Since we can dismiss out of hand the idea of Clinton as the nominee, who is going to be the Democratic nominee if not Obama? (In fact, any serious white challenge would provoke race riots; that is just the way it is.) And whom would the Republican grass roots tolerate as the nominee if not Palin?
So there you have it: the 2012 contest. A man who knows all about the wider world, and therefore wants to keep out of it. And a woman who knows nothing about the wider world, and therefore wants to keep out of it. Either way, a President eschewing foreign entanglements.
A worthy successor to Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Bush the Elder, and even Bush the Younger when he withdrew American troops from Saudi Arabia, the only conservative thing that he ever did. A once-and-for-all break with everything else that Dubya did, all of which Clinton either would have done or did in fact do. The tragic lost years of 1993 to 2009 finally put into the past.
Palin would be an awful President. But that isn’t going to happen. And even if it did, she wouldn’t be an absolutely horrendous one like the politically indistinguishable Clinton and Dubya. She’s stupid. But she’s not wicked, like Clinton. Nor is she stupid and wicked at the same time, like Dubya, or Tony Blair.
Unlike the neocons, Palin spent the Clinton years campaigning for what are contemptuously dismissed as “protectionism”, “isolationism” and “nativism”, as well as traditional family values. More recent events have proved that those for whom she was campaigning were essentially correct while the neocons, intellectuals in their own right, were spectacularly wrong.
Obama, of course, also opposed all the “free” trade rubbish and the wars. His black base is as strongly committed as anyone to proper immigration controls and to English as the national language. And like that base, he, too, defines marriage as only ever the union of one man and one woman, as well as supporting a highly proactive abortion reduction measure currently before Congress thanks to a Democratic Senator who endorsed him against Hillary.
Roll on 2012.
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However, Palin dropped all her Buchananism as soon as McCain's neocons built her up. The most socially liberal of those now trash her, but the ultra-Zionist warmongers still defend her. She is only used to bring the nationalist Right back on board with the failed policies of Bush.
ReplyDeleteAnd Obama's anti-NAFTA soundings were all obviously disingenuous. Look at his economic advisors! Even Clinton at least had Robert Reich at the Dept of Labor. Obama is just as neoliberal as any of them. His black base means relatively little...the Cong. Black Caucus is not enthusiastically pro-free trade, but it provided lots of the votes that won NAFTA and GATT... because many of its members are the first to sell their votes for favours. And there are not many industrial jobs in the inner-cities anyway.
What the Democrats really need, David, is a candidate in the primaries from the Midwestern Catholic labour faction (that is close to 20% of its Cong Caucus) or a real conservative Southern Democrat (who would usually be protectionist). Any such credible candidate is guaranteed a quarter of the vote.
Marcy Kaptur? STUPAK???
Stupak for Veep? After all, McGovern had Shriver.
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