First off, I agree completely with tgeraghty's repeated comments in each
diary concerning the 2008 democrat nominee that "Insanity...is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting a different result." Let me veer off
from the mainstream here...
Democrats have gotten into a repeating cycle of nominating a smarter
candidate pledging fairer/saner policies (Gore vs Bush, Kerry vs Bush,
HRC? vs ??) and by adding grass-roots efforts (and now net-roots),
that we should win over public support. The candidate inevitably
fails and we inevitably blame the candidate for the failure.
Our candidates have lost to republicans who were on the verge of alzheimers,
who can't spell potato, who had alcohol problems, and who have no qualms
about saying "F*** You" to senators.
Why? Tax cuts and marketing from Reagan onward. Everything else that the republicans
stand for is a side show to in an attempt to replace moral authority that
they inevitably lose when it's later shown that the primary objective of
the tax cuts is just a money grab by the powerful.
With the Red Lake, MN school shooting on March 21st, the issue arises again
of what are the factors at play. Just looking at the those incidents which
evolved to the point of gunfire isn't enough (taking into account the Cold
Spring MN shooting on September 24th 2003, the two most recent shootings
have been in rural northern Minnesota, but you can't conclude the problem
is now with the northern culture).
The two patterns which continue to develop are psychotropic drugs (Prozac,
Ritalin, Luvox, etc.), and the availability of guns, particularly in the red states.
The federal budget keeps getting worse, but a quick glance at the CBO Current Budget Projections released Januay 25th
would leave you thinking that cutting the deficit in half by 2009 is likely. It ain't. Looking at the general fund,
figuring in likely estimates for the War on Terror, adding cost increases for discretionary spending, making W's tax
cut's permanent, all lead to a deficit that approaches 1 trillion dollars per year within 10 years. And that's not
including the costs of Social Security privatization (if it ever gets off the ground), additional wars or growth of
discretionary spending. Below are the numbers.
The federal government's trust funds have been created without real checks and balances. The people we elect to tax and spend tax revenues are the same people who have power to spend the retirement funds. We can't rely on their good intentions or promises not to spend the assets of the trust funds.
Give me a little room for some out-of-the-box thinking. The trust funds should be under independent authority, perhaps a nationally elected official separate from the executive, legislative and judicial branches whose responsibility is the solvency and investment of the trust funds. If that official runs on a platform that a portion of the funds may be better invested in bonds other than the federal government, they should have the power to do so.
Don't look now, but the biggest issue for 2008 will be economical, not social. The US fiscal situation, which has been perpetually bad year-after-year, has accumulated to the point that it is so massive, something is going to break.
The point is that foreign (mostly asian) ownership of our debt has been growing year-after-year, and at a certain point they will decide that owning a certain percentage of US government debt is either too much and/or has reached a threshold where they can use their economic muscle aggressively in US policy. In either case, we're not in control, and the situation has the potential to snowball.
I'm not talking about who'll eventually pay for the debt. We all know that we pay the interest now, and our kids owe the principal. But the issue is who lends us the money now, at what rates, and how much power do they exert over us?
Metaphorically speaking, we're close to reaching our credit limit and now our bankers can walk away or set onerous terms. If we want to spend more, it's not business as usual where we just draw up the bonds and people compete to buy them. The shoe is on the other foot now. We have to jump through hoops in order to get a buyer to purchase our debt.
The 2004 dem loss has jarred the talk to 2008. There's plenty of short-term subjective reasoning, but there's been very little reasoning of which candidate would win (1) which electoral votes (2) over which republican opponent, while (3) facing the same obstacles encountered in the 2004 race (plus more). The considerations need to be objective with at least these three considerations, and moreover, with thought to republican countermoves, not unlike chess where you consider your opponents moves in advance.
This week, there's been a lot of voices on why Kerry lost to the Worst President Ever. The reason has very little to do with the issues. It also has little to do with Kerry, himself. It has more to do with the communication with the 50% of the nation that gets their news from the tabloid media and who funds this media. I agree with pammo's recent diary, and want to push the idea a little further.
