While I don't subscribe to the characterization of political candidates as opponents or contestants, like gladiators in the Roman arena, there's little question that many of the promoters and financial supporters of candidates are basically antagonistic to the interests of the general public the candidates are proposing to serve.
So, as a progressive Democrat, I'm not at all reluctant to consider the Republican proponents of authoritarian, patriarchal dictatorship as my enemies. Moreover, since a significant number of the American people have awakened to the fact that, instead of having their modest expectations and patriotic values honored, the people they elected to represent and serve them have engaged in the grossest deceptions and dishonored the country, it's clear that there's a small class of people who now have a lot to lose. It would be a mistake to think they will give up power easily.
False modesty and even a modicum of buffoonery, presumably assisted by a side-order of electoral fraud and judicial chicanery, managed to install (in 2000 and 2004) in the White House an individual whose competence to serve as chief executive proved to be virtually nil. But, the people who promoted his candidacy didn't worry about that. What they valued is that he was willing to do what his handlers told him, to "speak the speech, as (they) pronounced it to" him. And, clearly, that's what they're looking for again.
The presumptive nominee for 2008 seems not to quite fit the bill. John McCain already has a reputation of not sticking to the main agenda and his recent mis-pronouncements, no doubt prompted by a desire/need to appeal to so-called "independent" voters can't have gone unnoticed by the people who call the shots. Which is why it seems increasingly doubtful, unless one is content to assume that one's enemies are dolts, that the presumptive nominee will be transformed into the actual nominee of the Republican National Convention come Labor Day.
Although George W. Bush's prognostications about the Democratic nominee were apparently mistaken, his preference for Hillary Clinton was, admittedly, based on the calculation that the country would ultimately chose the Republican candidate in her stead. That may have been wishful thinking, but it may also have taken into account that those who had staked the Bushes to their political careers, had also put their money on the Clintons, as an acceptable alternative.
In any case, George W. Bush spreading rumors about his brother Jeb should not be dismissed out of hand.
George W. mentions Jeb as next possible Bush president
OK, he didn't bring it up.
But when Adam Boulton, a SkyNews TV reporter in Britain, asked President Bush if his final seven months in office was the end of the Bush political dynasty, he could have demurred, given that some number of folks back home are counting the days until Jan. 20 and his popularity rating rivals the percentage of people who are certain the Cubs will win the World Series this year.
....
The political dynasty question came near the end of the interview. "Well," the president said, "we've got another one out there who did a fabulous job as governor of Florida, and that's Jeb, " Bush said, ever the proud brother. "But you better ask him about running for president."
Meanwhile the speculation simmers and
Frank Dwyer opines:
McCain is too old. Everybody knows it, everybody can see it, every day. And his public pronouncements do show a pattern of real confusion about the most basic things. I'm not saying this confusion is due to his age; I don't know that. I'm just saying that it's confusion, staggering, stupefying confusion. If McCain's behavior and pronouncements don't qualify as "confused," we'll have to find a new definition for the word. Everybody knows this, too, everybody can see it, every day. I never thought McCain would really be the nominee because he didn't seem to me to be remotely electable -- and every day's new implosion, with its attendant bubbling of rage just under the surface, makes his nomination seem less and less likely. I don't want him to drop out. I want him to run. I like watching him run, but I know that isn't nice.
...
The people that call the shots in this country are going to do everything they can to have a corporate-compatible president. That's not Obama. Hillary would have been fine, but she lost her chance with a poor campaign and a failure to distance herself from the old centrist ways and the corporate trough.....
and ends up at Jeb Bush who, oddly enough, is being kept in the news by an assist to his education summit from the rumor that big brother George is, like Tony Blair, considering a conversion to the Catholicism that Jeb adopted when he married his spouse.
Catholicism. How, you might ask, will that go down with the evangelicals? Well, with Mike Huckabee as the V.P. there'll be something for them, as well. Huckabee claims he's not angling for a job in the Old Executive Office Building, but he's been traveling hither and yon, almost non-stop, since he stopped campaigning for the top slot. Most recently he's been visiting Japan.
TOKYO - Mike Huckabee is not running — or maybe he is.
The marathon man, who lost 110 pounds (50 kg) by hitting the road and advocating healthy living after he was diagnosed with diabetes in 2003, has a painful inflammation of the heel known as plantar fasciitis, and he is walking around the Imperial Palace in the Japanese capital gingerly.
Whether he will take a walk with presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, as vice presidential nominee is another question requiring equally careful footwork.
Speaking with Reuters less than five months before the U.S. presidential election and three months ahead of the Republican convention, the former Arkansas governor was interested but self-deprecating when asked if he would be the party’s No. 2.
Huckabee says Republican VP nod would be surprise
Right. That's what we should have learned from the last eight years; Republicans are big on surprise, stealth and secrecy. And, they don't like long political campaigns--don't need them when their base is prepared to vote for whomever they're told.
Besides, isn't that what you expect from the pater familias--that he'll come home and pull surprises out of his pocket, to make up for the fact that he drank up his pay and forgot to mail in the mortgage check?
Senator Obama said the other day that any fool can make a baby, but it takes a father to rear a child. Sure enough. Real fathers were what a lot of Americans were expecting from the "family values" party. It should now be clear that, for the most part, what's valued is the status that comes with the potential for paternity. And getting women to do the work.
