At this stage of the 1976 and 1992 elections, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were little-known governors of small states with infinitesimal rankings in the Presidential polls. That’s the slim reed to which Tom Vilsack’s 2008 hopes are lashed as the just-retired governor of Iowa makes his way, in media dimness, toward next year’s primaries. “I’m not a rock star,” he tells you, ‘but I am rock-solid.” Since we saw him in December, he has raised over $1.1 from...

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Cross posted from Connecting.the.Dots: After all those high-tech commercials on the Super Bowl, the U.S. Senate this week is looking like an old-fashioned car lot with politicians lobbing buzz words at us–bipartisan, non-binding, compromise, deadlock, procedural, debate—-in their usual bait-and-switch games. McCain, Lieberman and McConnell et al are still trying to palm off Bush’s repainted Baghdad jalopy on more than seventy percent of voters who aren’t buying. Reid, Warner, Levin et al keep kicking the tires but can’t get...

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Cross Posted from Connecting.the.Dots: Of the many worthies seeking national leadership, one stands apart from the rest. In these parlous times, with 30 per cent of the populace firmly behind him, his experience in presiding over wars and natural disasters is unmatched. All and sundry know him as a uniter, not a divider, a decider who does not waver under pressure, a resolute commander who consults a Higher Power rather than mere mortals on life-and-death decisions. Unlike some, he...

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Cross posted from Connecting.the.Dots: Does Cheney, a New York Times editorial asks, “simply feel free to cut the ground out from under Mr. Bush?” Why not? In 2000, after heading the search for a running mate, Cheney looked in the mirror and picked himself. They lost the popular vote (and who knows about Florida?), but Cheney came to office with a neo-con blueprint for policing the world and used the President as his hand puppet to lie our way...

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