Dems Debate -- Candidates Reveal Most Important Priorities
| Mon Jun. 4, 2007 6:32 AM PDT
The question of what a presidential candidate would do in his or her first [blank] days in the White House is always instructive, because it reveals the candidate's top priorities. The [blank] can be any time period, because candidates treat one day and one hundred days the same in this context.
In the CNN-sponsored debate in New Hampshire last night, the Democrats were asked what they would do in their first hundred days as president. The responses:
John Edwards: "To travel the world -- re-establish America's moral authority in the world -- which I think is absolutely crucial... the single greatest responsibility of the next president is to travel the world, speak to the world about what real American values are -- equality, diversity -- and to lead an effort by America to re-establish our alliances around the world."
Hillary Clinton: "Well, if President Bush has not ended the war in Iraq, to bring our troops home. That would be the very first thing that I would do."
Barack Obama: "That would be the number one priority, assuming nothing has changed. The second priority is getting moving on health care because that's something that we can get done, I think, very quickly."
Bill Richardson: "I would upgrade our schools. I would have preschool for every American, full-day kindergarten. I would pay our teachers what they deserve. I'd have a minimum wage for our teachers, $40,000."
Joseph Biden: "I would end the war in Iraq and immediately move to defuse the possible war in Iran and immediately defuse what's going on on the Korean Peninsula."
Dennis Kucinich: "What I intend to do is to be a president who helps to reshape the world for peace -- to work with all the leaders of the world in getting rid of all nuclear weapons, rejecting policies that create war as an instrument of diplomacy, making sure that we cause the nations of the world to come together for fair trade, cancel NAFTA, cancel the WTO, go back to bilateral trade conditioned on workers' rights and human rights, create a not-for-profit health care system and send the bill to Congress."
Chris Dodd: "I'd try to restore the constitutional rights in our country. This administration has done great damage to them. I would do that on the first day. I wouldn't wait 100 days on those issues."
Mike Gravel: "Top priority is to turn to these people and say they are part of the leadership right now in the Congress. They could end the war if they want to. All they've got to do is show the leadership." [Ed. Note: What?]
Of course, a million things will change between now and any new president's first 100 days, forcing a shift in priorities, but it's nice to see that Edwards sees beyond the Iraq War to America's place in the world more generally, and that Richardson hasn't forgotten about domestic issues, specifically education, and that at least one candidate is aware of the damage the war on terror has done to our civil liberties.
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Comments
I noticed how many of the Democrats in office (Biden, Clinton, Obama) were way to CASUAL about conceding to Blitzer that Iraq would still being going on in 2009.
The Democratic calculus is that as long as Iraq is still going on it hurts the Republicans politically, and helps the Democrats.
I guess that the Democratic candidates actually want Iraq over with, many don't care if it's not over by 2008, because the calculus is that it helps them politically.
Meanwhile, the Republicans will be trying to push ownership of the war onto the Democrats to blame them for it in 2008.
Clinton and Biden in particular, and Obama to a lesser extent were way to accepting of Blitzer's question about nothing having changed by 2009 because "Hillary Calculation" doesn't really mind it if Iraq is still an issue in 2008. The political calculus is that it's good for Democrats and bad for Republicans. The Republican's is that they have to make it bad for Democrats.
Meanwhile, it's bad for the country and the troops.
Submitted by Steve H (not verified) on Mon Jun. 4, 2007 8:18 AM PDT.
Ed - I think Gravel's comment was alluding to his National Initiative for Democracy.
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said the war on Iraq should not just be blamed on Bush, but on the Congress that authorized it. U.S. troops "never should have been sent there in the first place," he said. Rather than debate timetables and benchmarks, the Democratic-controlled Congress should "just say no money, the war's over," he said. Kucinich called on other debate partners who were members of Congress to remember that voters had given Democrats control of both House and Senate last November largely in response to opposition to the war.
I guess it was too much to hope that any of the candidates thought that environmental issues with the potential to cause global civilizational collapse and even possible human extinction might be a top priority.
I agree that the war in Iraq is also important. I just don't like to see it as center stage above all else. We've already caused a mass extinction greater than the one that removed the non-avian dinosaurs, and possibly larger than the prior record-holder 250 million years ago. How many more beautiful species must die? Must we be among them? It would certainly be deserved.
It's obvious to me that Gravel is "turning" to the other candidates on the stage and saying: "You're in control of Congress. If you want the war to stop, show the leadership necessary to make it stop, like you promised you would when running for election 8 months ago."
What don't you understand about that?
The debates were completely unbalanced with Hillary and Barack hogging up most of the time at around 9 minutes each during the first half of the debate - Kucinich and Gravel each Only received about 2 minutes each. Wolf Blitzer took a nice 8 minutes and some change for himself - and nobody gives a damn what he thinks. Looks like dice are loaded again and we're going to have another fixed election. I'm looking for a Gravel/Kucinich ticket - if the Dems can't manage that - I'm going for Ron Paul.
It's great go get all this info about the Dems but can we get a little info on what the Republicans are promising to their constituency? Even if MJ readers are all Democrats, which they aren't, knowing thine enemy would be a good thing...
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