The last presidential primary period was excrutiating. The Democrats had something like ten contenders, and I wasn't thrilled by any of them. I think Wesley Clark most closely matched my opinions on policy (in fact, I just filled out a survey on the Presidential Candidate Selector and found that we are in 100% agreement) but none of them inspired me.
Now we have exciting candidates gunning for both the Democrat and Republican tickets.
On the Republican side, there's one guy I like - John McCain. I might not even be unhappy if he won the presidency. Rudolf Giuliani is not, to my mind, a strong candidate - his career was in tatters on September 10, 2001, and he revived it by making some good speeches in New York City, but he still has a poor history of leadership. Perhaps the best thing about the list of Republican hopefuls is that there are (so far) no social conservatives or theo-cons.
But the Democrat side is where the stars shine brightest. If only we could avoid the giant line-up that dooms debates and keep the list to three - Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Al Gore - what a primary that would be!
2 comments:
On McCain, see the LA Times, who is not so impressed.
It's true that the Presidential Candidate Selector survey shows that I have only a 46% match on policies with McCain, and I strongly oppose many of his stances: hawkishness, social security privatization, anti-environmentalism, anti-abortion, anti-gun control.
However, I have heard McCain talk many times and I judge him to be a reasonable man and an unusually frank and honest (and able) politician. I don't think he's an ideologue and I think he'd try to govern for everyone, not just his base.
I get a higher match from the Selector for Rudy Giuliani, but I think the guy's an idiot and I hope he never gains higher office again.
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