H -°, L 23° | Tomorrow: 
H 23°, L 9°Something is wrong in the search for the next president of
the United States. The contest for the next Oval Office resident began
surprisingly early; however, very few quality candidates are catching the
attention of the American public. This is not to claim a lack of potentially
effective leaders, but they are being ignored, chastised and ridiculed. The
problem here is that the ones who deserve our most emphatic rejection, whose
candidacies should bring about nothing but humiliation, are being thrust upon
us, while others are being hidden from view.
While seemingly shortsighted, it is clear that the
Republican Party leads the way in rejectable candidates, and all must be
dismissed as viable commanders in chief. The current frontrunner is a cross-dressing
quasi-conservative whose résumé includes one mayor's post and a state attorney general
position, a man who has been through two divorces, has an estranged
relationship with a son and a daughter and yet has the audacity to run in the
party of "family values." Rudy Giuliani, who holds several liberal positions
from stances such as gun control and abortion, should be an embarrassment to
the Republican Party. Pat Robertson's endorsement should be the pudding on the
cake for the impracticality of putting this man anywhere near the White House.
The rest of the candidates in the GOP field don't deserve
much consideration either. The supposed party of law and order seems to be so
brainwashed by that notion that it feels a character from "Law & Order"
should be its next president. Fred Thompson's minimal experience of two Senate
terms and his laughable stuttering performances at the primary debates
demonstrate that this man works best when given the opportunity for "take two."
Turning to the Democratic side, we are exposed to a lengthy
list of men and a woman who are potentially qualified to become our next president.
However, we run into a major problem: Most people don't know who they are.
Before brushing this idea away, understand that the candidates I speak of are
not the ones you hear from every day.
We seem to be so enthralled by one-on-one dogfights in this
country that we forget we are electing one person out of a potential 300
million; it's OK to let others in.
Conservatives are quick to remind the nation that they are
the party of national security through a tough foreign policy. While this may
be, the Democratic Party has a candidate of its own who possesses one of the
most intellectually informed foreign policy minds on the planet, U.S. Sen. Joe
Biden, D-Del. An ethical man of modest finances, he has served on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee for three decades and released, almost one year
ago, a realistic solution to Iraq that involves breaking the nation out of its
arbitrary Churchillian borders to three states that reflect the true
demographic situation. He seems a perfect fit, given our present situation, to
take office in Washington, yet with little publicity and limited finances, his
poll numbers remain in the single digits.
The other Democratic candidate who receives little attention
— and when he does, it's frivolously negative — is U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich,
D-Ohio. Perfectly representing the liberal ideology other candidates only pay
lip service to, he has stood up for what he and much of the country believes
in. He has been a member of the House of Representatives for 10 years and has
avidly advanced the liberal agenda, pushing for federally subsidized health
care, same-sex marriage, preventing privatized social security and getting our
troops out of Iraq. He has been the leading lawmaker in pushing for executive
impeachments of the Bush administration, formally calling for the impeachment
of Vice President Dick Cheney in April. While these should serve as rallying
points for a popular run at becoming the Democratic candidate for president, he
is laughed at. Attention seems to be focused more on his stature — he's 5 feet,
7 inches — than his record. Or you have what happened at the last Democratic
debate, where he is remembered not for his continued reminders that he was
right on the Iraq issue, but how he answered the last question given to him.
Mr. Kucinich was asked, of all things, if it was true that he had once seen an
unidentified flying object.
CNN, the sponsor of the debate, should be ashamed for asking
that question. They ended that debate by reminding the American people that
this man's name was not Clinton, Obama or Edwards. Instead of allowing Mr. Kucinich's
policies to echo through the electorate, his UFO sighting is remembered; it
becomes him.
This is the dilemma we face in electing our next president. It is not a want of good candidates, but the lack of knowledge the American public has of them. It is a foregone conclusion that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Kucinich will become our next president. I would like a reason why.
Ben White ([email protected])
is a junior majoring in sociology and political science.
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So you define one of the leading Republicans as a cross-dresser, yet you take offense when someone characterizes Kucinich as strange for having seen a UFO? How hypocritical.
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Stephen Colbert wasn’t even allowed on the ballot in South Carolina, despite meeting the qualifications.
The presidency is reserved for those who have practiced their douche baggery over a lifetime in politics.
May the biggest sack of crap win… again.
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So what’s wrong with Ron Paul, given your support for Dennis Kuchinich?
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Why? Because Dennis Kucinich is crazy and Biden doesn’t really have anything intersting to say.
I do hope Biden is the VP, though.
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I would venture to guess that Ron Paul is not the “libertarian” that most of his supporters think he is. Most libertarians I know cannot be distinguished from anarchists.
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nice little piece. true of both Biden and Kucinich (even though ideologically they are not aligned - though compromise never hurt).
None of the people who offered comments to your piece offered any insight - with the exception that truly the biggest Sack of Crap will win. Democracy is long dead. It didn’t take too long for it to die, but no has removed it’s corpse (it died young and still looks kinda pretty, especially as a diversion)
Thanks for at least attempting to make people aware of Dennis Kucinich however. May Russert turn into the potatohead he is.
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Ron Paul is a crazy man who deserves no place in modern politics. While he may say things that sound nice on TV quips, one look at this actual politics take away any chance of him being President. He is an utter Libertarian, in that he would not only end the War on Drugs, but the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Education as well. Do you know what that means? No public universities…such as, I dont know…the University of Wisconsin. I dont know why the college-age generation finds this guy so satisfying, maybe its because no one knows what he REALLY stands for.
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Dennis Kucinich is caught in the political paradox that is being a modern hardcore liberal. It means being, for the sake of military, this massive internationalist. We only take political action if the remainder of the world agrees it’s a good idea. He also, however, is a gigantic economic isolationist. He wants to leave the WTO, which means subjecting US products to gigantic tariffs abroad, killing our overseas market. You can’t reasonably believe that a government can work militarily and diplomatically with the world, but economically is going to be entirely protectionist. That’s why no one takes Dennis Kucinich seriously. The smart people talk about him looking like an elf because that’s the sort of stuff average folks understand. Discussions of why economic protectionism on the scale Kucinich wants is a terrible, terrible idea tend to go over the heads of most folks. The quick reason: Because protectionism raises prices more than it would raise salaries. Thus, any increase you’d see in manufacturing jobs that typically go overseas today would be counteracted, especially on an economy wide scale, by the increasing costs of goods and services.
Agree on Biden, though, for the most part. He’s a very, very smart guy.
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Economic protectionism is not what Kucinich stands for. It is the exploitation of the organizations that are built with protections to major corporations. That is the truth.
Getting out of WTO and NAFTA does not mean, getting out of world trade. Sadly that is what the fake “elite-educated-pandits” think. They think that they know world trade, economy, defense, etc very well and yet supported the Iraq war when it started.
Kucinich is for workers right all over the world. He talks about not only even playing field for trade, he insists equal rights for people all over.
The fact is Kucinich’s ideas are very simple. But people, who think that they are above average and claim that they can understand the “beating around the bush” kind of answers from other candidates, are really making big mistakes by succumbing to their ego.
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What Kucinich is for is economic protectionism of a particular class. Feh, why bother arguing, it doesn’t matter anyways. He’ll be out of money and out of the race by February 1.
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To Anonomous a few posts above (November 12, 2007 @ 4:17pm):
America was built on Tarriffs and “Economic Protectionism”. Alexander Hamilton ridiculed arguments such as yours, coming from holdover tories or the British themselves. He said America was going to develope and protect their own industries, and the mercantilists of England could go to hell.
Read Adam Smith - I mean really read him, not just some stilted Grover Norquist or PJ O’Rourke sysnopsis: Smith presented “free trade” as being just fine as long as no two countries in a trade relationship produced the same thing - but when they do, they are foolish and self-destructive not to protect their industries with tarriffs etc.
Stop being a mind-slave to giant corporations, the only beneficiaries of Free Trade Fundamentalism.
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There is no surprise here. Our dumbed down electorate is much more concerned with what Britany is wearing than who will become our next president.
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You all should focus your attention on what really matters to you..Dancing with the Stars…Survivor and America’s got Talent….but please don’t go to the polls..your votes are a shallow reflection of American values and what ails this country
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DK is unelectable because everybody says DK is unelectable.
If every voting American were to study the candidates positions and compare them to their own priorities, we would be inaugurating our shortest president in the television age.
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It stinks when people talk about candidates’ “TV figure”. Did anyone vote for Bush’s charisma over Gore? Or did enough people care for taller Kerry over Bush. May be Bush did not win both elections. However a lot of people voted for him, in spite of his less TVgenic appearance. That is truth and the determination of those voters should be admired.
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To 4:11pm— The United States Department of Education (ED) is not equivalent to, and does not fund public universities. The ED has authority over K12 policies, since its inception in 1979 (how do you think we survived before then?). They do not fund K12 schools. The ED is responsible for wonderful iniatives such as Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” law and the Office of Educational Technology. Please ask your local K12 teacher how useful ED’s programs really are. Go and do some basic research on the ED, starting with Wikipedia.
In fact, Ron Paul supports abolishing the federal ED, and giving the authority (and $$$) to the individual states. However, as he has pointed out numerous times, getting rid of the ED wouldn’t be his first on his agenda. And it’s the Congress’ authority anyway.
As you remember from recent weeks, the University of Wisconsin’s budget is set by the States of Wisconsin.
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Dennis Kucinich is our absolute best choice. I pray that Americans do not let FOX news make their choices for them, and become informed about all the candidates. It should not be about who has the most money (and is owned by which corporations), but who offers the best chance for America. We need renewable energy, healthcare for all, trade based on human rights and environmental principles, and a path to peace. Vote Dennis4President!
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You have a most excellent point - but I guess that even your view is restricted. Never even heard of MIKE GRAVEL OR RON PAUL???????? Mike Gravel certainly should be well known - he’s already famous, or should be. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Well, you would never have heard of them if not for Mike Gravel. He read them, from a tiny basement in the great house of Congress, into the Congressional record despite a Supreme Court ban on their publication. All this while hooked to an IV bottle, just out of the hospital. You especially should know Mike Gravel - you haven’t been drafted into this mess because he filibustered to end the draft due to the Vietnam mess. Mike Gravel would end this Iraq madness and would never let the Iran disaster happen. He is tried and true. The best candidate you’ve never even heard of…..