Obama's campaign announed that he was going to take Hillary on. He was going to come out swinging and show the differences between him and her. Paul Krugman said yesterday that if it was machismo he was looking for, Social Security aint it. Krugman said it was not even in the top ten of really important scary issues. So does he not want to differentiate or can't he differentiate?

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at October 29, 2007 4:02 PM in response to The Death of Conservative Economic Policy: Part II

Think of John Edwards as president and you have your answer. He just received the endorsement of Friends of the Earth and he won the moveon.org vote on who had the best environmental plan. His good work on the environment gave him good grades from the League of Conservation Voters. Edwards record 
So with Edwards as President, he will implement Gore's ideas and because he is the "labor" president, he will start to bring back manufacturing jobs and stop the pollution caused by shipping all our stuff from China. The big big picture guy is Edwards.

A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at October 14, 2007 5:11 AM in response to Who Will Own the Climate Change Franchise? The Clintons or Al Gore?

“Now, if we don’t blow it, there’s a new center of gravity coming into American politics—not a flabby center of splitting differences, not a blah-blah of bipartisanship, but a new story and replenished values.”

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at September 3, 2007 10:04 AM in response to The Bulldozer and the Big Tent

That's not how I remember it. We were freaking out about Reagan, but then I was living in NYC. Recessions, AIDS, fear of Reagan nuking Russia, junk bond kings, lousy economy, Iran Contra...
The country was just as divided as ever, but the Democratic Party was in full retreat. We had a chance in 1988 with Jesse Jackson, but blew it again. People seem to forget that Jesse won 11 primaries and he didn't run to on getting along with Republicans, he ran on a new coalition, a rainbow coalition of outsiders. DNC. I want to scare them again. Obama's not the guy to do it.

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at August 16, 2007 2:19 PM in response to United We Sit

I agree with you, Max, about the uniter b.s. I understand that all candidates running for the presidency of the U.S. have to have pretty strong egos and a sense of a power of persuasion. But Obama's campaign, like Clinton's, is a campaign of personality. "I'm " better at uniting. "I'm your girl." One of Kerry's big mistakes was making his campaign about himself, "The Real Deal". The time has come to fire the consultants who are pushing this personality appeal. The time for policy and plans is here. The time for a campaign that is bigger than the candidate. It's not about process aka being nicer to each other. It's about taking 30 years of failed economic policy and totally reversing course. That's the Edwards campaign. It's about taking the power away from corporations and their lackeys. It's about rewarding work over wealth for a change.

Obama is believing his own PR waaaay too much. You don't sit down with these guys and give things away. You lead. Don't sit down. To the barricades. Cut to the Revolution.

Montana Maven
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at August 15, 2007 4:38 PM in response to United We Sit

You don't agree with the idea that Congress should have sent the bill with timelines back again and again and let the enfant terrible veto it again and again? That's not a cheap position.
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation intemper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at June 21, 2007 3:46 PM in response to I Could Vote for Bloomberg

What are those messages? Obama wants to make politics nicer. He wants to "turn the page". Laudable, but how does one do that? We need more urgency than this. That's why I'm going with Edwards. He's got both the clarity and the conviction. Poverty keeps him "up at night". Both here and around the world. He's got clear policy ideas to get this country back on track and get us out of Iraq. This is what he just said at Cooper Union:

"And you should not be president if you do not
acknowledge the divisions that threaten our economy,
our society and our soul."

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation intemper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at June 21, 2007 3:31 PM in response to I Could Vote for Bloomberg

Wicked smart is my criteria too. Quick on his feet and hardwired for justice. That's John Edwards.
He wants to change the whole conversation about how we look at the world. He wants us to "be patriotic about something other than war." Don't tell anybody, but he's no longer a hawk.

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation intemper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at June 21, 2007 2:53 PM in response to I Could Vote for Bloomberg

Imagine, Edwards was on Gore's short list for VP. What a pair they would have been. And Edwards would be our next PResident after Gore. This is a huge defining issue. Only visionaries get it. I don't see either Clinton or Obama holding back the telecoms. Edwards gets it.
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation intemper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

Posted at May 31, 2007 3:40 PM in response to John Edwards and... spectrum?

It seems that we need a new definition or to revisit our concept of "thugs". Union thugs and corporate thugs are one in the same. Some have blue collars and some have white collars. The Bush Adminitration are thugs. They operate like the Soprano family. Thugs are thugs. Nathan is stating the obvious to some of us. But it is a statement that must be made over and over again. The whole patriarchy deal is bad for everybody. But the opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy, it's democracy. When we finally move away from a dominator society, we won't need posts like this anymore.

"Loyalty to your country always; Loyalty to your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain

Posted at March 8, 2007 7:31 AM in response to Myth of Union Corruption