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to the question about advice to future presidential candiates: Enter your comments here please ... I don't care at all what Republicans do, since as a party I consider them morally bankrupt. As for future Democratic candidates, they need to stand for something real and not just be Republican Lite. Hilary Clinton is the worst example of that. She voted for the war in Iraq and as far as I can tell continues to support it. She has voted for some of the worst legislation the Republicans have offered, including the terrible bankruptcy bill. I fear that too many who should know better will get totally enamored of the idea of her as the First Woman President and won't look at her actual record as senator.
Bill Clinton, whom I've met briefly at a political event, is truly charismatic, but he's been missing in action in the last few years in regards to holding this administration to task for the terrible things it's done.
The real issue that matters the most, the fact that the Republicans under George W Bush took us in a very short time from peace, prosperity, and budge surpluses to war, recession, and the most massive budget deficits in our history was not one of your choices for what matters the most to me. They've been allowed to get away with this by a corrupt and morally bankrupt Democratic leadership, and as someone who is active at a local level in the Democratic Party, I know that our only hope is in the long run to re-take our party, and return it to its core values. However, I don't have a lot of faith that will happen, certainly not very soon.
We're in a quaqmire in Iraq; top government officials are under investigation (and it's distantly possible will actually be indicted soon); the Corporate controllers are systematically robbing this country of its very foundation by outsourcing jobs to third world countries, stripping workers of their pensions while lining their own pockets with literal millions of dollars; cronies of the President are place in positions of power regardless of competence; the cost of secondary education is rapidly going out of reach for poor and working class Americans and it seems to be okay with too many that it's happening; K-12 education is being sytematically underfunded while private school vouchers are being touted as a way to "improve" the system; and finally, there are more poor people now than when Bush took office.
I could go on, but you're eyes might start glazing over if they haven't already. Future candidates of either party should pay much closer attention to what's happening out there in the real world, beyond the Beltway, out here in Middle America, and then perhaps they'd actually realize what changes need to happen. But I doubt it will happen any time soon.
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