Caucusuckers

So, Iowa voters, Yuck-Habee and Mr. Hussein? That's what you're coming back to me with? Have you all gone cookoo? If you want change so bad, why not just overthrow government and pick a Marylin Manson as our head of state? "Change" is such an overplayed theme in this campaign season. Since we have a lame duck president, ANY candidate will be a change. But the question that should be tackled is not whether the next candidate is going to preserve the status quo or be different than Dubya. It should be who will make the most change for the better!

Huckabee is basically a socially conservative Republican with a Fair Tax agenda. As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I do not currently support the Fair Tax. It seems regressive and may spoil the current economy. As for social conservatism, I have too much to say about it so I will simply note my disdain towards the Marriage Protection agenda. I have issues with the death sentence, pro-life arguments and gun ownership rights, but with all of those there are complex issues. Marriage Protection is simple bigotry. I couldn't possibly endorse such a candidate with good conscience.

Obama's message is that he is not as much of a Washington insider as Clinton. He is different simply because his husband was not in the White House already and because he has not served in the Federal government as long. On issues, Barack and Hillary fall millimeters from each other. But importantly, Hillary comes off a realist whereas Barack seems a bit more ideological - for me, that's not a positive. Sure, you want idealists to serve your country and strive for major changes to improve the lives of all. But without a mix of realism, ideologues can really screw things up. History is filled with great examples - Hitler being the most compelling of this line of argument. I am not comparing Obama to Hitler. That would be a shameless and groundless tactic that can mess with people's good judgments. Promising unrealistic solutions is simply not appealing to me in a candidate. It makes Obama come across as naive. His campaign motif also seems disingenuous - Obama may not be a Washington insider (he's only been there a couple of years), but he was a political insider in Illinois where he served as a state legislator. His politicking there does not appear to deviate much from the vanilla politicking that goes on everywhere for better or worse. So, in summary, Obama comes off as a naive liar. Edwards, an even bigger ideologue is a no-no for the same reasons.

One of the saddest results of the Democratic Iowa Caucus is that Biden was completely ignored and the general weeding out (Dodd dropped out, too; Kucinich will get no press) will now not give a chance for other primary voters to have a say about the upper tier selection of the Democratic candidates. If the first primary/caucus is so important in narrowing the field, shouldn't it be done in a more representative state (except Florida and Texas - that would be a sin...)?

Anyways, if there is one thing you should remember from this read is that Obama is no Hitler...