With New Poll Results, Candidates Scramble for Edge in Caucuses

[Herman Munster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/us/politics/31campaign.html?ref=politics

“You can beat these people if you’re tough enough, if you’re smart enough, if you’ve got the fight inside you,” Mr. Edwards said at a high school in Carroll, Iowa. “You can’t nice them to death. You try and nice them to death, they’ll trample all over you.”

Mr. Obama, speaking here at Newton Senior High School, took up Mr. Edwards’s challenge and noted that he had fought and won changes in lobbying and ethics rules, to the disappointment of special interests.

“It is true that I believe we can disagree without being disagreeable, Mr. Obama said. “I do not believe that change will come with more angry rhetoric of turning up the heat on Republicans. We don’t need more heat in Washington, we need more light.”

Mr. Obama also tweaked the third leading Democrat here, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, by knocking her husband by name for suggesting that an Obama presidency would be a gamble for the nation.

“It’ll be a roll of the dice — that’s what Bill Clinton said,” Mr. Obama said. “I have to remind people that the real gamble in this election is having the same old folks do the same old things over and over again and somehow expecting a different result. That’s the real risk.”

Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, said, “The list of Democrats Senator Obama is attacking — John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and now Bill Clinton — gets longer and longer as we get closer and closer to the caucus.”

Mrs. Clinton did not engage either of her chief opponents directly, beyond her standard line about her belief in “working hard for change,” instead of demanding it (Mr. Edwards’s position, in her view) or hoping for it (Mr. Obama’s). But she did push back against rivals who say her views on the economy and education and her experience were rooted in the ’90s when she was the first lady.

“One of my opponents will say, ‘There she goes again, talking about the past,’” she said at a memorial hall in Traer, Iowa. “It’s not like I’m talking about ancient Rome.”

[MercutioATC]

1. Doesn't anybody realize that they're all the same candidate?

None of them have done anything other than reinforce the status quo.

We don't need a "woman", an "African-American", or "the son of a mill worker" in the White House, we need somebody....anybody...who isn't part of the system that got us where we are today.

Congress recently spent time to officially condemn MoveOn's "General Betray-us" ads.

Congress recently spent time to discuss the negative effects of steroids in Major League Baseball.

Meanwhile, we have millions of hungry, homeless, sick Americans. We have over a hundred thousand soldiers fighting wars that have no clear objectives. We have an entire nation that has increasingly surrendered its rights and freedoms for the illusion of security.

...and these candidates have been active contributors to our downfall.


We bitch about Republicans destroying this country. Our champions are the same political opportunists with different scripts. Are we really any better?


Want to be truly democratic? Forget about party lines and electability and polls and "yellow dog" voting and all of the things that make you feel like part of the special club.

Vote for the person. Vote for change. Hell, write in your vote if that's what you do, but stop this insane support of wealthy political opportunists who are less interested in us than they are themselves.


...oh, and thanks for letting me vent. I'll try not to do it too often...