Iraq: the most important issue, and useless as a way to choose a candidate

[urbpan]

I just read this article by my lj friend g_weir, and I have to say I agree. The gist of it is this: everyone agrees that the war in Iraq is the most important issue (that's what the news media tells me anyway), but none of the candidates for president have any plan for the war. (with the possible exception of Richardson, who can say "bring them home now" because he's a long shot)

Instead there is agreement that the war isn't good (not that WAR isn't good, but that THIS war isn't going well) and the vague assertion that someone new will do better. It's hard to imagine a worse cock-up than Bush, but anything's possible, in my opinion. Personally, since I'm no more against the war now than I was in 2000, when the first rumblings that Iraq needs another thumping started to emanate from the White House--long before the country's post 9/11 paranoia made the war possible. It's a bad idea, it's always been a bad idea, and I didn't vote for Kerry because he voted for the war (I don't care that he was being lied to about the reasons for the war--those made up reasons weren't enough to justify it) and I don't want to vote for Clinton largely because she voted for the war. Obama makes me feel good when he speaks, but I agree that he hasn't done anything with his career to warrant being president (ditto Hilary). But I don't think that a stated position on Iraq can sway me on any candidate--unless it's some totally whacko position like bringing everyone home now or sending 20,000 more troops over there. Man, we're going to be paying for this fucking war for a long time.

Of course, living in Massachusetts, the question is moot. Our electoral votes always go to the Democrats, so I can safely cast my protest/not-the-lesser-of-two-evils vote for the Green Party, without being blamed for accidentally electing the wrong guy. Except by my dad, who seems to forget that I don't live in Florida or Ohio.

Comments

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

I actually think the biggest topic out there is national health care, but I don't think I've ever voted for a candidate based on policy; I just vote thumb in the eye of the establishment, unless there's someone who strikes me as having some character and/or integrity (prepare to grimace: McCain and Richard Daley come to mind).

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

given the main post icon, i'd think the main topic/issue would be: "can THEY initiate (hasn't that been done once?) and sustain the impeachment process for bush/et al, and make them pay, no last second pardons, etc/etc"... they REALLY screwed a lot of pooches.

we're so fixed on the war still, that we're never likely to get around to the other messes. NOLA? still a mess. BETTER. but horrible. 9/11? that got covered over pretty quickly. they even barely talk about bin laden now. sharks. yah, sharks. the news quickly talks about shark attacks in FLA to distract. let's do something about those sharks! oh, and the patriot act and all that other spying stuff. the TSA? still not great. how long does it take to smooth that out? ever? terror alerts? funny those went way down, less than sharks even :)

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[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

I know some people have their hearts set on impeachment, but this president hasn't done anything that much worse than the guys before him (lie, get us into a war, possible unethical dealings with certain groups, etc...), so the only real traction would be partisan, and that's just not an air-worthy bird now.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I think the illegal wiretapping and many different instances of torture, and deportation for the purposes of torture are plenty to warrant impeachment, not to mention the fact of starting a war on false pretenses.

Unfortunately, I think an impeachment process would only help out the Republicans at this point. I think the Dems should keep giving them enough rope.

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

I agree that going by the strict law, he's quite impeachment worthy, but we historically have allowed our executive branch a tons of leeway, so by a lot of people's concepts of how a president does things, I think impeachment would only serve to make the dem's look spiteful.

The only way to impeach him would be something he did as a person outside the office, like currently doing drugs (past issues don;t seem to count much anymore) or something.

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

He's a rotten weasel, but he'd be hard to impeach. Also, you're still harboring under the delusion that that would change anything. He could be impeached, and still stay in office. It might be useful for slowing him down politcally if he wasn't in his second term already.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I wish I could safely vote Green on principle. But I've heard enough about some of what Nader's been doing, and specifically his tendency to not take wide-scale consequences of his actions into account, that I really don't think I want him as president either.

I'm going hope that we're smart enough to get a Dem candidate in who *isn't* Hillary or Obama and has enough going on other than the war to make him worthwhile. OR the Greens finally run somebody who gives me fewer feelings of 'Ick!' than Nader.

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

You'll probably want to start spreading the Bill Richardson meme then. He seems to have the best resume in the democratic pot. Executive, international experience, some cross partisan divide stuff. It's still early, and if he does well in NH or Iowa, he's got a real shot.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Actually, of the currently announced possibles, I'm still leaning mostly toward Vilsack. I feel like we need somebody politically personable and liberal, but ethically squeaky-clean, and Middle-America enough that Fox News Republicans like my uncle wouldn't gag too much at voting for him. Richardson has a few things in his past that make me flinch, plus he's not boring enough, and none of the other boring candidates really have the experience I'd like.

But it's *way*, *way* early, it depends a lot on what use the Democrats make of their Congress, and for the next few months I think I'm just going to stay in the Anyone But Hillary camp, unless something dramatic happens.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

What makes you flinch about Richardson? I'm sufficiently politically naive that I don't know much about him except his campaign press releases, which are pretty attractive to me.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't really know that much about it either, but he was accused of leaking names to the press in that Chinese spy scandal, right? Which, whether it's true or not, wouldn't be the best thing to have on your resume if you're still kicking up dust about the Plame thing. Also I think he was accused of being misleading about his baseball career? Of course, Bush has managed to plow through that sort of minor stuff, but the idea is to be different from the other guys. And just in general, he's pretty closely associated (at least in my head) with the Clinton era, from which they're still managing to throw mud on nearly everybody. But like I said, I'm not as well-informed as I ought to be either. Mostly I just don't like the guy as much as some of the others! He'd probably do okay unless the racism got really, really bad.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I've never voted for Nader. I voted for Cobb the last time and before that I voted for the even wackier party.

A major part of the us green party doesn't support Nader. (me included)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right, Nader ran as Populist last time, didn't he? I think I have minor traumatic amnesia related to that whole election cycle.

Unfortunately most of the local Green candidates in our area have been Nader cronies lately; sufficiently enough that I've never been motivated to look into the (local) Greens any farther. I'll have to see what comes up by next year.