With the 2006 Midterm Elections at a distant, and for some painful, memory, the political attention now turns to the next big contents, the 2008 Presidential Election. For the Republicans, it means candidates that have a different stance then President George W. Bush. For the Democrats, it means finding someone that can work with Republicans but still keep their Democratic style present. However, this list of Democrats should not include Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.
As a proud Democrat, you might be wondering why I would say something like this. It is actually quite simple: Clinton cannot win in the White House in 2008. As Democrats, we tried a liberal from the Northeast in 2004 who was also a Vietnam Veteran and lost. Now we move on to another liberal from the Northeast, who did not serve in any war. Oh, and yes, she is a woman.
Personally, I could not care less whether the President of the United States is a man or a woman. However, there are a lot of people who do. I find it hard to believe that the majority of those voters who are “on the fence” would vote for a woman, especially those voters who are more conservative.
This is why the Democratic Party and Clinton herself need to realize that they both need to do what is better for the party and the country. With Mark Warner announcing that he is not going to run for President, I offer some more suggestions.
The two I would like to see the most run as a team would be John Edwards for President and Wesley Clark for Vice-President. The two of them would be a hard combination to beat. Edwards, the former senator from South Carolina is a southern Democrat. However, he is in touch with the needs of core liberal values, such as pro-choice, pro-environment and believes strongly in education and health care. Clark is a military man who would use his expertise to get us out of the mess that the Bush Administration has put us in.
Another person being mentioned is Al Gore, basically because of his stance on the environment in “An Inconvenient Truth.” I personally would love to see Gore run, maybe with Clark but I just do not think he will. I believe he feels he can yield more positive environmental results if he stays in the private sector and continues to educate people on global warming.
A lot of liberals have shown support for Barack Obama and he is someone that I like very much, but I personally do not think he has the experience yet to make a serious presidential run. I think that if he waits till 2012 or 2016, he will have a much better shot. He is also young, so I do not think he should be in a rush to run. He also finds himself in the same predicament that Clinton does, a minority running for office. However, a lot of African Americans are not yet sold on him and actually I personally do not think the country is ready for a black President. I wish it were. It would be nice if we could look past a persons skin color when evaluating him for the job of commander in chief, but some of the more conservative voters might not be able to.
Then there is the big relief that John Kerry is not running again. That may have been the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. Kerry had his shot and could not pull off the victory. His campaign was not well run and he had a problem saying what he truly means. Which is sad, because ever since he lost the election, he has been saying the right things, with the exception of questioning soldier’s intelligence. Then everyone who wanted Kerry to win hits them selves and asks, “Why didn’t he say that during the election?”
To be fair, I will look at what I believe to be the two Republicans that have a shot at winning their parties nominations. The first is Arizona Senator John McCain.
McCain has a lot of good qualities, he knows the military well, he is able to work with the other side and, being he is in a western state, he would make illegal immigration a priority. However, McCain supports Bush’s proposal of sending more troops to Iraq, which is the wrong idea as far as both sides of the political isle and many voters are concerned. The majority of the country believes it is time to begin a withdrawal from Iraq and with McCain supporting the troop increase, it may cost him in the primary of general election.
The other candidate that I believe who has a shot for the GOP nomination is Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. Giuliani is one of the most admired politicians in America today having served as the mayor during 9/11 and is one of the most liberal Republicans running. He is pro-choice, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control, which will probably make him too liberal to win the nomination but he is the best choice for the Republicans in 2008.
