outlined differences between Sens. Obama and Clinton and their presumed approaches to the presidency. Obama would be an 'Inspirer in Chief' and offer hope to the masses. Not a bad goal at all, and I could subscribe to that. But if he's as disorganized as Packer suggests, then we'll all pray to God that he has an excellent team of staff to pick up after him. All presidents need that, but a President Obama might need it more. President Hillary Clinton would be a leader that "would have to use unifying rhetoric and reach across partisan lines. But ... she is readier to march ahead and let those who will follow her do so." As Packer adds, "These rival conceptions of the Presidency—Clinton as executive, Obama as visionary—reflect a deeper difference in how the two candidates analyze what ails the country."

I have said in this blog and in conversations with friends of various political persuasions, I consider myself a moderate but I also found the populism espoused by John Edwards to make the most sense. I respect that he said, in effect, to have the healthcare system most of us believe we need (i.e., one that covers all Americans), we're going to have to raise taxes. This would be difficult to carry out, admittedly. Clinton's suggested health plan is very much like Edwards' plan. [Which makes me wonder, would he be a good choice to fill the role of Secretary of Health and Human Services, or lead the healthcare charge as Vice President, or should he be Attorney General, where his talents seem best suited? And if he had any of those roles, would a President Clinton or a President Obama be concerned about the prospect of cabinet member Edwards trying to draw too much credit and run against the sitting president?] I have no doubt that a President Clinton would have an active role in shaping that national discussion. How would a President Obama inject his vision of national healthcare? It could be a wonderful plan, and I'm willing to hear him discuss it. But Edwards' plan sounded best to me.

New Jersey is among the nearly two dozen states that will hold a primary on Super Tuesday (soon after the Super Bowl. Go Giants!), and I'm still unsure who I'll vote for. I'm probably leaning toward Clinton at the moment, she seems more able to step in and lead. But Obama is an inspiring figure. So I'm left wondering, Is Inspiration Enough? Sen. Obama's comments about Iran earlier in the campaign concerned me. Is he so naive to think that having a simple conversation with the Iranians will actually be perceived as a simple conversation? Good God! People who can honestly say the met the president at the White House -- any president -- seem to others as if they've reached a pinnacle. That's why photo ops are considered important. They lend credibility to the poor schmoe next to the hot shot.

The wife of a friend of mine ran for public office in their home town; she used a photo of her with then Sen. Jon Corzine in her publicity. It made her look like she had connections, which was the point. She'd never met him before the evening when the photo was taken. I suspect the other candidates in line after her to get their photo taken were similarly unfamiliar with Sen. Corzine. At a certain level, it's all about appearances.

So publically speaking with a high-ranking official of a nation we publically accuse of sponsoring international terrorism is a mistake. No ifs ands or buts about it. Would a President Obama agree with campaigning Obama? I don't know. And I see it as something that would create tension in an Obama White House. Like the fictional President Bartlet, his administration would make a lot of early mistakes. I'm not sure we can afford to let him struggle so much.

But I also don't know that we can afford to have a Republican continue in the office for the next four years. So can Sen. Clinton defeat Sen. McCain? That's a subject for another day. If I'm so inspired.

Chapter 71.6: There's No Crying in Politics

There may be no crying, but there certainly seems to be political capital in coming close to crying. Hillary Clinton has taken New Hampshire, surprising me and probably a lot of Americans who were starting to think that the Obama Express was getting into gear and powering up for an impressive spring. That still may happen, but Sen. Clinton clearly isn't done.

What surprised me more than Clinton's victory in the primary, however, was that there were voters who were swayed by her emotional answer about how hard the campaign slog can be and why she is still doing it. I don't believe it was forced; I accept that she has finally found her voice, as she said later. But she'll need to back that up with an even more grueling schedule ahead of her. And I don't think for a second that Sen. Obama is going to concede anything either.

Chapter 71.4: Iowa, the Meaningless But Influential Vote

So what did we learn from the Iowa Caucuses? Well, since they don't really mean anything -- no delegates were won -- then I think the answer is "very little." But they've started to shake things up, and let's face it, the campaign had grown boring already.

So here's my little assessment of what we know about these candidates now. I'm pleasantly surprised by John Edwards. While I consider myself a moderate, I like Edwards, who is clearly more on the liberal/progressive side of the fence. I just don't know whether Edwards can be elected president at this time. His performance in Iowa, while encouraging, doesn't come close to guaranteeing that. It doesn't guarantee anything. But it shows that his message has reached many people in a state better known -- at least nationally -- for conservative values.

I was shocked that Hillary came in third, but her showing was 29.5 percent of the vote as compared to 29.7 percent for Edwards. And considering the whole nonbinding aspect of the caucus, that's a completely negligible difference.

But Edwards needed to be closer to Barack Obama to be viable. They're targeting the same type of Democrat. So if they split the African Americans and liberals (do we agree that Hillary is not a liberal/progressive, she's a moderate?), then that suggests the majority of the party is still on the L/P side rather than the moderate side. In a national election, that's a different issue, but here in the primaries it's all about what kind of Democrat are you. (While I consider myself a moderate, I also believe that poverty relief -- a liberal concern to be sure -- is one of the most important issues facing this country and the world. Never forget what type of Muslims attacked us on 9/11; they were poor. That is the overriding issue throughout the world.)

There are still many important questions on the Republican side of the campaign, too. I was not surprised at all that Huckabee led the Republicans. He's a former governor, so he knows how to lead people and organizations, and he's a Baptist preacher, so he appeals to the evangelicals in Middle America. I was, however, surprised that Fred Thompson came in third. This guy has been talking about how he doesn't really care for campaigning. Does that work in Iowa? I wouldn't have thought so. But he placed third.

Thompson's showing is far more impressive than Hillary coming in third for the Democrats. I was more shocked that Rudy fared so poorly. How can anyone call this man a frontrunner if he can't even garner 5 percent of the caucus votes in Iowa? This may mean he's not a national candidate and is only viable as a VP nominee. He really needs New Hampshire or he may find himself out on his own on Super Tuesday. I'm kind of pleased, actually, that McCain fared as well as he did. He's a real candidate. I believe he's actually more conservative than he's generally considered, and I wouldn't vote for him for that reason, but I do think he is a noble politician who cares about the country. There are few that I hold in the same regard.

As for some of the other names that will one day not even warrant a mention on a Wikipedia entry about the 2008 election, I'm glad to see that Joe Biden (who I generally like, but isn't a viable presidential candidate at this point; he's a possible Sec. of Defense, perhaps, though that would rankle a lot of folks too.) has dropped out. I'd forgotten that Chris Dodd was still in.

And as for Republicans, will some Mexicans please take Tom Tancredo out and rake him over the coals... And while they're at it, do the same to Democratic governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, who should never, ever be elected to anything after letting the Los Alomos situation "blow up" on his watch.

That's a long answer to explain why I can only shrug my shoulders and say "I don't know" to the question of what I think about Iowa. What do you all think?

Chapter 65.7: Finally, Some Sense and (Perhaps) Honesty

I know a lot of Democrats (and probably a lot of Republicans) don't want to hear it, but anyone with a whit of sense would see that we have to have a significant presence in Iraq for the forseeable future. Not because of oil, but because we have a moral imperative. I completely agree that President Bush and Vice President Cheney led us into the wrong place at the wrong time, but we're there now and we will have to be there for years hence.

Apparently the major Democratic candidates for president are starting to acknowledge that too, though I hesitate to say they're just realizing it. I think they -- and certainly Sen. Clinton -- have known it for quite a while. Iraq cannot sustain itself if we were to leave. "That's their problem," I hear people say. But, no, it's not. It's ours too. While some Americans seem to wish we could go back to being a 19th century agrarian society in which we could afford to be xenophobic and isolated from other people's problems, that's simply not possible. And though at this point a majority of Americans say the war is going poorly and we should pull our troops out of harm's way, it's simply a bad plan.

Allowing Iraq to struggle for itself makes as much sense as allowing Germany or Japan to fend for itself after World War II. At that point, the concern was Soviet Russia and probably China too (I'm not a student of history, so I don't know if China was jonesing to jump into Japan). We had global concerns then, and we have similar concerns now.

Anyway, back to the 2008 presidential race: The three major Democratic candidates (Clinton, Sen. Obama, and former Sen. Edwards) would all keep some contingent of forces there. Gov. Bill Richardson says "Get out now," but, if memory serves, this is the man who allowed Los Alamos's secrets to walk out the door as Sec. of Energy and then somehow got elected governor of New Mexico. Sen. Biden, the future Sec. of Defense (only because Delaware's governor is a Democrat), says split the country three ways.

Quite clearly, a lot remains to be seen, but I'm just happy to see that the people who might become president recognize that even though the war is unpopular and divisive -- and politically devastating (hello, one-term presidencies!) keeping our troops there is what we have to do until Iraq is stable. We never should have invaded in the first place, but we're stuck in the sand till further notice