How stupid is the political media?  This stupid: they take seriously the notion that Giuliani’s decision to avoid the first six Republican nomination contests was a failed “strategy.”

It was a strategy of sorts, I suppose, in that had Rudy been able to pull off a win in Florida he could very well have been positioned to land a death blow in the Northeast and California on Stupor Tuesday.  But calling it a failed or foolish “strategy” ignores the fact that it was not his free choice or original intention to run to win the nomination in this way.  Rudy waited until Florida for one reason only: because he was hemorrhaging support in the wake of the “Sex on the City” scandals highlighting his misuse of city resources (including the police) in conducting his affair with Judi Nathan, and he needed to lay low.  His alternative to this “strategy” was not to run hard, under the bright media spotlight, in Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan Nevada, and South Carolina.  His actual alternative at that time was to drop out in disgrace.  He has been running since last fall to avoid that end.

As part of my campaign duties, I attended a public meeting last weekend where (the fairly liberal but not as liberal as her sister Rep. Linda) Rep. Loretta Sanchez spoke and answered questions.  One question was about post-election impeachment of Bush and Cheney, which the questioner suggested ought to be the price of a willingness to support Hillary if it came to that.  I want to recount, from faulty memory and without much commentary, at least up front, what she said.  Then I’ll give my reactions.

I get the sense that a lot of people out there — not necessarily a plurality, but enough to justify having a public conversation with them — share roughly my preference order with respect to the remaining non-Gravel Democratic Presidential candidates.  In terms of what I’d like to see in a nominee, I’d give Edwards a 90, Obama an 84, Clinton a 72, and I’ll explain where Kucinich fits in later.  So here’s where I stand after today’s debate, and y’all can hash it out in comments if you want.  There’s no special reason that you should be that interested in what I think, so there’s no particular reason that you should be abusive in comments.  I’m mostly setting this down as my own diary for the record, so I can refer to it years down the line.  (Thanks again, buhdy, for providing this service.)

August 3, 2008

Chris Dodd’s ascension to Senate Majority Leader after Harry Reid resigned that position in February 2008 was a time of great hope for the netroots.  His Presidential campaign was strong on the issues; while it did not catch fire with the public it brought him great esteem among the netroots.  When he defeated Joe Biden for the position by one vote, we expected great things from him.  Instead, the past six months have brough bitter disappointment.  It is time for him to resign.

Chris Dodd campaigned for President calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq and a restoration of the Constitution.  And yet, Chris Dodd has failed to prevent yet another appropriation — albeit a smaller one than requested — to keep troops in Iraq through the end of the year.  And he has been unable to prevent passage of a FISA bill that, while it does not offer immunity to telcos, also does not state unequivocally that the President was violating the law.  Finally, he called for funding for programs that would fight global warming, and none has been forthcoming.

We had the right to expect more.  Dodd didn’t deliver, and so he must go.

As many of you know, I am currently on vacation in the Philippines — a working vacation of sorts, if you count life work, in that I have met for the first time my five stepchildren, two stepgrandchildren, father-in-law, the sole remaining sib of my wife’s whom I had not met in the States, and about 150 other relations whom my wife has absolved me of the need to keep straight.  (I’ll meet them when they visit — which I’m told they all will, if they can help it.)

I also met my wife’s friend, principal of the school that my stepkids attend, which is evidently (having been chosen because of how much my wife values education) among the best in Pampanga.  (That is the province containing Clark Air Base, which — until Mt. Pinatubo erupted after having waited until the Cold War was safely over — was along with Subic Bay the major U.S. base in the region.)  The friend is turning 60, so competent that the school’s owner has begged her to stay, but is going to emigrate to the U.S. instead.  After all, she said, you’re supposed to retire at 60.

Oh really, I said, and after some stupid blundering on my part it came out that you were supposed to retire by 60 but had to retire after 65.  “Had to” as in “cannot legally work.”  Cannot take jobs away from the younger people who need them.  I had lawyer’s questions about how truly true this was — what if you are self-employed, I don’t think I thought to ask, but there were others, and from both her and my wife the answer was firm.  Cannot work.  You lived on savings, on the support of your family, on the kindness of charity — or not at all.