Dean's Difference
TV ad time is being snatched up by the major candidates. With so many potential caucus-goers still undecided, the scene is quite frenzied and volatile in Iowa. Kerry is moving up in the polls, as is Edwards (who just got the coveted Des Moines Register endorsement).
The Lee Enterprises poll released today puts support for Dean at 23%, Gephardt at 18%, Kerry at 15%, Edwards at 9%, and Kucinich at 4% (margin of error plus or minus 4.9%, so things are very tight).
So, any of the top four places to finish are still up for grabs when it comes to Dean, Gephardt, Kerry, and Edwards. Moreover, people can change their minds during the caucus discussion process (no matter who one may have "committed" to prior to the caucus).
I believe a big factor by Jan. 19th may be one of the issue that is lost in the high-profile battle over which candidate is best on health, Medicare, tax equity, and trade. That issue is electability.
Dean is the only candidate who has consistently addressed electability in his TV and print advertisements. His TV and print pieces consistently show seas of people rallying with blue and white "The Doctor Is In/Howard Dean for America" signs. A recent print piece, for example, argued that "Only Dean for America Has a 50-State Strategy to Go Toe-to-Toe With George Bush," and that "Only Dean for America Has the Message and Organization to Beat George Bush" (both followed with lists of reasons why). Another piece shows Dean standing in front a cheering mass of supporters, with the slogan "Can you feel it?" Inside, the feeling is explained this way: "The Power to Change America is in Your Hands. Howard Dean's Campaign is Sweeping Across America and Gaining Historical Momentum With It's (sic) Positive Message About More Jobs and Health Care for Every American." The Dean campaign's use of hand-written letters from Dean supporters around the country to caucus-goers in Iowa is another subtle way to communicate that this candidate has widespread support.
In George H.W. Bush-speak, Dean's campaign has the vision-thing. That is, the campaign has been able to consistently articulate a national movement, not just a state-by-state strategy.
For Democrats who feel burned by the loss in 2000, electability could be the big-picture winning point in caucus meetings. If caucus-goers feel a bit flexible in their decisions, it could very well come down to the electability issue -- who has the best campaign and message to take on Bush. [The Lee Enterprises poll published today said that 25% of caucus-goers are undecided, and 20% said it was "somewhat likely" they will switch their allegiance before the Jan. 19 caucuses. Another 6% said it was "very likely" they would switch allegiances.]
Recent literature from Gephardt and Edwards has tried to elicit the "national movement" spirit. For example, a Gephardt brochure asks "Who Can Take the Fight to Bush?" and responds "Dick Gephardt Can Take the Fight to President Bush on Medicare." Close, but this one doesn't hit overall electability on the head. An Edwards mailer claims "If we caucus for John Edwards, we can change this country." Like the Dean advertisements, this piece takes the "we" approach: "Monday, January 19. Iowa Precinct Caucuses. We can make it happen."
A matter of faith: A
A matter of faith: A tradition based on mystery -
Why did the USA go to war to remove the regime in Iraq?
How can an incompetent President, a faith based administration which rejects the rules of evidence, get around the facts and be so popular? (And get a more or less free ride from the media?) The current rule is “thy shall not be caught†and if caught "Give Them the Old Razzle Dazzle!†... "How can they see with sequins in their eyes?" says Carl Rove the White House Billy Flynn, from the musical Chicago – its called charisma – preaching – when in trouble tap dance – change the subject
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040119-574809,00.ht...
O'Neill tells Suskind that during the course of his two years the President was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people."
A White House that seems to pick an outcome it wants and then marshal the facts to meet it seems very much like one that might decide to remove Saddam Hussein and then tickle the facts to meet its objective. That's the inescapable conclusion one draws from O'Neill's description of how Saddam was viewed from Day One
But I've been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else.
The life on earth is surrounded by mysteries. As our poetic secretary of defense said, ZEN MASTER RUMSFELD
" There are thing we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."
In the face of mysteries humans have used intuition, faith, authority of the ancestors and of spirits, social conventions, wild ass guesses, which are themselves as Winston Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
So why not just live with imperfect knowledge and acknowledge that there are lots of things we will never know or understand? Natural disasters, personal tragedy, the working of the human spirit or soul, the ethical basis of morality, justice, good and evil are just what we say or believe them to be – nothing more or less.
The moral imperative that we should behave and expect others to behave in ways that make life pleasant and orderly – we can not or do not what to live in a society of thieves, bandits, murderers, liars, where there is no trust – bad manners and rude people climb to the top by any means necessary and the only rule is the rule of force – a natural state of anarchy or the rule of the jungle. But the jungle has rules and is orderly within the ecological context. The natural order exists because other animals can be motivated by beliefs, sales pitches, false prophets, witchcraft, and the other means where people are mislead into organized warfare, mass murder, racism, bigotry, and other crimes only known to the homo sapiens.
Therefore people must band together to create and enforce rules and laws, customs and traditions based on practical necessity but justified by political and religious mysteries. Thus political and religious belief systems while unfounded in the known are clearly required – therefore are necessary mysteries – but can be taken on faith alone.
The rule is “thy shall not be caught†and if caught "Give Them the Old Razzle Dazzle!†... "How can they see with sequins in their eyes?" Billy Flynn, Chicago – its called charisma – preaching – when in trouble tap dance – changes the subject -
What about the WMD senator? You know Saddam Hussein was a very bad man –
What about corporate criminals in jail? We all want a better world – shame on them –
How is no child not left behind? How are the skies cleaner? Is the globe getting warmer or not?
Peter Flaum
The official US policy on
The official US policy on Iraq enacted by Clinton in 1998 was REGIME CHANGE.
In the 2000 election, Gore and President Bush II promised REGIME CHANGE in Iraq. Gore was lying. President Bush II was being brutally honest.
President Bush II pursued his rational and just policy toward the Saddamite mass murderers, criminals against humanity and war criminals in strict accordance with international law.
UNSC RESOLUTION 1441 was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter authorizing use of military force. The resolution further promised SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES -- application of force -- for failure to immediately and unconditionally comply with the terms of UNSCR 1441.
Saddam failed in its obligations to the international community.
The misleaders and friends of tyrants hailing from France, Russia and China also crawled away from their responsibilities to the international community.
President Bush II upheld the sacred honor of the UNITED STATES.
Under President Bush II, for the first time in history, a UNSCR was ENFORCED for the greater good of humanity including the people of Iraq.
President Bush II joins President Bush I and President Lincoln as this nation's greatest Presidents. And President Bush II assumes his rightful place in history as the planet's greatest leader.
Garrison