Don't forget Ron Paul

If I had reservations about Michelle Obama, they are gone, blown away by the typhoon of Sarah Palin. Michelle Obama is an erudite woman and she would appear to do a good job of blending motherhood with politics. Not that she is running for anything. But she has been the subject of my criticism - as has Barack Obama.

I was underwhelmed by him when I sat in a Nashua, NH, room with him and listened to his platform. I could not find a "there" there.

That was over a year ago. Barack Obama has grown substantially while on the campaign trail. He also has aged - unlike McCain whose brow seems to have a weird Botoxy smoothness. But Obama has grown quite statesmanlike. He has kept his cool against the endless onslaughts of Fox and the GOP. He has stood tall. And he now has delivered substance to his platform. I am a hard sell, but I am won.

I've been avidly watching the evolving emotions on the campaign trails of the US and the desperate ploys of the Right to pre-empt voter fraud by going on and on about voter fraud. Bright red herrings are being dragged all over the media.

BUT...
There is another man still standing.


I note that Fox, while taking Huckabee onto staff as a personality and political commentator, has not mentioned Ron Paul - despite the fact that it is scratching for substance in its endless campaign against the wicked left and, hence, filling its airtime with talking heads talking to talking heads.


Ron Paul is still on the ballot in some places.


Wouldn't it be funny if the voters got to the the polls and discovered this surprise libertarian third option - and went for it?
As his supporters told me the first time I heard of him back in Manchester, NH when they were asserting a strong presence at a John McCain rally, Ron Paul is "the real maverick".
And now he has a running mate. Michael Peroutka
He seems to have a nice face - and he thinks the Iraq war is "ungodly".

They are no real threat - but they could provide a voting wedge to offset that monster saboteur of the Democrats, Ralph Nader.

And that is no bad thing! Onya, Ron!

And from fair Florida...

I have to say that I am a bit sad for the old Giuliani. He could not have made a greater mess of the primary. Who on earth was his strategist? Someone who is not going to get work as a strategist again, I suspect.
Apart from being too arrogant to go on the campaign trail and thinking that networking in Florida alone was going to win Florida, his other error, methinks, was the endless reiteration of his heroic role in 9/11. He could not understand that capitalising on 9/11 in any form at all is plain offensive to most Americans. I hear the rabid rightist commentators on Fox saying that Giuliani's failure lay in his sex life - his several marriages. Florida should be judgmental about a man who has married more than once? Florida?
Oh, Fox, you do fill the airwaves with some arrant nonsense. It is a terrible disadvantage Downunder to have only Fox as 24-hour news from the US. CNN does an Asian/Pacific service which loads it with endless Asian finance reports and Sky loads itself with sport. So, we are pretty much stuck with Fox, since we are on Rupert's cable. It is peerless in its reportage of a world crisis - but the rest of the time it pads itself with incestuous studio chat and preoccupative Clinton-bashing.

But if we are talking about wives, surely Fred Thompson would be the turnoff with his blonde bimbo wife and small child - at his age! Repulsive man in my opinion and I was glad to see the back of him in the primary.

The ranks are, indeed, thinning out.


John McCain surprises me no end with his steady growth. My encounter with him in New Hampshire was anything but impressive. I more or less wrote him off. It was a wickedly cold and wet day and it was an outdoor rally-style event in Manchester. McCain, with his blonde and young-looking wife, was very late but the old veterans waiting to support him were stoic old blokes who had been through military training and were not going to let anyone forget their self-discipline. There is a potent movement of veterans in the US. They wear clothes to identify themselves and have car numberplates identifying themselves. They expect respect for their service and they get it.
These days, they are tough old things and they are keen to have one of their own in the White House.

McCain was the least impressive speaker of all those whose events I attended. He was the only one who had a teleprompter.
He seemed old. I figured he would never last the distance of relentless campaigning. Indeed, his campaign was in terribly disarray mid-year. Low funds, staff firings. But the old soldier marched on.
He seems to have gone from strength to strength and he has even been more articulate. He is very, very conservative, more so than Goldwater was, I am told. But he is not a nut case extremist.
The voters are culling the extremists right out. They are not stupid.
It is good to see.

The last of the ratbags, and I am not counting Ron Paul among the ratbags, is Huckabee and, despite Fox promoting him on a daily basis, it seems there is not enough money among his trailer park supporters to fund a campaign competing with the big business boys. Then again, Mitt Romney has the billions and he, too, is being trounced.
The old soldier is what America trusts. A war veteran. A prisoner of war.

I am sad that John Edwards has called it a day. He had no choice. He had no chance. But, my heavens, he worked hard. The problem was that he was not saying anything different from the policy he was espousing when he campaigned in NH in 2003 - and I got to stage of thinking I'd scream if he said one more time that his father had been a mill worker.

So far as the Obama/Hillary race is going, well, it is not making me radiantly happy.
They are two stunning contenders.
My perfect solution would be Hillary as President and Barack as Vice - with him running and taking the presidency 8 years on.

But to see them sniping and to see ugly images such as those of Teddy Kennedy whispering in Obama's ear as Obama looks conspiratorially in Hillary's direction. Or the image of Barack turning his back on Hillary as she approached to shake hands...
This is not good enough.
Obama loses points again in my book.
My reservations about him grow.
And, it is no secret that I have found Hillary Clinton to be the best-equipped and most able of all the candidates.
And, so we watch the evolving fates and the wild machinations of the US media.

What a fascinating business it is.

Power of the people

July 4.
Independence Day street parades in New Hampshire are also presidential primary street parades.
Oh yes, the usual community groups are out there bedecked in the glory of Uncle Sam's Americana - the stars and stripes and the red white and blue - with candy scattering across the tarmac to thrill the children.
But for the grownups, it is a political parade.
All the local politicians showcase themselves - and, as primary fever revs up, the presidential candidates also are represented by a showing of the support base.
It turns out to be the pollster's dream - a stunningly transparent statistical message.

Here is how the primary is panning out - as demonstrated by the marchers of the Merrimack parade.

Number One for organisation, numbers and the copious early spreading of the support stickers among the crowds was Hillary Clinton. Almost everyone seemed to be wearing Vote for Hillary stickers.
Not only did she have a large and cohesive band of marchers but also her team had prepared a proper parade float, a race car with the promise of leading the way.




Number One for noise and pizazz was Barack Obama.
His green team, in matching t-shirts, chanted a loud Obama chorus - leading the way with the letters of his name. They were mainly young and keen.




Number One for turning on the real thing was the Bill Richardson campaign. It featured Bill Richardson - the New Mexico Governor wearing the highly emblematic Boston Red Sox garb and out there glad-handing the people all the way down the parade route, surrounded by a cheery hubub of his volunteer squad.




All the way, the Democrats were Number One - in terms of candidates represented and in terms of numbers. Among them, after those three outstanding firsts, came:

Number Two - John Edwards. As ever, the North Carolina candidate was given very strong and enthusiastic support. His people had hooters and noise-makers and revved along in infectiously high spirits.


Number Three was Chris Dodd. His campaign is not the richest in the race but the supporters truly showed their love by the large number of well-wrought home-made signs they carried. It was a strong and interesting showing.



The Republicans, generally, were a bit lacklustre compared to the leading Democrats. There simply was not such a mass out marching, not such a sense of solidarity or excitement. Among the GOP candidates, however, it was John McCain who seemed to show the most supporters. Not that this was a lot. But at least they tried, defying McCain's flagging numbers in the official polls by carrying giant number 1s.




For all the publicity he has been receiving and for all the advertising with which he has been blanketing the media, one might have expected something more impressive from Mitt Romney's volunteer brigade. It was a fairly meagre showing with a pretty hokey banner.



Similarly Rudy Giuliani managed only so-so representation in the unofficial people poll of the Independence Day parade.





The Republican maverick, Ron Paul, fared better. He has an arresting campaign motto and the few outsider supporters he has are about as passionate as political animals get. Paul is the libertarian Republican, the man who would just about abolish government itself if he had his way.



Democrat Joe Biden is a very fine candidate and really deserves better than the thin ranks who carried his name through the parade. Fact is, he simply hasn't raised his profile enough in New Hampshire so far.



Republican Tom Tancredo is the man who stands on one issue - immigration. He is against it. He had a huge van plastered with his photograph. Not too many people, though. This man led them. Need I say more.




Last and least was Sam Brownback, the Republican who, like Tancredo, doesn't stand a chance. His people had a car.




And thus do we see, very clearly, that the Democrats are a vital force and that the given leaders in the polls seem pretty well represented as such. If there is a big surprise in this display, it is Chris Dodd, who may well be the dark horse on his way up, if one gives significance to this public showing of personal support among the New Hampshirites.

Republicans' turn to debate

Once again, this time at the CNN Republican Debate in Manchester, New Hampsire, Ron Paul seemed to rise from the Republican ranks as the most balanced and sensible of them all.
I was not at this event, choosing to stay home on this wild and stormy night and watch comfortably on the TV. Wonderful CNN, however, kept the transcripts popping into my email. What a class act.

Ron Paul is a back-runner who comes to the front every time the Repubs get to open their collective mouths. He's not the popular modern model of the conservative, but an old-fashioned Libertarian - and a straight-talker. He's forceful and vehemently against unilateral aggression, and for general equality of human beings. He spoke up against the Republican obsession with God - saying that prayers in schools and the makings of laws about religion was not the business of Federal Government. Of course, Paul was perched at the very end of the lineup, again, the outsider. But here's my five-cent bet that the viewers and voters were really impressed with him yet again. Despite the fact that he was given so few opportunities to speak.

Rudy Giuliani has the presence and acquits himself most eloquently. But as the creationist Sam Brownback so ferociously stated, there is no way a pro-choicer is going to make it.


Mitt Romney believes in himself as much as in Mormonism. He played the cameras and the people - sidestepping direct questions, reiterating what we have already heard, practised and overly confident. He played the hawk.

John McCain has lifted his act and was really quite impressive, despite a tendency to keep addressing the audience as "my friends". The more debates he does, the more fluent and articulate he becomes, the more authoritative. He is making no secret of his contempt for the Bush administration's handling of the War of Iraq.


And as for the army wife who asked a question about EYErac - stubborn ignorance or cultural insult?


Of course these events are not really debates. They are question and answer sessions, television happenings. And, like almost everything in the American news media, they are always so rushed. The clock is constantly running out on everything. So the candidats are expected to express themselves in 15 second bursts, to speak really, really quickly. This, of course, ensures that everything is comfortably superficial.

The other candidates? I am not sure they are worth the time of day. Well, not my day, anyway. Mike Huckabee on Creationism? There is an unhealthy preoccupation with God and faith and creation. This is not politics. It is religion. It is frightening.

And wasn't it sweet to see Tom Tancredo and Rudy Giulinani wearing identical ties?
And, ooh, wasn't it spooky when lightning strikes zapped static into the sound system just when Giuliani was responding to criticisms by a Catholic bishop. It was a moment of much-needed levity, although the funniest moment was when Tom Thompson said that, in giving George W. Bush a job under his administration, "I would not send him to the UN". It did not raise a laugh among the Republicans - but some of us got the joke.

But here, just for the record, are some quotes from Ron Paul on Iraq:

"If we made the wrong diagnosis, we should change the treatment. So we're not making progress there and we should come home.

The weapons weren't there and we went in under U.N. resolutions. And our national security was not threatened. We're more threatened now by staying."

"...our foreign policy is designed to protect our oil interests.

The profits, that's not the problem. It's the problem that we succumb to the temptation to protect oil interests by literally going out and fighting wars over oil."

"...you can't enforce our goodness, like the necons preach, with an armed force. It doesn't work".

Republican men in suits

The big surprise of the Fox network's Republican Debate in South Carolina was the confronting nature of the questions directed at the ten presidential candidates. Of course, there could be an agenda there. Clearly, at debate's end, very clearly, there was disappointment that the phone votes favourite had been Ron Paul and not Mitt Romney. The Fox anchor team made no secret of their preference for Romney and sniped that Paul's team must have been the quickest on the speed-dial to get those votes in. So saying, they made a mockery of their very own voting system. If it is a competition of candidates' teams phoning in, well, it is all pretty meaningless and there is really no point in the viewers thinking they are having a say. On the other hand, it could just be that the people out there preferred the old-school Libertarian Republican who has an uncompromising stance on almost everything. The veteran congressman from Texas is what his supporters call "the real maverick" of the Republicans - the right-wing version of Dennis Kucinich - and he really stirred up the debate.


Ron Paul stands alone against the war on Iraq, claiming that the Republican party has "lost its way". It had a long history as an anti-war party which once believed in making friends, talking, negotiatiating and trading with the world. He tried to explain that the 9/11 attack was not, as the Bush administrations keeps asserting, because Islam hates American values but, rather, because "we are over there" interfering in their countries, bombing and provoking hostility. He added "we're now building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican". Hmm. I didn't know that.

Giuliani, who has "owned" 9/11 as a political issue since handling the crisis as NY Mayor, leapt on Paul's statement, his face contorting as he sought to control his rage - mouth a thin line of fury, eyes slits of burning coal. He could not and would not hear Paul's rationale, interpreting it as a simple "we brought it on ourselves". He called it the most "absurd" explanation he had heard and asked for Paul to retract. Paul did not retract. He reiterated, explaining the concept of "blow-back", using history's examples and concluding "they do it because we are over there".

Paul is a tough old cookie and his views, generally, belong to a bygone era of Republican sentiment. He is also an obstetrician, a pro-lifer and, while he is drawing a lot of attention or, as the Fox reporters put it, "ink", in the media, he is not a viable presidential contender because the mainstream Republicans just don't get him.

So who did come out on top of the Fox debate which, by the way, seemed fraught with some technical colour and definition shortcomings.

Well, it was not Duncan Hunter from who is still obsessed by the border fence but did get in a good rant about the 1.8 million US jobs lost to China saying "the arsenal of democracy is leaving these shores and we need to bring it back".

It was not Virginian Jim Gilmore who bragged "I've been a consistent conservative my entire life" and plugged his website and blog. Yawn.
When asked why it was the line-up of candidates was so like the membership of a country club, devoid of woman or minorities, he could only, again, brag about himself, citing his "reach out" to Hispanic and African-Americans.
Of course it was an excellent question. The candidates are all Christian white men in suits.


It was not Tom Tancredo from Colorado who claimed to have been getting "conversions" about immigration and gun control but "I'd trust them on the road to Damascus and not the road to Des Moines". He also claimed that there was still scientific doubt about global warming but "if it's true..." I find Tancredo just a bit creepy.

It was not Tommy Thompson. He is a particularly rigid man, barely moves more than his mouth when talking. His claim to fame was: "I'm the only candidate up here that has over 1,900 vetoes". A positive record of the negative?

It was not Sam Brownback from Kansas who, asked if abortion could be an option for a rape victim, replied: "I don't think so, and I think we can explain it when we look at it for what it is, a beautiful child of a loving God that we ought to protect in all circumstances." He should try being a rape victim some time.

It was not front-runner Rudy Giuliani who gave one a very scary insight into the Republican aggression by generating resounding applause when he said he would, in the case of another attack on the US, "tell them to use any method they could think of" to extract information from detainees.

This was in response to a hypothetical which had produced much endorsement of a thing called "enhanced interrogation".
It would seem to be euphemistic newspeak for "torture".

John McCain was the only one adamantly opposed to torture. He spoke eloquently about the way in which it diminishes a nation, the way in which it sets an example for treatment of one's own prisoners in enemy hands... He was statesmanlike in this context - but it was not what the audience wanted to hear. McCain is as much a dead man for not following the popular line as is Giuliani for his stand on a woman's right to choose. This time round, however, Giuliani expressed it thus: “You want to keep government out of people’s lives, or government out of people’s lives from the point of view of coercion, you have to respect that.”


"Flip-flop Mitt" did not acquit himself particularly well in this debate, I thought. He was back-footed on his abortion flip-flop, was all for "enhanced interrogation techniques" , had an illogical solution for the legalising of America's 12 million illegal immigrants and was just to bit too keen on sniping at other candidates. There was quite a lot of sniping in this debate.
Interestingly, in his post-debate interview, the Mormon made a very telling Freudian slip: "The missionary, er military..."


This, surprisingly, leaves Mike Huckabee, governor of Arkansas. He scored the one laugh of the night saying “we’ve had a Congress that’s spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop.”
He said a few sage things: "It takes more money to do it over than it does to do it right." We're now seeing that in the United States. We're doing a lot of things over. Maybe we should have just done it right."
He presented very well, calm, articulate and quite good looking. He is, however, a Baptist minister.

At debate's end, it was clear that, well, they're all fierce Republicans who want tax cuts. They were still white Christian men in suits, all of them wanting to be the most powerful man in the world. The back runners are due to fall by the wayside very soon, especially if rumour comes true and Newt Gingrich throws his hat into the ring.

Republican debate good for Dems

Who won the Republican debate?
There were ten men in uniform dark suits. Four wore red ties. Three wore red-striped ties. The anti-cloning brigade were ironically clone-like.

At debate's end, nothing much changed. The three leaders remain the leaders and, if any of them shone more brightly in the artifice of debate context, it was Mitt Romney who was as smooth as a bowl of homogenised cream.

The shock of the debate was the revelation that three men who believe themselves equipped to be President of the United States are men who do not believe in science.
Senator Brownback, Mr. Huckabee and Representative Tancredo raised their hands when asked if anyone in the debate lineup rejected evolution. Creationists! Can one imagine putting people of this regressive mindset out there on the world stage?
Fortunately, these men don't have a chance in hell and should save themselves and everyone else a lot of time and money by pulling out of the race now.

In fact, so should most of them.

Not one of the seven outside runners stimulated any interest or excitement.

Ron Paul was expected to stand out - and in a way he did. He stood up against regulation of the Internet. He urged against going to war against Iraq. He defended "free society" by objecting to a national ID card. Paul is a libertarian, old school. He'd get rid of all taxes. He's also an obstetrician who is against abortion. Fie upon you, Doctor. Fie.

Mike Huckabee said something I liked: "The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we’re not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas, jobs that are lost by American workers, many in their 50s who for 20 and 30 years have worked to make a company rich, and then watch as a CEO takes a hundred-million-dollar bonus to jettison those American jobs somewhere else. And the worker not only loses his job, but he loses his pension.

That’s criminal. It’s wrong. And if Republicans don’t stop it, we don’t deserve to win in 2008."
However, he also refused to grade the Bush administration's handling of the War on Iraq, saying:
"I think it’s too early to give them the grade. You don’t give a student a grade in the middle of the exam. We’re still in the middle of the exam. Let’s wait and see how it turns out, then we can give the president a grade." Huh? That war is only half over?

Tom Thompson made a complete idiot of himself by saying that 3,000 US lives had been lost in Iraq and "several thousand injured". He was only 356 out in the deaths - but in the injured, I'd never have described over 24,000 as "several". He should have known better. Disgraceful.

Brownback did not impress - until he said: "Life is one of the most important issues of our day". Gee. There was a day when it wasn't?

Hunter recognised global warming and the need to find alternative energy sources was a reat opportunity and challenge for the USA. Now, where have I heard that before? Oh, Rudi!

Gilmore barely made a blip on the radar and Tom Tancredo was obsessed with keeping Mexicans in Mexico. A one issue man.

John McCain came over fairly well. He clearly had learned his lines and he gave a potted version of his stump speech looking directly into the camera. He was still making very aggressive noises re Iran.

Mitt Romney spent a lot of time trying to convince everyone that his religion did not matter and that no one cared which church one went to so long as one went to church and so long as a man of "faith" was in the White House, because America is a country of "faith". Of course he threw in mentions of his uber-happy family. And, significantly, he promised that Osama bin Laden "is going to pay, and he will die". Romney also managed to crack a few jokes, which made him the only one who reminded one of Reagan at all. For some reason, all the candidates seemed to think Reagan had been the greatest President of all time - perhaps because they were debating in the Reagan Library in the shadow of a bloody great indoor aeroplane.


If I was a Republican voter, I'd give the White House to Rudy Giuliani, I think.
He is able to define the differences betwee Shi'ites and Sunnis. He is not a Bible-thumper. He has the integrity to be the one and only pro-choice voice, dissenting among a mob of pro-life God-botherers.
He keeps reminding us how he turned around New York City and, indeed, he did, even if we're sick of hearing him say so. But he also said that the reason for his success in NYC was the excellence of the bi-partisan team he chose - 6 Republicans and 45 Democrats.
Doesn't that speak the great volume? Wouldn't it make sense just to elect the Democrats?

McCain and his idiot sheet

It was pouring rain. They had given a "rain venue" address in case of such predicted weather but, as we drove past Veterans' Park in Manchester, there was the set-up for McCain's first stump speech as a presidential candidate, a sea of umbrellas and soggily loyal supporters. Why give a rain address and not use it?
Well, it became clear once McCain was up and talking - staring intently in front of him and rarely making eye contact with his dripping audience. There, hooded against the rain, was a giant teleprompter rolling large text! The man was READING his speech. A presidential candidate who did not know his own words! Is this the makings of the Leader of the Free World?



The nickname for teleprompters in Australia is "the idiot sheet". Need I say more?

Well, yes, of course I must.


Clearly, the logistics of moving the chunky great heap of technology which put words in McCain's mouth was the reason they decided to keep the event in the park. Moving it would throw out the whole schedule. As it was, McCain in his "Straight Talking" bus was late and we all stood about shivering and listening to Country music for over half an hour. "Straight talking" was what we got - a man talking straight to a teleprompt.

I didn't attempt to take notes in the rain, so I did not record the content of the speech. Since it is all written as a script, I am sure it is online and I am sure all the reporters were given nice, neat copies. Indeed, the only spontaneity of this political event was when McCain was forced to respond to the interjectors, calling and chanting for an end to the War on Iraq. He was not quick. First he absurdly thanked them, then he said this reflected American freedom of speech and, finally, he clued up enough to echo the New Hampshire motto: "Live Free Or Die".


There were lots of protesters dotted about outside the roped area of this event - brave and wet and passionate people. Predominant were the Ron Paul people waving placards asking "Who's the real maverick?" McCain likes to call himself the Republican maverick but, in fact, his track record is deeply conservative. Ron Paul of Texas, however, turns out to be the real Republican rebel, a congressman who voted against the Iraq War, against the Patriot Act and against regulating the Internet. I'd never heard of him. He turns out to be an obsetrician, of all things.



Amid the steely veterans in leather jackets and "Chosen Few" caps, there also were peacenicks holding anti-war placards and one couple with a long banner mocking McCain's appalling gaffe of singing "Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran".