Now that Howard Dean will be the next DNC chair, it is up to the Democratic candidates for president in 2008 to stand up and be counted as Democrats. I am going to start off with the mentality that every candidate must earn my vote between now and 2008. To earn my vote, a candidate must do the most to define themselves before the opposition defines them and draw a clear distinction between themselves and the Bush administration.
In addition, the candidate for President in 2008 must show me that they are a strong leader. George Bush got elected in part because people perceived him as a strong leader. We may know for a fact here that is not the case, but people voted for him saw him that way. I want to see a candidate who will establish visibility on the issues and earn people's respect. I also want someone who, like Yushchenko, will fight for an issue to the death and never give up until they win the fight.
On the issues, I am looking for a candidate who will make the environment one of their top three issues, although I am not a 1-issue candidate on this. I feel that our future as a race depends on how well we tackle the threat of global warming in the 21st century. I am looking for a candidate who "gets it" as far as the extent of the threat is concerned. Down below, I list some of the criteria I will use. This will change as the day draws closer when we finally regain control of the government and right the wrongs of the Bush administration.
Standing up to the President:
I am looking for a candidate who will stand up for themselves and who is not ashamed to be a Democrat. If they run ads with themselves and Bush, they will lose my vote irretrievably come election day. Tom Daschle's lousy decision to do so directly led to his defeat last November. I would rather vote for a 3rd party candidate who will stand up for his values than vote for someone out to appease Rove.
Karl Rove is a bully by nature. He will not be stopped until someone with the guts to stand up to him runs. This is a great opportunity for someone to step up to the plate, like Mohammed Ali. Before Ali won his fight with Sonny Liston, everyone thought Liston was unbeatable. He was a bully who could floor someone with just one punch. When Ali brashly proclaimed that he was the "greatest" and that he would knock out Liston in round 8, nobody gave him a chance. But in the first 6 rounds, he dodged Liston so that the bully never had a shot. In round 7, he began to pummel Liston. Liston, who made his living bullying people, failed to answer the bell for the 8th round even though the judges had the fight even.
Rove makes his living by instilling fear in people. But, when someone comes along who is fearless, Rove will fall like a house of cards. John Kerry was too slow to respond to his SBVT attacks or his flip-flop attacks. The fact that he hesitated so long meant that these attacks were given much more credibility than they deserved. He waited too long to respond to the flip-flop attacks as well. Only when the situation became desperate right before the first debate did he finally explain his position on the Iraq War.
And when Kerry did finally define his position on the Iraq War, his plan was not different enough from Bush's plan. That is why when Kerry proposed his plan during the debate, Bush could smirk and say, "Why, I recognize that plan! That's because it's the Bush plan!" That took away what could have been Kerry's strongest weapon. Not very many people supported the war, but they failed to see why Kerry would be different. So, for them, it didn't make sense to change horses in midstream when Bush's and Kerry's plans were the same.
That was the reason I voted for Kucinich in the primary. I initially leaned towards Howard Dean. However, his and everybody else's plans were not much different than each other's or Bush's. Kucinich would have left Iraq immediately and persuaded the UN to enter Iraq and take over peacekeeping duties there. His plan was a clear distinction from Bush's plan to stay the course.
Now that the election is over, I will use a different set of criteria to determine whether or not a candidate is standing up to the President. Right now, the criteria are:
- Gonzalez nomination: Gonzalez was the person who drafted the memo allowing the President to suspend laws or authorize torture. He has not repudiated this memo. A vote for Gonzalez was a vote for torture and an attempt to appease Rove. A vote against Gonzalez was a vote for decency.
- Social Security: A vote for Bush's plan will be a vote against our elderly people. Such a vote is support for a return to the past when people didn't care whether you were dead or alive after 70. Any Democrat who supports such a plan cares more about either appeasing Bush or attempting to sound independent and bipartisan than they do about our elderly.
- The Homeland Security Act: A vote for Bush's plan to allow Homeland Security to suspend all laws as they see fit, not subject to judicial review, will be a vote to end our American way of life as we know it. A person voting for such a plan opposes our American freedoms and values that our men fought and died for throughout history. Even if the bill is narrowly limited to border security, it will set a dangerous new precedent allowing the PNAC wing of the Republican Party to pass other such laws.
- Right-wing judges: The Roy Moore/James Dobson wing of the Republican Party is trying to gut our Constitution and turn our country into a theocratic Christian state through persuading Bush to appoint judges who will end Roe vs. Wade, promote discrimination against the GLBT community, and look the other way on school prayer. A vote to confirm such judges is a vote against our Founding Fathers who created a state without an official religion to avoid the factionalism in England where people consigned each other to hell because they were in a different denomination.
- An Iraqi exit strategy: The PNAC wing of the Republican Party wants to use Iraq as a jumping-off point to invade Iran and/or Syria. The Bush administration refuses to offer a direct and specific exit plan for Iraq. A candidate who supports the Bush policy for fear of being labeled an America Hater is damaging our national security because Bush's war has turned Iraq into a prime recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda. The candidate who develops the most intelligent and specific exit strategy that is the most distinct from the Bush Plan will go a long ways towards winning my vote. A candidate who blindly goes along with the war and fails to offer a viable exit strategy will not even get my vote in the general election.
Leadership skills:
A president must be a strong leader. In 1984, people agreed with Mondale much more than they did with Reagan on the issues. However, they voted for Reagan because they saw him as a much stronger leader than Mondale was. Bush's leadership rating from the people was much higher than Kerry's. The media tends to put leadership with other categories, leaving people with the misleading impression that it is an equal factor with, say, the issues. However, I think leadership is one of the most important factors people take into account when voting for a President.
When he first ran in 2000, Bush constantly harped on his leadership skills. His mantra, like a broken record, was, "They have not led! We will!" As a result, supporters have perceived him as a strong leader even though we know that not to be the case. People choose leadership skills over issues all the time. All of us know the type of person who says, "That SOB George is wrong on Iraq, wrong on Social Security, wrong on everything, but by God, he can sure lead this country!" We need a candidate who can win by showing these skills.
- A firm stance on the issues: We need a candidate who can develop a firm stance on issues and values and stick to them. John Kerry's problem was that he made unfortunate remarks such as, "I supported the bill before I opposed it." He needed to articulate a clear set of values which he could use to articulate policy positions. If we have people saying, "I hate Bush, I hate the War in Iraq, but I'll be damned if I ever vote for that flip-flopping a--hole Kerry," then we're screwed. Harry Reid is a master of using his Mormon faith to articulate a clear set of values as a Democrat. That is why he has won our respect here despite being conservative on many of the issues. We need a candidate who will do so to win in 2008.
- Someone who can win respect: A teacher asked one of my friends what she would do for someone she respected a lot as a coach. She replied, "anything." To John Kerry's credit, everyone who served with him in Vietnam had that kind of respect for him. This gave him a chance to win in November. This kind of respect that these men had for Kerry, first shown in Iowa's primary, was what convinced people that John Kerry was the most electable candidate.
- Someone who is good on TV: People who have low education levels or who don't study the issues will not vote on issues. Instead, they will employ the beer-drinking test: I will vote for the guy who I can have a beer with. The Beer-drinking test was, in my theory, why Bush carried rural counties by such huge margins. Bush understood this phenomenon and that is why he presented himself the way he did on TV. Having been a beer-drinker in the past, he knew exactly how to come across to the people he knew he had to win over.
- Someone who can ensure loyalty: Bob Holden, our late governor, was a perfect example of a person who could not inspire loyalty in his troops. He had as many vetoes overridden in his tenure as governor of Missouri as all the other governors in the history of the state did combined. Missouri does not have a 2/3 majority in the state, which means Democrats crossed lines regularly to override the governor's vetoes. Kevin Shelley, the California Secretary of State, was another such person. At the end, many Democrats were calling for his scalp. Even if he is innocent of all the charges thrown against him, the fact was that nobody respected him for whatever reason. He could no longer do his job effectively as Secretary of State.
- Someone who will listen to people: This was one of John Kerry's strengths in the last election. He began his comeback after a 1 ½ hour conversation with Clinton. After this conversation, he brought in some of Clinton's people. After that, his campaign did a much better job of responding to attacks and staying on message than it had before.
- Visibility: I can have the greatest ideas in the world, but if I do not use my platform to express my views, nobody will listen to me. Barbara Boxer won our respect here because she has made herself visible on such issues as the Ohio election and the Rice and Gonzalez nominations. She succeeded in generating such a buzz for her views that some Draft Boxer groups have sprung up on the Internet. I think she has an outside chance to win if she can continue to maintain this visibility and we can get one of the West Coast states' primaries to become one of the first in the nation.
The Environment:
This will become one of the most important issues in the 21st century. Our survival is at stake. If we, as a country, do not reduce our use of pollution starting with ending the Iraq War and coming up with a plan to eliminate our dependence on oil within 20 years, the earth will war up so much that the Polar Ice Caps will melt and enough methane gas will be released into the atmosphere to warm the globe up by over 10 degrees centigrade within 50-100 years. We have a matter of a few decades to bring our pollution under control before the earth will warm up so fast that eventually, we will no longer be able to breathe the air because there is so much carbon dioxide and methane gas in the air. The candidate who best understands this danger and what to do about it will go a long way towards earning my vote in 2008.
If a PNAC candidate gets elected in 2008, this apocalyptic scenario becomes more and more likely. They will start numerous limited conflicts across the globe to monopolize the world's oil supplies. They will eliminate Social Security and other government programs so they can get money to finance these wars. All the US technological development would be channeled not towards the betterment of the world, but to developing new weapons systems to fuel these wars and protect our oil supplies.
An ignorant public fed with creationist scenarios is in the PNAC's best interest. The religious right can take over our public schools and teach creationism to our children. That way, our new generation will never realize the danger of pollution, our dwindling oil supplies, and basic scientific facts which could have led to the construction of solar plants until it is too late.
- Coming up with a plan to end our oil consumption ASAP: We need a candidate who will develop a plan to end our dependence on foreign oil and create millions of new jobs at home by developing a plan to convert to alternative energy. It could be wind power, solar power, hydrogen power, or anything else. But this is necessary because people will question the need for the War if they see that it is possible for us to create a better society without oil.
- Joining the Kyoto Accord: This is an agreement among almost all the world's countries except our own to reduce pollution. Currently, it has no clout because the US has not signed on. Our reckless administration thinks that rules that apply to other people somehow should not apply to us. We are currently the world's largest polluter even though China has several times as many people as we do.
- Promotion of Science and Technology: I will support the candidate who does the most to promote science and technology. The Bush administration has consistently gone against the findings of science. We need a candidate who will use their office as a bully pulpit for the promotion of the study of science by lay people as well as PhD's. Some otherwise progressive people feel that there is no danger to the world ending to pollution because of our advances in technology. However, I contend that if the religious right is allowed to gain control of our schools through the appointment of extremist judges to the Supreme Court, our next generation will grow up without the critical thinking skills and inquiring minds necessary to produce scientists.
- Alternative-fueled cars: The development of high-MPG cars is a must. The technology to build 50-MPG SUV's already exists. However, we need to fund research and development for cars that are both cheaper and produce high mileage. The next step from that is the development of electric, hydrogen, and solar-powered cars. Such cars already exist, but can only be driven short distances. The first person who finds a way to drive an alternative car for long distances and just as conveniently and cheaply as regular cars will become a billionaire.
- Stopping rainforest depletion: Humans are cutting millions and millions of acres as I write this in the name of "economic development." Part of the reason our climate was so self-sustaining for thousands of years was our rainforests. We need a candidate for president who will target these companies and expose them as valuing profits before principles. We need someone with investigative skills similar to John Kerry's to take on these companies despite anything their fellow Democrats say to them. And they need to stand on that record, not run from it like Kerry did last election.