Well, now I’m confused again
I got up at an ungodly hour this morning to watch Edwards and Kerry on This Week on ABC. Every 11 years or so I go through these masochistic phases of patriotism. Thought Kerry came off much better than Edwards, actually, he seemed to understand that though both of them were trying to talk to the American people through George Stephanopoulos, the way you do that is not by trying to go “over his head.” Edwards seemed locked into campaign mode (I marked his first mention of the fact that his father worked in a mill at three minutes in), Kerry actually seemed to be having a conversation like a human being.
He’s also started to bring the fight to Bush when it comes to respective records on national defense. This should be a sight to see. In this corner, John Kerry, a man whose record shows three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. And in this corner, George W. Bush, a man whose record shows he definitely had teeth at the time he was supposed to be in the national guard.
Other items of note: George Will, of all people, saying he thinks the recent statement from Chicago’s mayor that he has no problem with gay marriage may be a sign that the issue won’t be as decisive as the Republicans want it to be. Will’s argument being that San Francisco is San Francisco, but Chicago is America. Well…I’ve only been to Chicago to see a hotel and airports, but maybe he’s right–in a lot of ways America is a hotel and airports.
Finally, Stephanopoulos laid out some electoral math which he said showed very few chances for Edwards to get the nomination, even if he were to win every single primary and caucus between now and the convention. Regular math isn’t my strong suit, let alone electoral math, so I’m going to assume the people at ABC know more about this than I do.
Currently coming round to the position that there isn’t that great a percentage of difference between where I think Kerry and Edwards make sense (it just may be in some different places). The question is who do I like for the VP slot. For the heck of it, here’s a probably completely wrongheaded, fantasy ticket and “phantom cabinet positions” for a couple of others.
President: John Kerry
Vice-President: Howard Dean
Secretary of State: Wes Clark
Attorney General: John Edwards
I know there’s probably lots of reasons why Dean won’t be a good match w/Kerry, but as I said this is fantasy.
Oh, and Nader is running again in ‘04. Yay. I can’t imagine this is going to have as much of an effect on the election as last time–the only people who are going to vote for him are people so far to the left, I mean past me, past Kucinich supporters, that they wouldn’t have voted for anyone else anyway. All this really does is show off just how tone deaf Nader has become.
