Candidate Review Wednesday: Recap

Six weeks ago, I set out to try to work my way through what candidate I wanted to support this cycle for the presidential nomination. I had a plan. I reviewed the 3 "top tier" candidates in detail. I did a review on Bill Richardson, because I promised my friend Becker. And last week, I finished up with the Final Four. The only one I haven't done is Al Gore. But then, he's not running... or is he?

So where has all this left me? To find out, you'll have to follow me below the fold.

I started with the premise that

There are two top level criteria I am going to use to evaluate the candidates. The first is their ability to win the nomination. The second is their ability to win the general election.

To get to the general, one must first win the nomination, no? I had a list of things I was looking at in the candidates:

• Values projected in the Message
• Stance on issues
• Fundraising ability
• Staff competence
• Primary strategy
• Does this candidate make me feel it?

So I started with Hillary Clinton. I found a lot to like in the values expressed in her speeches. I called her vote for the AUMF in Iraq

The albatross around Hillary's neck

I wondered

Is she doing the right things now regarding Iraq? Is it enough to overcome her initial vote and her continued refusal to admit a mistake?

I noted her strength in fund raising in the first quarter. I also talked about having people around her who had made it all happen before. My biggest concern was her ability to win the general elections, should she win the nomination.

What's changed in the past few weeks? Hillary's performance in the first two debates. She has been the hands down winner in each debate so far. She keeps that up, she just might make a believer out of ...?

Next up was John Edwards. I really liked the values expressed in Edwards speeches. He still has the most detailed policy pieces on the issues of any candidate. He is foursquare for ending the war in Iraq now. Edwards did not match the stunning amounts raised by Clinton or Obama. He did raise enough to continue to execute his plan. And his plan to win the nomination (he's leading the polls in Iowa, still) is a good one. Here's what I wound up saying about Edwards:

John Edwards message and values reaches me. His call for One America, his stance on Iraq, and his ability to clearly communicate his values resonates with me. ... Edwards would be a nominee that I would be excited to support. And best of all, Edwards can win the White House in 2008.

What has changed in the last few weeks? Edwards has stayed mired in third in the national polls. He had a better debate in New Hampshire than he had in South Carolina. I had a personal experience with the Edwards campaign in Florida this weekend. At the Florida Democratic Party's big Jefferson-Jackson weekend, the Edwards campaign didn't look like it could organize its way out of a wet paper bag. They sure didn't have a clue how to organize in Florida. And it showed.

So that leaves Barack Obama from the top tier. I also really liked the values expressed in Obama's speeches. I noted his "somewhat less forthright" stance on Iraq, despite his having initially opposed the war. Obama has not laid out many detailed positions on the issues. However, his values translate pretty well into the stances on issues that he does talk about. Obama raised a ton of money in the first quarter, stunning nearly everybody. He has surrounded himself with some very experienced campaign operatives. At the end, here is what I had to say about Obama:

There is a lot to like about Barack Obama. His message of working together to solve our problems, to turn the page does resonate with me. The values expressed in his speeches are my values. I'm more than a little concerned about his unwillingness to let those values guide him in his current views on Iraq. It concerns me all the more because on other issues, he has not laid out any measure of specificity on how he would proceed. In sum, Senator Obama has not closed the deal with me at this point.

Has anything changed in the last few weeks? Obama has not exactly helped himself in the debates. He is stuck in second behind Clinton nationally. And he has slipped into third in Iowa behind Edwards and Clinton. Obama did show an organizational presence in Florida this weekend. And if anybody wants to see a passionate plea by a surrogate, get hold of the videotape of Congressman Bob Wexler speaking for Obama this weekend.

I did review Bill Richardson. He has the potential to break into the top tier. However, he has not helped himself in either of the debates so far. And his near melt down on Meet the Press did not help him any either.

As stated earlier, I reviewed the Final Four. Enough said about them.

So, where does that leave me. The candidate who I worry most about general election electability (Clinton) seems to be easing some of those fears in me. Some. Not very many, but some. The guy I seemed to like the best (Edwards) is going nowhere fast nationally, but still has a viable plan to win the nomination. He needs to get better organized (and soon) in some other states than Iowa though. Otherwise Iowa could turn out to be a pretty empty victory. Obama seems to have peaked (for now) in the polls. However, there are recent hints he could have another stunning fund raising quarter. That would certainly keep the buzz going awhile. Richardson is still stuck in single digits and the other guys are still nowhere.

Speaking of nowhere, I am nowhere nearer to figuring out which candidate to get behind than I was six weeks ago. Is Al Gore running?

All You Gotta Do is Act Locally

After the 2000 Presidential election debacle in Florida, I did what many of my fellow Floridians did. After I got done slamming my head up against the wall and puking at the sight of Katherine Harris (I still do that, BTW), I started doing some soul searching and some number crunching.

What came out of that was the realization that if we had just been a little smarter, worked just a little harder, we could have changed the course of history. And it was right there in front of us the whole time.

So, below the fold, I'm gonna take you to the big time, all you gotta do is...


Regardless of what we think of it, the final official vote count in Florida for the 2000 Presidential Election had Al Gore losing Florida's then 25 Electoral Votes to George W Bush by 537 votes. After the Supremes sang their final tune, ole Al sang "Turn out the lights, the party's over". And that was all she wrote.

How could this have happened? We had the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. We had hanging and pregnant and dimpled chads. We had the Goper Goon squad led by John Bolton (yeah that John Bolton) beating on the glass at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections office.

But all of that should not have mattered. There are those who say elections are never perfect. The only time we even care about this crap is when the elections are so close. And you know, they're right. Any plan conceived by humans becomes worthless once the opening bell rings. But it didn't have to be that way.

I live in Pinellas County Florida. Pinellas is the western anchor of the infamous I-4 Corridor in Central Florida. It is now the swing County in the swing region in the swing state. I bet my fellow Pinellans didn't get it that we are such swingers. We swung to Al Gore by 10,000 votes, so you'd think we could say we did our part. But that ain't the whole truth. The sad fact is we left 10,023 votes on the table in Pinellas. That is the number of votes rung up by erstwhile Green Party candidate Don Quiote de la Nader. Don Ralph Nader and company can be said, fairly or unfairly to have cost Al Gore the White House.

You could use the John Kerry 2000 Electoral analysis. His answer when asked in early 2003 how her was going to win in the South was an absolute classic. After his jaw stopped tightening up and his face stopped turning red, here's what he said:

If Al Gore had won New Hampshire, he'd be President of the United
States.

The last time I checked, New Hampshire was not even is Southern New England, much less the Southern United States. But that was the way Kerry looked at it. I shoulda, known, I shoulda known. I did work for Bob Graham's abortive campaign, and then sat back as Kerry claimed the nomination. And there wasn't nuthin I could do about it. So, I got on the Kerry Bandwagon and did what I could for him. But we all know how that turned out.

So, here we go into the the nascent stages of the 2008 Presidential campaign cycle. John Edwards and Tom Vilsack have announced. A host of others from Biden to Clinton to Obama and some in between are lined up waiting their turn to jump.What are we going to do this time to make the outcome better?

I tried something in the 2004 cycle. I tried to snake some of those 10,000 Ralph Nader votes back from our Green Party friends. I went to Green Party gatherings and made nice. I listened to what they had to say. I found where where our values overlapped. And I took to heart something that is the Green Party Mantra:

Think Globally and Act Locally

Once that sank in, I think I helped make a difference. And I don't think I'm anything special, or that I did anything all of y'all could have done and probably done better than I did. Ralph Nader was again on the ballot as the Green Party candidate in 2004. My pitch to the Green's was pretty simple. Greens and Dems share most of the same values. Greens could make an impact on the Dems and move the Party in their direction if the got in the game on the side of the Dems. And the clincher was my sig line:

You cain't govern if you cain't win

Did it work? Well, John Kerry lost Pinellas County by 226 votes. But Ralph Nader only got 2,042 votes in Pinellas. Did we pick up an additional 8,000 votes for Kerry? I don't know. I'd like to think so. I know we got some, maybe most.

And all I had to do was act locally.

2007 Que Sera Sera 2nd Quarter Picks

In the 1st Quarter of 2007, we looked ahead to the high (low?) lights coming up to start the New Year.


Now for the 2nd Quarter...


The Major League Baseball season begins. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays lose their first 11 games, but team officials say not to worry, we're just getting started.

The Florida Gators win their second straight NCAA Final Four Championship, beating UCLA in the finals. The Governator pays off his bet with Florida Governor Charlie Crist by sending Maria to Tallahassee to serve as Charlie's First Babe.

The House Government Oversight Committee questions Vice President Dick Cheney under oath in public. The Vice President testifies that he did nothing illegal in his private meetings with energy companies when setting the Bush Administration energy policy. Four oil company executives then testify that Cheney made them funnel ill gotten profits to the Carlyle Group.

The House Judiciary Committee begins investigating Cheney for perjury. Cheney vows never to pull a Spiro Agnew and resign.

No one files their Federal Income Tax return on paper this year. The first ever 100% automated filing season causes communication hubs to crash at 11:55 PM on April 15th. 25 million tax returns are lost when IRS workers try to record their arrival on their touch screen tax review machines. Congress is investigating.

Speaking of touch screen machines, the plaintiffs in the FL-13, the computer ate 18,000 vote lawsuits, reported that the ES&S software they examined turned out to have been riddled with bugs - real bugs - tiny mites who ate holes in the disks that the source code was stored on, creating an 18 1/2 minute gap of what sounded a lot like Alice's Restaurant.

The House Judiciary Committee votes 18-2 to impeach Dick Cheney. Cheney says Sprio Agnew should never have resigned and pledges he will not. "No way I'm going to let them replace me with Tom Tancredo."

US troops mark the half way point in their pull out from Iraq. John McCain wants to send the other half back in a surge to gain control of the Green Zone.

George W Bush tells Iran they have weeks, not months to comply with a 5 month old UN Resolution ordering them to halt uranium enrichment. Iranian President AShmajdbhghfjj or whoever he is, sends a letter to Bill Bennet explaining why Bush's actions are immoral. Bennet responds, "I wouldn't bet on it."

Al Gore wins the Oscar for Best Documentary for his film An Inconvenient Truth. In his acceptance speech Gore thanks George Bush for giving him time off to make the film, and oh, by the way, I'm running for President.