A Look at the Candidates

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

June 24, 2008

Now that it is clear who the presumptive candidates for U.S. President are for the two major parties, moderates and independents have a hard decision to make as they step toward the voting booth. Unless they decide to skip voting altogether.

John McCain had been a favorite of moderates for years, but his recent butt kissing of the right wing base of the Republican Party has ruined his image immensely. He steadfastly supports the Iraq War as a just cause, claims it is succeeding, and has no qualms at the thought of stationing American troops there indefinitely. This position appears to have little support from moderates. He also supports maintaining tax cuts for high-income earners. This is a cornerstone of the “Trickle Down” theory that has not been shown to work even though it has had the support of three of the past four administrations. Give it up already!

Another concern of McCain’s candidacy is whom is he going to be saddled with for Vice-President? There are not a lot of other Republican moderates, and their names do not seem to be appearing on any short lists I have heard of. This is important, not only because Vice-President is increasingly becoming a stronger, more influential position, but also realize McCain is 72 years old, and has already been treated for a particularly deadly form of Cancer.

An issue that hasn’t come up, to my knowledge, is that if someone from the Bush administration were to be indicted for crimes while in office, McCain would likely bow to pressure and issue a pardon.

Barack Obama is relatively unknown. The Great Republican Lie Machine, as usual, has labeled the Democratic candidate the Most Liberal Senator. This is not true. There are many Senators more liberal than Obama, but no rational person is going to call him a moderate. He will get us out of Iraq. But, will he do it carefully? Or, will he leave a dangerous vacuum? Democrats have earned the reputation for handling the economy better. The gap between rich and poor grows slower when a Democrat is in the White House, and prosperity was a reality when a Democrat was in office. We did well when Kennedy and Johnson were in, Carter pulled us out of the funk after Nixon and Ford, and Clinton oversaw a great economy after the disaster of the elder Bush. No “Trickle Down” there! Food for thought.

But, here again, Vice-President is important. I hate to say it, but I fear for Obama’s life. There are people that do not like the idea of a mixed-race President, and some of them are well-armed lunatics. ‘Nuff said. Hillary would be a decent choice, would likely bring us better health care, and might help Obama get out of the Middle East without disaster. I really like Bill Richardson of New Mexico. I wish he was the candidate, but being a rational man of sound mind, he got little support from mainstream Democrats.

The wild card in all of this, from a moderate point of view, is that the country runs better when there is split in power between the two parties. Congress appears likely to remain Democratic. Do we want a Democratic monopoly? Would that be as big of a disaster as when Ultra-Republican Bush had a Republican Congress to rubber-stamp his lunacy? Impossible, but it could be close. Gotta think about that.

The good news is that we will have a better President than the one we have now. George W. Bush will go down as one of the very worst Presidents in our nation’s history. Let us thank our lucky stars it’s almost over.