mushin no shin

Over at Lesley’s pace I took another candidate selector quiz, with pretty close results, especially near the top. My current list would only be a little different; I’ll drop those who got out after Iowa, and I do have to arrange the middle and bottom a bit more, but here ya go:

So –

1. Why Richardson over Gravel? Experience, leadership, electability. I like Gravel a lot, but ideologically he’s only a little better than Richardson, while Bill brings much more to the table. Gravel’s more of a kook like me, and I probably wouldn’t be my top choice either.
2. Why Paul over the rest of the Democrats? Well, foreign policy (there’s much more to anti-interventionism and correcting the mistakes of the last 70 years than just getting out of Iraq), civil liberties (the dems talk the talk, but voting for the Patriot act, etc. is not walking the walk), and ending the War on Drugs make for reasons enough. Yes, he has despicable positions on abortion, immigration, gay rights, etc. Believe me it turns my stomach, and if there was a better 4th place choice available, I’d take it. I still have some hope that the Libertarian Party might let me put Steve Kubby into that spot.
3. Why Obama over Clinton & Edwards? I mean really, on policy, they’re all about the same. Well, I do have some faith that he might be a little better on civil rights. Again with all three it’s largely a rhetoric vs. reality problem. At the very least I can say that Obama doesn’t yet have quite the same track record of triangulation and/or outright failure, if only because he hasn’t been around long enough. But mostly, it’s about this. Now, my jaded, cynical, curmudgeonly self doesn’t really buy the idea that Obama himself is any great agent of change, but what I do love is that he is inspiring others. Or to put it another way — the myth of Jebediah Springfield has value too, and a noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

Oh, and, why Thompson over the rest of the Republicans? Well I’m just thinking laziness might work to our advantage. Maybe he won’t get around to really screwing things up. I kid… actually I’m still not a great fan of the populist economics of most Democrats. I support moderate steps and safety nets, but not the whole agenda; I criticize conservatives for failing to recognize the problems, and liberals for proposing the wrong solutions, which may or may not be better than no solutions. So if it wasn’t for the war & related civil liberties issues, I’d possibly rank Giuliani, Thompson, and McCain over Clinton & Edwards. But we have what we have.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Babble, Politics, TV & Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.