I unfortunately have come to this conclusion because I am coming to a firm belief that the most corrupt candidate will win. The most corrupt candidate champions the most insider business, drug, and political donations, has access to the now well oiled Bush - Cheney election manipulation machine, both political troops and software. He will have access to those who swiftboat, and will use them.
He will be able to buy FOX News, and will mount the appropriate propaganda campaign. He will buy the begrudging endorsement of the religious right's corrupt power preachers, they themselves full of avarice and greed.
He will inherit the domination that Cheney wields over the print media, keeping them as whimpering dogs that roll over and urinate at the slightest show of a challenge by the alpha male.
He will be able to manage the world of terrorism, creating terror and terrorists like Cheney - Bush has.
Is there a candidate that can overcome and challenge this flow of power?
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Can Hillary? Is she corrupt enough to compete?
She has her own extensive network of corruption. She has the Democratic power network, east coast establishment business. Her problem is, and I give her credit for this, she is just a little too nice. She is indeed corrupt, but just not as profoundly corrupt as Giuliani. She won't be willing to have people arrested and jailed in solitary as Bush-Quayle did. She doesn't have the drug or terror connections Giuliani has. I pick her to finish second.
Does another GOPer have the power of deep corruption?
Tancredo - Idiot Bigot
Thompson - Regan without the backing of the powerful
McCain - His experience as a soldier and POW make him too sincere, and he consequently never has developed the cold blooded avarice necessary to win.
Romney - Now he is avaricious, greedy and rich, but his religion will undo him and he doesn't have the ability to go for the throat.
Huckabee - now here is an interesting case. Certainly corrupt in his religion, able to take stabs at his opponents, (Romney now, Giuliani later). Again, being a provincial Governor leaves him short of the access to huge amounts of terror and drug money. His network can't manipulate national elections, Giuliani’s can.
The rest of the Dems?
Obama? Way short of the corruption levels of Giuliani, but hey he’s from Chicago and that's a great start.
I like Edwards, Obama, or even Richardson or Dodd, any one of them would be a vastly better president than Bush, but I can't see them overcoming Hillary to make the final.
I bet a dinner for 4 that if Clinton won the primary, she would be president, but I find her just not quite corrupt enough.
Call me cynical, but this begs the question, can the Democratic Party's renaissance helped in large part by the left overcome Giuliani? I sincerely hope so, but last weekend changed my mind.
I went on a Webelos campout last weekend. In the afternoon when all the dads were jawboning, they started to ask me about Romney, I apparently was the only liberal there, and then the den leader came up and sat down. When he heard our conversation, he stopped and yelled "are you a liberal?" "Life's too short to talk to the likes of you, the people that have brought this county to ruination." He got up packed up his chair and walked off. "Liberal" was uttered with the same vehemence that "Nigger" would have been said of an African American passing for white 60 years ago. He didn't talk to me or my 10 year old son for the rest of the trip.
That was bad enough, but the worse part is that all of the other dads just let it go by. I know I was on my own during the conversation, but they just let his outburst pass by without comment other than "that's just Chris". The other kicker was when they referred to the press as Liberal. They also wanted to know if Romney would have the guts to go to war, (read can Romney go shoot and bomb poor people without compunction if it will help us not be scared and get our rich people richer?) I told them he was. I know, I’m a Mormon too.
The point of this whole thing is that I now doubt that there are enough Americans that have woken up to all the bullshit crap that goes on, and the majority of people will swallow a load again and go on loving it, thinking abuse is really love, and if they continue to swallow, somehow Giuliani might someday bring home roses when all he will bring home is more disease and death, a political HIV. They cannot see through the corruption clearly enough to go vote for freedom. WE cannot see to throw out all the corrupt bastards from the Democratic Party.
So to tie it all together, I don’t think we are there yet. Giuliani wins next year. However I have hope. Hope in my son, hope in your children, hope in a 2012 Gore campaign. Webelos has shown me that we still have a tremendous amount of work to do before the ebb tide of Democracy shifts and shoots up a tidal bore of freedom up the Potomac.
Please tell me I am wrong. Better yet, prove to me that I am wrong.