Tag: US presidential elections

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Politics & government

[1334] Of Ron Paul said…

When asked how he would confront his opponents’ charges, Paul’s answers are as straight and flat as a Texas highway. “The media would love it if you got real, real personal. But I just have trouble drifting from the issue itself. … I’m challenging them to think about policy. Nobody, liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats wants to challenge overall Middle East policy. It is sacred. There’s oil. There’s the neocon idea of spreading democracy. There’s Israel. You just shouldn’t dare challenge our eternal presence in the Middle East. So they attack the messenger in a personal way.” [Lone Star. Michael Brendan Dougherty. The American Conservative. June 18 2007]

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Politics & government

[1298] Of the crazy libertarian

Okay…:

RON PAUL, a libertarian Republican congressman from Texas, likes to say what he thinks. And among the things he thinks is that the census is a violation of privacy. He has opted out of the congressional pension programme. He claims never to have voted for a tax increase, or for an unbalanced budget, or for a congressional pay rise and never to have gone on a congressional junket. He wants to return to the gold standard. Most notably, he strongly opposes the Iraq war and has from the beginning. [Paul the apostate. The Economist. July 19 2007]

While I am currently backing Ron Paul, I do realize that a lot of the policies he supports are a tad too radical, even for libertarians, especially me. Still, with the Democrats leaning farther left, I think a radical is what we need to balance the see-saw.

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Politics & government

[1264] Of not so new politics

From the NYT political blog:

Some of Mrs. Clinton’s rivals, including the campaign of Senator Barack Obama, went through the list of the Clinton’s financial holdings that Mrs. Clinton filed with the Senate and released a very detailed and critical analysis about where the Clintons had gotten and invested their money.

[…]

Mr. Obama’s aides circulated the memorandum to news organizations on the condition that news organizations not say where they obtained the information.

[…]

This turned into a bit of a dust-up because by all appearances, the Obama campaign got a little sloppy in circulating what turned out to be two critical memos. They ended up in the hands of the Clinton campaign.

[…]

Why would the Clinton campaign want to circulate documents attacking its candidate? Mrs. Clinton’s aides declined comment. But the Clintons have been seeking to undercut the effort by Mr. Obama to present himself as the face of a new-kind-of-politics that eschews these kind of attacks. [The Backstory on Obama-Clinton Attack Memos. The Caucus. June 15 2007]

Clinton seems to be winning at the moment.

The Obama campaign was forced to acknowledge authorship when the Clinton campaign got a copy and shared it with The New York Times.

For the Clinton campaign, drawing attention to a document attacking its own candidate had the effect of demonstrating that Mr. Obama, like other candidates, is not above a bit of political street fighting and, by implication, should not be allowed to cast himself as a champion of a purer version of public service. But in this case, the disclosure also threatened to create a substantive problem for Mr. Obama by leading an Indian-American group to accuse Mr. Obama of engaging in racial stereotyping. [A New Kind of Politics Closely Resembles the Old. NYT. June 16 2007]

Read also 2008: Not-So-New Politics, New Fallout.

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Liberty Politics & government

[1217] Of there goes Giuliani

Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

— Rudolph W. Giuliani, ‘Freedom Is About Authority’: Excerpts From Giuliani Speech on Crime. March 20 1994.

While authority to some extent is desired, ceding “a great deal of discretion about what you do” to the authority sounds wrong.

Well, it is not too hard to strike Giuliani off the list. Bye bye.

Anyway, how well do you know the candidates for the office of the President of the United States of America?

Head over to an NYT quiz to find out.

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Politics & government

[1103] Of Krugman says Hillary needs to admit mistake

Paul Krugman of the New York Times is reminding Presidential candidates, especially Hillary Clinton of the need to admit mistake (via):

But back to Mrs. Clinton’s problem. For some reason she and her advisers failed to grasp just how fed up the country is with arrogant politicians who can do no wrong. I don’t think she falls in that category; but her campaign somehow thought it was still a good idea to follow Karl Rove’s playbook, which says that you should never, ever admit to a mistake. And that playbook has led them into a political trap.

For those that have not been following the current race for the 2008 Presidential election, the New York senator is under attack for refusing to admit mistake for authorizing the invasion of Iraq. As in right now, John Edwards and Barack Obama are in one way or another on the offensive as far as Iraq is concerned. That is very unlike what Hillary Clinton is experiencing right now.