24 Hour News Gripe
DallasMorningViews's Michael Landauer asks a very good question. With so many 24 hour cable news channels, how come we get so much analysis about the presidential campaign and so little coverage of the campaigns themselves? I'm afraid the explanation is that covering politicians' stump speeches would be stupefyingly boring. Just watch CSPAN for a day or two to understand.
Heeeere's Huck
DallasMorningViews's William McKenzie reports that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is flying to California to appear on the Tonight Show Wednesday, the day before the Iowa caucuses. McKenzie concludes that Huckabee "feels pretty darn secure about Iowa" to risk leaving the state for so long.
I suspect Huckabee feels no such thing. Huckabee has never had the money to buy the exposure that rival Mitt Romney had at his disposal. Huckabee is probably making a calculated business decision that he can reach more Iowans with a last-minute appeal via a free Tonight Show appearance than he can hope to achieve by traipsing around Iowa or hope to afford with standard television commercial buys. A smart move, in my estimation.
John Edwards channels FDR
DallasMorningViews's William McKenzie confesses that John Edwards bugs him by making class warfare a focus of his campaign. McKenzie asks how you can bring two sides together in politics if you demonize one of them.
This naively assumes that Edwards wants to make nice with the business and financial powers that consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage of their own affairs. More likely, Edwards wants to battle big business, not make nice. He hearkens back to an earlier day when liberalism was more radical than today, and, by the way, more successful.
Paul Krugman, in The Conscience of a Liberal, quotes a 1936 election campaign speech by Franklin Roosevelt. Krugman reminds us that "FDR let the malefactors of great wealth have it with both barrels."
"We now know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mobs. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."In Edwards, one hears a distant echo of FDR. The echo may not be loud enough for Edwards to achieve FDR's stature. But we do know this. FDR did not win by making nice with his political enemies. The Republican victories of the last generation were not won by making nice with Democrats. And the 2008 Democratic candidate won't win by making nice with the Republicans who themselves will pull no punches in their effort to stretch their hold on the White House for another four years.
2 comments:
The usual McKenzie concern troll nonsense. Class warfare in this country is waged from the top down.
Republicans have been skilled at waging class warfare, then, when the Democrats point it out, accusing the Dems of waging class warfare themselves.
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