Who's on First....?

I have been analyzing the platforms of the various candidates for the presidency of the US. What I look for in a candidate is domestic and foreign experience, a consistent, progressive voting record, consistent opposition to the illegal war in Iraq, a plan to end the war now, a plan to implement a universal health care plan, and a plan to restore funding to the federal and state agencies charged with maintaining and improving the social institutions of our country. These are just a few of the essential qualities I look for.

I don't support Clinton nor Edwards, because of their votes for the Patriot Act, and their votes to authorize the war. They also voted for all supplemental war funding bills except the last one, they also supported NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO and other free trade measures that have resulted in the wholesale outsourcing of most of the jobs that had ensured and provided a living wage and a stable middle class in this country. They have no announced plans as yet for universal health care, and the majority of their campaign funding comes from large corporate and other special interests, to which they are beholden.

I like Obama, but he has been mentored by Sen. Lieberman who is one of the most disloyal and treasonous democrats in congress. He did not vote to authorize the war because he had yet not been elected to the senate when the vote was taken, but he voted for all the supplemental war funding bills except the last one, as Edwards and Clinton also did. His campaign contributions from corporate special interests has exceeded even Clinton's so far, and his obsequious, uncritical fawning over Israel in his annual speeches to the Israeli special interest lobby, AIPAC, is most revealing and most disturbing. His candidacy is noteworthy, inspiring, and hopeful, but I'm afraid he is too closely allied with the corporate elites and their interests, rather than with the interests of the common people.

Of all the candidates, Dennis Kucinich would do the most to disrupt and transform the political landscape, positively and progressively. For this reason, the media, backed by their powerful, special interest owners, has been dismissively marginalizing and deriding his candidacy. He voted against the Patriot Act, voted against the authorization for the Iraq war, voted against all supplemental funding for the Iraq war, proposes a national not-for-profit health care insurance program that covers everyone, advocates for immediate full withdrawal from Iraq, opposes any proposed attacks on Iran and Syria, and is the only one to actively campaign for and introduce legislation for the impeachment of Bush and Chaney. He is actively campaigning for the neglected rebuilding of this country's infrastructure, he promises to withdraw from the destructive trade agreements which the president has the power to do, he promises no more foreign wars for resources, a priority for establishing a guaranteed free education for all those qualified, paying off the huge national debt by stimulating economic growth resulting in increased federal revenues. He rejects the notion of the democrats not having veto-proof power to end the war in the congress. What he says is that they don't need that power, all they need to do is ensure that no war funding bill is created and voted for in the first place - they as the majority party, has the power to do that. He promises to repeal and eliminate the unfair Bush tax-cuts for the rich, to restore the full capital gains tax on the rich, to close the corporate off-shore tax loopholes, move away from wasteful spending to productive spending, reverse the destructive illegal immigration problem by canceling the free trade agreements that forced foreign workers to find work here, when work in their own country dried up.

Notably, there is not yet a single Repugnant that is worthy of my consideration, even for dog-catcher!

This is the way it looks to me 14 months before the 2008 election. Much may change by then, and maybe additional worthy candidates will emerge later, but if I had to vote now, Dennis Kucinich would get my vote.