If The Democrats Win . . . . What Then?
In the last scene of the movie The Candidate, the newly elected senator played by Robert Redford finds a moment amid the chaos of his victory celebration to ask his campaign manager, played by Peter Boyle, a question. "What do we do now," Redford asks. More than three months before the election the Village Voice's James Ridgeway is already asking that question and his main focus is on what Kerry/Edwards will do about Iraq if they are elected.
"Kerry apparently thinks that the country believes it needs, as Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm puts it, a new "driver"—in effect, a change of leaders to save a deteriorating position. Much of the world will heartily endorse this notion. Outside the U.S., people fear that we are far out on a limb of our own making and that they must now talk us off the limb to save themselves from some sort of nuclear or biological attack. . . We appear at all levels determined to press on behind Bush and to do whatever is necessary to achieve 'victory.' And to emphasize, there would be no change in Bush's basic line: to use NATO, the U.N., and other international organizations and alliances to further our own interests but, at bottom, using military force to achieve victory.
Choosing Pageant Girls Over Political History
The Nation’s John Nichols hopes that anger over the networks' decision to skip coverage of Tuesday night's proceedings “will cause party activists to recognize that complaining about the conservative bias of Fox is not enough.” What were the networks showing Tuesady night: “When Barack Obama was delivering the finest keynote address heard at a Democratic National Convention since Mario Cuomo's 1984 speech in San Francisco, the nation's broadcast television networks were airing their usual mix of police dramas, a program about a Disney cruise and a show that asked the question: "Who says pageant girls don't eat?”
PBS and Cable Win Viewers from Networks
Some Conservatives Hope for Bush Defeat
Out there among people that progressives never meet there is a group of conservatives hoping that Dubya is going down. Two writers for the Economist magazine, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge cite a feeling among right wingers that a good Bush-bashing in November will help regenerate a Republican Party that has lost its way, abandoning small government and making a real mess of US foreign policy.
A Star is Born
Barack Obama took the stage at the Democratic Convention Tuesday night enthralling a rapt audience with a speech that heralded the arrival of a bright new, progressive star in the Democratic Party. The 42 year-old Democratic candidate for the senate in Illinois talked of his family history as the son of a Kenyan immigrant father, who grew up herding goats, and of his mother, a Kansas native, both now deceased. Read David Broder's take here.
Listen to Obama at the Convention
Dozens Killed by Bomb Outside Iraqi Police Station
Florida Computer Voting Records Disappear
Most of the voting records in the first exercise in touch screen voting in Miami-Dade County election in 2002 have been lost according to a report in today’s New York Times. The same computerized voting machines are set to be used in the November elections. "This shows that unless we do something now - or it may very well be too late - Florida is headed toward being the next Florida," Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition told the Times
Read “Fear of Fraud” by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman
Missing in Action
Where were the country’s leaders on September 11 and what were they doing. That’s just one of the important questions that Gail Sheehy raises in an article in this month’s Mother Jone’s article entitled “Who’s in Charge Here?” Sheehy writes that “the families of some 9/11 victims, who pushed hard for the commission’s creation—were disappointed in its failure to provide a timeline of the actions of the nation’s top leaders that morning. Such an analysis, they believe, would have shown conclusively that blame for failing to defend against the attacks goes all the way to the top.”
How Kerry Can Win -- The Kevin Phillips Way
Kevin Phillips, former Republican strategist and best-selling author of the Bush family expose, American Dynasty, has a strategy for defeating George W by going after the most wobbly GOP voters, the ones who went to candidates like Perot and McCain. "John Kerry can win, given George W. Bush's incompetence, and White House strategists realize that. All the Democrats need to do is to peel away some of the Republican "unbase"--the most wobbly members of the GOP coalition. The caveat is that not many Democrats understand that coalition or why it has beaten the Democrats most of the time since 1968." Read his article in the Nation.
The Solitary Soldier: Newsweek's Evan Thomas profiles John Kerry.
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