I support Obama (and voted for him in the recent Democrats Abroad primary);
but one thing I'm worried about is Obama's willingness to migrate the Iraq
war to Afghanistan.
Here in Canada we're more familiar with it because the Canadian Forces
have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the combat-plagued south,
and Parliament is about to extend Canadian participation till 2011.
From what I've been hearing, the socio-political-military situation in
Afghanistan is getting ever worse. Seeing that as the right war at the right
place at the right time, Obama could wind up with an LBJ-type situation,
in which a strong Administration start is ruined by another Vietnam. Those
ever-lovin' Afghans have historically given the Brits and Russians an awful
lot of grief. Is Obama next?
PS: It's those darn liberal-change Democrats that have gotten us into all
the major wars: Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ. (While Hillary voted for Iraq,
oddly enough Bill is the exception to the preceding list--and he
should have done something about Rwanda, a la strong UN peacekeeping. Carter
has a mixed record: Nobel Peace prize for Israel-Egypt; but he, with Obama-adviser
Brzezinski, set the stage for the Afghanistan quagmire and all its blowback,
right up to 9-11.)
Which is why I contributed to Dennis Kucinich: in this historical era,
when has one ever heard a presidential candidate —Kucinich! — make a central
campaign thesis about renouncing war as an instrument of policy?
(Well, MacArthur did it for Japan's Constitution, but successive US administrations
have tried to reverse that ever since. As well, nowadays the US is trying
to coax Germany to join the Afghanistan War big time.)
2006-08-18
6) Chester Bowles: A Liberal's Quotation on
Prophecy
Chester Bowles (1901-1986) was a prominent Democratic liberal. Connecticut
Governor and later Congressman, plus Ambassador to India for both Truman
and Kennedy. His 1959 book, The Coming Political Breakthrough, heralded
a liberal-Democratic victory in 1960, and it was Bowles who engineered
a remarkably liberal Democratic platform at the 1960 Convention.*
The book itself is a period piece of conventional-wisdom cold-war liberalism;
but there is one passage in it which has always stood out in my mind: his
description of prophecy:
It seeks the stern alternatives of the age and defines what
they are. It brings the individual electrifyingly close to those alternatives.
It tells him that if one alternative is embraced as a guide for action,
the result will be this; while if it is rejected, the result will be that.
Nowhere does it say that the future, for good or ill, has already been
sealed and placed out of reach beyond further alteration.
Instead it proclaims that if the alternatives are bravely confronted,
if enough of the best of human reason and will power are brought to bear
on them, there may be a fresh beginning.
Two words: global warming.
Two more words: Al Gore.
* As things turned out, Bowles
was a tad too liberal for the Kennedys, they gave him a second-tier appointment
as Undersecretary of State. After Bowles objected to the Bay of Pigs invasion
in 1961, he was chewed out by Bobby and shunted off to India again. Quotation is from p. 116 of the 1960 Ballantine edition, which
also has the platform text.
2006-08-03
5) Call for Anchors' Revolt Against HeadOn
Ads
OPEN LETTER TO WOLF BLITZER ET AL:
The wretched HeadOn commercials are the spam of the airwaves. They pollute
CNN, and degrade you by association. I urge all CNN / MSNBC anchors to launch
a revolt against HeadOn, by issuing a daily on-air apology until these ads
and their ilk are eliminated.
(Consumer boycott would be ineffective; and cynical commentators laud
those ads as so-bad-they-are-good. No matter. Responsible TV news anchors
have a public duty not to be allied to such a ceaseless assault on common
civility.)
Sincerely,
Gene Keyes
Berwick, NS, Canada
More information about this current outbreak of air pollution:
Earlier I reiterated the notion that the best presidential candidate
would not "run" for the office, but be receptive to a draft, e.g., Gore.
Now let me reverse that proposition in regard to the vice-presidency. Let
the veepstakes begin.
Traditionally, candidates loudly shun any thought that they'd be #2.
But once the top slot is filled, there is a brief scramble to be running
mate, albeit totally at the whim of #1. The vice-presidency is demeaned
because, (a) it is despised by the main runners, and (b) it is an undemocratic
prerogative of the presidential candidate.
Some recent exceptions to this pattern could also be a trivia question:
"Who has actually run for Vice President prior to selection?" At least five:
1956: Adlai Stevenson threw the choice over the Democratic Convention;
John F. Kennedy Jr. and Estes Kefauver contested; Kefauver barely won.
1972: Alaska Democratic Senator Mike Gravel nominated himself for VP
(and might have saved McGovern from the Eagleton fiasco...) (Gravel is
now the first declared 2008 presidential candidate.)
1976: Before the Republican Convention, Ronald Reagan announced that
moderate Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker would be his running mate,
and they did some joint campaigning.
1992: Former Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody, Democrat, ran a
declared campaign for the vice presidency.
These instances suggest several possibilities:
1) That the national convention, not the presidential candidate, choose
the VP;
or 2) That the presidential candidate propose several names for the Convention
to choose among;
[Those two ideas might restore some interest to the convention--if indeed
that is to be desired.]
or 3) That any presidential candidate not scorn the vice-presidency,
but evince willingness to serve in either office;
or 4) That one or more teams offer themselves as a presidential / vice-presidential
ticket in the pre-convention period;
[All these ideas are applicable to anyone running. In a Draft-Gore context,
one could imagine, say, a Richardson or Murtha or Feingold or whoever,
having some kind of nod from non-candidate Gore, would be Gore's principal
champion, and already on the bumper-sticker.]
or 5) That the presidential candidate present his/her cabinet choices
in advance of the convention and election. The team would already be in place,
and further add to the campaign repertoire.
2006-06-07
3) Draft-Gore '08: A Front-Porch
Campaign in Cyberspace?
In 1896 William Jennings Bryan set the modern presidential
campaign style by traveling all over the country, while victor William
McKinley ran a so-called "front-porch" campaign, remaining at his residence
to receive delegations. I'd have preferred Bryan to win, but I think McKinley
may have had it right in terms of how to run for president.
Nowadays there is so much frenetic racing from place to place (reaching
its zenith when Nixon strove for all 50 states in 1960). Why couldn't a modern
candidate remain in one central location (or perhaps four regional locales
for 2-3 weeks each, E-W-N-S). And of course, in the Internet Age, there
is plenty of opportunity for video conferencing, online events, publicized
"front-porch" or "at home" meetings with citizenry (selected by lot, their
travel paid for), calm discussions and roundtables with experts, interest
groups, journalists, supporters, non-supporters, even opponents, etc.
One could still add the occasional photo-op at a melting glacier, a
very few traditional huge rallies, even a whistle-stop train for old time's
sake. But most of the road-show burden and trappings would be avoided.
Much more of such a campaign's public face would be articulate advocates,
and the volunteer corps.
I am speaking here of a "non-candidate" already somehow drafted and
nominated, and now "non-running" for president. These notions could be
adapted for a non-candidacy in the caucus and primary stages.
A "search committee" (and/or high-profile promoter team) would have
to do the pre-nomination heavy lifting, with at least some winks & nods
from the no-plans-to-run candidate. The theme would be: the job seeks the
person. Or to put it another way: back by popular demand.
2006-06-06
2) A Sherman Variant: "If nominated
I won't run, but if elected I'll serve."
Could a Sherman statement be re-worked as above?
In that sense, a presidential campaign would be a bit akin to an election
to the papacy. One does not strive to be pope, but "papabili" do make themselves
available.
A "non-candidate" like Al Gore would carry on as usual--global warming,
the occasional barn-burner against presidential excesses--but not be immersed
in a campaign pressure cooker, nor subject to neutering by consultants.
There would still be a full-scale volunteer-&-professional apparatus
doing the 50-state campaign intricacies, but pretty much at arms-length
from the candidate. And even such a semi-Sherman statement would enable
Gore to participate in candidate debates if he so chose, as one of the few
signs of availability: dragged into the debate, so to speak.
In that sense, one would not "run", as in the hurly-burly of gladhanding
and campaign travel, but would be assembling a publicly visible "government
in waiting".
One of the greatest speeches I ever heard was by Senator Eugene McCarthy
nominating Adlai Stevenson at the July 1960 Democratic National Convention.
(I was an 18-year-old foot soldier in the draft-Stevenson campaign, because
he was more the "peace" candidate as compared to saber-rattling JFK.)
The recent buzz about drafting Al Gore for president in 2008, as likened
to Nixon's 1960 > 1968 comeback, brought to mind another 1960 comparison:
Stevenson's reluctance to run that year after prior losses to Ike. And
some of Gene McCarthy's 1960 themes now re-echo in my mind.
I could not find a Web version of McCarthy's oration, so I am posting
a jpeg of the New York Times'
text. (1960-07-14, p. 16.) I should have just re-typed it; doing a
paste-up and scan of the clipping was quite a job.
Of course, the print version doesn't have 1/100th of the original's oomph;
you'd have to have been hearing it real-time to know the thunderclap of
McCarthy's challenge, "let this go to a second ballot"! And all his other
punchlines.
While in retrospect a lot of the speech is but poetic rhetoric, a couple
of passages remained with me from then till now:
"And I say to you that the time has come to
raise again the cry of the ancient prophet. And what did he say? He said
the prophets prophesy falsely. And the high priests, he said, rule by their
words. And my people love to have it so. But what will be the end thereof?"
(At the time, I had to look up just who that prophet
was: it's Jeremiah.)
"I say to you the political prophets have prophesied
falsely in these eight years. And the high priests of Government have ruled
by that false prophecy. And the people seemed to have loved it so.
"But there was one man--there was one man who did not prophesy falsely..."
(Fast forward to McCarthy himself, '68; or Gore '08...)
And then there was this, uttered in context of JFK's ruthless quest for
the presidency and Adlai's reticence:
"power often comes to those who seek it.
But history does not prove that power is always well used by those who seek
it.
"On the contrary, the whole history of democratic politics is to this
end, that power is best exercised by those who are sought out by the people..."
I suspect that's more a poetic truth than a constant
one, but it's worth keeping in mind. (When McCarthy himself was chided for
his post-'68 presidential campaigns, he responded that he was "willing" to
be president, not that he "wanted" to be.)
Now that Gore is no longer seeking power, he certainly merits a draft.
For a recent appraisal, see David Kusnet,"McCarthy's Brilliant,
Prophetic, Problematic Speech", New Republic Online, 2005-12-12. (Google's
link works, but not if copied to here.)