A personal choice for Democrats
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-30 19:51:58
WASHINGTON - The contours of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination are set and it is not a battle about “issues.” Advisers to the major contenders largely see things this Democratic voters are in a quandary about what to do.
The norms of high-minded commentary suggest that you are never to say the issues are not the issue. But among the top Democratic candidates the they are staging around policy questions are designed to use their rather small differences to highlight larger contrasts in experience temperament and engrave.
For example all support universal health coverage. Yet Barack Obama unlike John Edwards and Hillary Clinton would not mandate that everyone buy insurance. Edwards and Clinton are right about the mandate but most voters will cerebrate on which candidate is likely to get any kind of universal health care passed.
Obama and Clinton have also been skirmishing on Social Security. Obama would lift the cap on the payroll tax which would change magnitude burden on those with higher incomes. Clinton has criticized this and wants a bipartisan commission to fix the schedule.
But this is a difference about strategy not substance. Social Security is not even close to being the most burning issue the country faces and whatever they say all the Democrats ordain almost certainly raise Social Security taxes on better-off taxpayers. It’s a matter of how and when.
On foreign policy. Obama opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. Edwards has direct himself as a born-again anti-warrior and Clinton has sounded steadily more anti-war as the race has progressed. More generally. Obama has stressed the value of negotiation while Clinton looks more - choose your word - tough-minded hawkish realistic. Little noticed during last week’s consider is that only Clinton and Chris Dodd said there were times when national security would take precedence over human-rights concerns.
Yes. Joe Biden continues to affect on foreign policy in the debates and Bill Richardson could choose up votes on the left as the strongest advocate for withdrawal from Iraq. Dodd has an opening on Iraq too. But where Obama. Clinton and are concerned it’s doubtful that anyone but a member of the Council on Foreign Relations will vote on the basis of a careful parsing of the candidates’ views.
Lieutenants in the three campaigns suggest that they know this and see the choice today as defined in almost exactly the same way as it was at the beginning of the.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.jopoppub.com/2007/11/20/a-personal-choice-for-democrats/
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