Osler's Razor

A one-term governor who's facing ethics violation charges, or a man who's been in the Senate for 36 years, serving on the Judiciary and the Foreign Relations committee? I think even Republicans can admit that Biden's a better choice as of right now.
 

As for Palin, there was a report on NPR (no, that doesn't stand for national proletariat radio) this morning that the woman in charge of the trooper-gate investigation in Alaska fully expects pressure to drop the investigation after the convention is over.

Also in the same report, Palin may have have killed the the bridge to nowhere, but she did keep the earmarked money for the state. She also forgot to mention last night that she didn't kill the $38 million project to build an access road leading up to the bridge to nowhere that is actually being built right now.

I just don't think she has the chops to be VP. Everyone should consider the serious possibility that McCain will pass away or become incapacitated during his Presidency. I have nothing against elderly people, and I work with them everyday in the context of guardianships/probate. There simply comes a point where mental acuity begins to diminish. (I even know an 85 year old and a 93 year old who will not vote for McCain because of this issue alone.) In that likely event, I do not think that she's ready for this job.

Off topic - Has IPLawguy had any interactions with the Log Cabin republicans during this convention?
 

Wow--I think justin t. needs to take his own argument and apply it to the Presidential candidates.
 

Osler - when you say your "primary" interest is in criminal law, do you mean primary simply because its your professional interest? Is it enough to consider a presidential (or any) candidate based upon his (or HER) positions on issues pertaining to your profession only?

Regarding your question: I like Obama's argument that we need change in Washington. I don't like Obama's kind of change, and neither Biden nor McCain offer any real change. So who is left?
 

Oz... sorry to say that IMO we are probably never going to get discussions of issues again. We live in a divide-and-conquer, lowest-common-denominator world, a world where "issues" and "discussion" don't resonate but hot-button emotional "topics" do.

As I just wrote that, I paused to think of the derivation of "topic," which I believe has to do with "surface." Hmm... The very word suggests that we don't delve deeply enough into the things and persons upon which/whom we vote.

Emotions get votes. Push someone's buttons, and s/he'll go to the polls. A pol's job, these days, is to manipulate us and try to get us to vote him or her in.

Cynical? Yes. Real? Unfortunately, I think so.
 

Anon. 8:07--

You have it backwards. Criminal law is my profession because I think it is incredibly important. That's why I chose it. It shouldn't be surprising that my political interests also reflect the value I attach to it.

Of course it isn't the only thing, but it is most important to me. Obama actually has articulated several policy points in that area (ie, addressing the problems in the sentencing guidelines), while McCain has said almost nothing about it.

I will say this on another important issue (campaign finance)-- McCain's choice of Palin gives me hope that we may see the McCain of McCain/Feingold again, a guy willing to try to change the political money culture of Washington.
 

Who is Al Haig?
 

This is a tough one for me because I've always thought that Joe Biden would've been a good candidate for the Democrats. He is a bit of a hothead, and tends to have a problem controlling his mouth, but he certainly has an immense amount of experience as a legislator, especially in the foreign affairs area. At times he has been a reasonable Democrat (kind of in the Joe Lieberman vein) that seems to be willing to work with anyone on the issues that are important to him. At the same time, anybody that comes out and says that he wants to prosecute Bush for "crimes" once he becomes Vice President is probably a little too close to the loony left for me.

I don't buy that Palin lacks sufficient experience (we love electing governors in this country, and she is the only person in the race with any executive experience) but she certainly doesn't have the experience of McCain/Biden. More importantly, she doesn't have the kind of record you can look at and really get a feel for. We know some things about her, and many of those things I find encouraging in terms of her fiscal conservatism. However, I'm always wary of anyone that self-identifies as an "agent of change" or a "reformer."

What is interesting to me is that if the Democrats believe that Biden is prepared to be President why didn't they nominate him? I mean, they had the chance to do so. And its not just that they didn't nominate him, he wasn't even close. The Democrats have had multiple opportunities to nominate this man and each time they have found him lacking. If his own party doesn't consider him presidential material (and their votes speak louder than the cheers from a convention floor) then why should we now suddenly believe that he is ready and capable?

I guess I will say Palin (shocking, I know) purely because I don't think the lack of a long service record (which doesn't necessarily mean that she lacks a strong service record) overcomes the fact that I think she is more likely to agree with me on key issues for me than Biden is. The only argument I've heard advanced for why Biden is the better choice is because he has more experience. But experience as a Senator/Congressman/Governor/Mayor/Community Organizer is not a sine quo non to success as a president or a vice president.

I also tend to agree that if Democrat's only reason why Biden is a better VP choice is because he has more experience then I hope they are all planning on casting their votes for John McCain. If experience is the only standard then the presidential race really isn't close.
 

1. Biden didn't win the nomination because he's not as appealing as Obama. There can be more than one good potential president in a party. Biden always came off as competent but kinda boring.

2. RRL, what about this campaign finance reform thing? It seems like McCain and Palin are pretty unified on that. I thought that was a problem for you. Not that it would change your mind, but I suspect you would have preferred someone as VP (or pres.) who was more "on the side of free speech."
 

I understand that Democrats found Obama more appealing, but they also found Hillary and John Edwards more appealing. And in the one primary he ran in he also finished behind Richardson, so apparently they found him more appealing as well. And in 1988 he lost to Michael Dukakis (I miss that guy) and fell behind Dick Gebhardt (don't miss him so much). So, apparently Democrats found both of them more appealing as well. Seems like there is a pattern there. His own party has made it clear that they don't want him to be their nominee in two different elections, and it wasn't even close.

So, at some point I think it is a fair question to ask why it is that Democrats have consistently found him lacking as a nominee for the job they now want to place him second in line for.

Oh, and I agree completely. I hate campaign finance reform. I think it is unconstitutional and fundamentally bad for the democratic process. That is why I didn't want McCain to be the nominee, and certainly something that strikes me as troublesome about Palin. However, Biden is for it. Obama seems to be for it. Certainly neither of them is going to do anything about it. And I'm something of an outlier on this issue, so I don't have much hope about anybody doing anything about it anyways. So, while I would love to see a nominee that is against the restrictions on political speech found in campaign finance laws, I'm afraid that option was not presented to me.

Look, Palin would not have been my first choice. Neither would McCain. But, when it comes to politics I firmly believe in the lesser of two evils theory. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would ever be able to vote.
 

Palin seems to be really big on more drilling. That's an issue, right?
 

I like the question. Lets run down the experience of all four candidates: Obama is clever. He has run a hell of a campaign. He is black and in the right place at the right time. Palin is clever. She knows how to win a campaign. She is a woman and in the right place at the right time. (With much credit to Hilary for paving the way.) Those are pretty much their credentials. With Biden and McCain, I'm not sure that the kind of experience that either of them have is the kind of experience that will move this county forward. Both are long in the tooth politicians who have had certainly enough time to have been corrupted in great degree by the power they have surrounded themselves with. Biden, perhaps to a greater degree than McCain, but given the bias of the reporting coverage it is really hard to say. With McCain I can believe the service to country argument, but only based on his past, but I can’t grasp that argument in Biden’s context. He is simply a career politician. None of them are in the mold of our founding fathers. Few are.

I realize that this simple comparison is unfair, they are going after separate and unequal offices. The pundits and campaign shapers would have us throw all four candidates into the same experience barrel so we confuse this issue all together. We should not. But, does experience of this public office sort help a President make the kinds of 11th hour decisions that presidents have to make. I think not. (I might bend a little on this in the case of foreign affairs, but any bright, hopeful skeptic with a good grasp of history should be able to survive on the world stage.) People who would be politicians always seem to start with good intentions and end up feeding at the public trough for as long as their bellies can stand (Considerably, in the case of Ted Kennedy) and ignoring the common good that was so obvious to them at the start of their public career.

All this philosophical folderol aside, and to the question at hand: Biden or Palin? I would go with the candidate who has actually run a household, tended a sick child, and perhaps gutted a moose or two. There is actually real decision making experience there.
 

My blog has a bit of a post on the end of why I'd never vote for Sarah Palin, even if she were not running on the ticket of man I would also never vote for.

Joe Biden would not be my first choice either; like RRL, I think he's a hothead (see, we can agree!) and I don't like hotheads in executive positions. I would rather have seen Kaine or Bayh be the Democratic VP pick, truth be told, but I too believe in picking the lesser of two evils, and a Democratic presidency is usually the lesser of two evils. Certainly it has been during my quarter-century tenure on the planet. Even Dukakis. :)

But politics in America isn't about the issues anymore; just look at the coverage of the speeches. Last night, the right-wing media was fawning over Giuliani and Palin, while the left-wing media (such as it exists here) was attempting to voraciously fact check their every word and catch them lying. The talking heads (like Peggy Noonan), caught off-camera, often say things that are the polar opposites of the opinions they portray to the public. It's about showmanship, one-upmanship, and games, not about doing anything right or worthwhile.

Color me cynical if you will, but color me cynical and willing to give an outsider the chance to stir things up. Things certainly can't go worse than they are going now.
 

I have a deep respect for Joe Biden and he's probably one of my favorite politicans (which isn't saying much, but still). Outside of Warren Rudman and Dan Inouye, he's probably the politician of my lifetime I have the most respect for.

Biden was perhaps the first person to be calling Milosevic a genocidal monster, and in one of his hothead moments, even told him that he'd see him at the Hague. this was long before anyone would even whisper there was a problem in Yugoslavia, but Biden saw an evil and jumped right in to condemn it. The rest of the world came along a decade later.

If I could vote for Biden for president, I would.
 

I actually went over to Lane's blog and read his post (see, I'm open minded, I'm hip, I'm with it). I will promise you this, me and Lane probably do not agree about much (but I'm all for finding common ground over which Democrats are ill-tempered), but I will absolutely agree about this....

If you're a socialist, then Obama is the candidate that most closely reflects your views and you ought to vote for him.

As to whether that is a positive or a negative comment about Obama, I bet you can all guess what I think.

Four other things I wanted to address from Lane's post (only because we haven't gotten to get into it in a couple of weeks, and I miss it so....I mean, there are so few people that self-identify as a "socialist" anymore):

1. "the left-wing media (such as it exists here)" - did you watch MSNBC last night? Or read the New York Times for the last week? Or Time? Or Slate? Or the Huffington Post? Or Daily Kos? Or any one of the three major networks? I get it, you don't like FOX. Neither do I.

2. "The talking heads (like Peggy Noonan), caught off-camera, often say things that are the polar opposites of the opinions they portray to the public." -- I don't need to respond for Peggy Noonan, I think she can do that all on her own considering she is absolutely one of the brightest people on earth. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/declarations.html

3. "Things certainly can't go worse than they are going now." - yes they can. We could have one of those socialist governments like the Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany, or Mussolini's Italy and find out why the word "suck" is in the dictionary.

4. "a Democratic presidency is usually the lesser of two evils. Certainly it has been during my quarter-century tenure on the planet. Even Dukakis. :)" - I just had to include this one because it made me laugh so hard the first time I wanted to see it twice in the comments section.
 

A slightly off topic questions that struck me as I listened to Palin's speech: Why is family off limits when the candidate self-identifies as a hockey mom? Just seems hypocritical. (shrug)

Anyway, on your posed question: I’m torn.

On Palin – I don’t know how well she will be able reconcile her personal beliefs with what is best for the United States as a whole (where those things differ). Frankly, given my druthers, I don’t want to work for an ideologue.

On Biden– He worries me because his rhetoric has often included using criminal proceedings on things that strike me as political matters.
 

The Dallas Morning News had an interesting explanation this morning of something I wondered about:

"Palin last night: I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

Now, the truth is that, starting at age 23, Obama ran a faith-based charity called the Developing Communities Project.

It was made up of eight Catholic parishes when he got there and had one staff member. He was its director, meaning he was in charge. He made decisions about it, including staffing, budgets, etc. And when he left in 1988 to go to law school, he had grown its budget from $70,000 to $400,000, its staff from 1 to 13 people. More important, he created a job training program for this community and a college prep tutoring program.

As mayor, she built a hockey rink/rec center using eminent domain (because apparently there just isn't enough land in Alaska).

And keep in mind the timeline here: Obama did this as a young man BEFORE going to law school, becoming a successful lawyer and a law professor."
 

I have a lot of respect for Biden even though he's been in government long enough to have been a "law and order/tough on crime politician." I don't believe that having more experience necessarily makes a person more qualified. Fortunately, on election day people vote for the President not the VP, me among them.
 

Anon. 2:22-- would you have ever guessed we would have a Republican candidate at the convention parading around on stage with her unmarried pregnant teen and the impregnator while mocking someone's work for a faith-based charity?

And that the fundies would go crazy for it?

I think the religious right cares a lot more about the right wing than they do their supposed religion.
 

If your primary interest is criminal law then you should be following the Kwame Kilpatrick story up here in Detroit this week. He plea'd earlier today and is no longer Mayor of Detroit. Some terms of the aggreement include: 120 days in jail, loss of his law license, can't run for office for 5 years, reparation repayment of $1,000,000

I would like to note one fine thing he accomplished while in office ~ he finally paved Jefferson Avenue so when you are driving into or out of Detroit, your kidneys aren't in your ears.

As to your original question: BIDEN. I've never connected well with soccer moms.
 

RRL, I have but one thing I want to address:

(1) China's economy is very capitalistic. That's one of their main problems, what with the unrestrained growth, no quality control and pollution.

(2) The Soviet Union is the only one of those governments you listed that was actually socialist, but it's failure is not the result of a "level playing field." Consider all of the embargoes, threats of violence, market manipulation and propaganda produced by the West before passing judgment on its efficacy as a system. This isn't to defend the views of either Lenin or Stalin (I'm more of a Trotskyite than either of those) but merely to point out that it's not quite as simple an analysis as you'd like to paint.

(3) and (4) Neither Mussolini's or Hitler's governments were socialist. In fact, they were the diametric opposite: fascist. Fascism is the extreme of the right wing of the political spectrum, while socialism is on the left end. There are bad excesses to socialism (like, say, Stalinism) too, don't get me wrong. I just happen to think that the non-excessive forms of socialism are a preferable form of economic and governmental structure, presuming, of course, that the move to communism follows quickly on its heels.
 

As a matter of fact I ran into a friend of mine who used to be a member of the Log Cabin Republicans, but he quit because they were too something or not enough of something. He moved to California a few years ago and dropped out of politics. Now he has a political blog called Gay Patriot or something like that.

He talked a lot and I was trying to do something else at the time, so I am not sure of the details.

The Log Cabin people had an event, but I did not attend.

I know several openly gay Republicans... and quite a few who are not so open about it.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeMhyv-95qA
 

Lane - I wish to address only one thing. Italian fascists and the Nazis were socialists. They had different approaches than some other european socialists, and the communists, which explains the rift. But the fundamental tenants of socialism can be found in both of those governments.

Progressives only started to identify fascism as a right wing phenomenon in this country after it became accepted dogma that Mussolini and Hitler were bad people.

Lenin referred to fascists as "right wing" to differentiate them from his brand of socialism. But the fascists share almost nothing in common with the conservatism (or right wing) as defined by in areas like the economy, social programs, or government control. However, fascism does share many traits with socialism and even modern progressives in these exact same areas.

Oh, and before all of that pressure from the West that brought down the Soviet Union there were all of those gulags and all of those people that Lenin and Stalin killed.

And I wonder why China opened up economically?? Maybe it is because the government realized that, much like the Soviet Union, the people simply would not stand for the lack of economic progress and growth that socialism brought their country for half a century.

Socialism has failed. Every example of where it has been tried has been a failure. If you're arguing for utopian socialism then fair enough, but I prefer the real world.
 

Anon 2:31,

The religious right cares about *power*. So, unfortunately, do most politicians.

The pols who are not in power want to be.

The pols who are in power want to stay there.

I'm growing more cynical by the moment, and it saddens me.
 

rrl - You're completely wrong about fascism. Fascism was a conscious movement of the right wing of the day. In fact, one of the allures of communism was that they were the antithesis of fascists. The communists and the fascists fought not just in elections, but violently in the streets. Strangely, no one had a stronger anti-fascist record than the communists.

I'm not sure when this movement to define Hitler as a leftist began, but it is a misuse of history. Communists believe in the Internationale and all that, fascists were extremely nationalistic. The National Socialist Party was as socialist as the Germna Democratic Republic (East Germany) was Democratic. Hitler was never identified with the left during his lifetime.

Actually, the politics of the 1920s through 1930s are kind of fascinating, as democracy and capitalism were viewed widely in Europe as a failure. There was a worldwide depression and probably the only two functioning democracies in Europe were England and Czechoslovakia. The extreme right and the extreme left both offered a solution which rejected capitalism and democracy. It was an era of extremism and revolution. Neither group bears much similarity to the left or the right today.

And while socialism has never gotten a foothold in America, England is a fairly socialist nation. Scandanavia is famously socialist. While we can debate the merits of their economic systems, its tough to argue that it is a failure, seeing that it is one of the dominant philosophies in Europe.
 

I went to the Soviet Union in 1985. It was a fascinating place... and in some ways was great and in other ways terrible. If religion or free speech or making a lot of money aren't important to you (and, lets face it, there are a lot of people to whom none of those is very relevant), it would probably have been a pretty great place.
 

These "debates" and conversations about left and right, fascism and socialism are nauseating on their best day. Dude, when does Haiku Friday start?
 

Palin is perky,
Biden is a tough old bird,
Senate president?
 

Biden.
RFDIII