Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Kate takes on the idiots again. . .
6:40:32 PM    What do you think?  []  trackback []

William Swann posts about parallels between the presidential races of 1960 and 2004. Can a Democratic candidate run to the right of Bush on terror, having opposed the war in Iraq originally? I'm not sure. In the comments for that post, someone claims that he/she can't because it would seem duplicitous and dishonest.

I don't see it as duplicitous for a person to have opposed the war in Iraq and to now support it, as long as the original opposition was fairly well reasoned and principled, as opposed to "Bush sucks." In fact, I see this as being a pretty strong position to take. The candidate would seem highly patriotic ("America made a decision and even though it's a decision I disagreed with, I'm backing America"), highly anti-terror ("the terrorists are there, we need to fight them there") and more committed to the war on terror than Bush ("See, Bush got us in and now he's prematurely trying to get us out for political expediency, we should stay until the job is done").

Are there any Democratic candidates that fit the bill? I'm not sure. I think Kerry is a definite possibility but he needs to win New Hampshire probably, something that doesn't look too promising. Dean is probably the best bet but I'm not sure how far towards the right he'll come once he wins the nomination. Gephardt might be able to do it, but I don't think he's going to win the nomination. Clark has the credentials, but as I noted here, he's done and said other things that disqualify him as a candidate in my eyes.

Overall, I think don't see it happening. But I do believe that it could be a way to unseat Bush, who I feel is in a much more precarious position than a lot of other thinkers.
6:35:41 PM    What do you think?  []  trackback []