Hi Michael. I think Chuck Hagel has been the most courageous senator on the Iraq war issue and I believe that he's "gotten it" from the beginning.
For that very reason I suspect he has no chance of winning the votes of the vast majority of Republican primary voters who continue to support Bush on the war in Iraq.
But if he were to secure the nomination I'd vote for him rather than Clinton.
I don't think much of Edwards. His "from the heart" earnest demeanor is too syrupy for my taste and I don't see flashes of brilliance in him. How long can you ride a single theme repeating the same phrases over and over as though someone burned them into your brain? And then too, remember that he either didn't see Iraq coming or decided for political reasons that he wouldn't oppose it. I still remember the debates when he was "for" the war and I won't forgive that stupidity or deceit.
Hillary Clinton fails my most critical test because I suspect she actually leaned for the war. She's accused of opportunism in voting for to allow Bush to decide to go to war but I believe she's much more hawkish than most think and, in any event, I don't think she's electable.
I'd like to see someone like Obama who can think for himself, has the ability to both solve problems and avoid them, and who would make an amazing ambassador for America. The downside is that he hasn't been around long enough to have gathered a tried and tested support team, and the presidency isn't a one-man undertaking. If I thought he'd pull Bill Clinton into his cabinet I'd be much more comfortable with him but if the Democrats have a bruising primary and Hillary doesn't end up as his running mate I can't see that happening.
Richardson is a nice guy but this is a time in American history where we need more than a nice guy and I haven't seen that from him, at least not yet.
I like a lot of things about McCain but his thinking ability was warped by years of brutal captivity. He seems to think that the only way to deal with a serious threat is to hunker down and fight to the finish, no matter what the cost.
Despite what the press is reporting about his admittedly fawning campaign to secure funding and primary votes, I think he is a man of strong principle and that scares me. If we were facing the nuclear kind of threat that we faced in the cold war we wouldn't even be considering a man with the stated views of McCain, he's just too trigger happy and too committed to military solutions.
I don't know much about Rudy Juliani but I wasn't too impressed when the guy he'd pushed for the head of Homeland Security turned out to be a complete moral and intellectual bust. He'd worked closely with that guy in New York and he had to know who he was dealing with. That left an impression on me.
So my choice would be candidate with the experience of Hillary, the charisma and intellect of Obama, the decency of Richardson, the integrity of McCain, the toughness of Juliani, the understanding of the limits of military power and the compassion for our soldiers of Chuck Hagel and the two cute kids of Edwards.
But I'll have to vote for someone real and right now my top two choices would be Chuck Hagel and Obama. My bottom two would be McCain and Juliani, with Cinton not too far ahead of them.
How about you? Ed |
