WE NEED TO THINK STRATEGICALLY TO WIN

WE NEED TO THINK STRATEGICALLY TO WIN

I support the progressive agenda represented by people like Steve Cohen and most of the blue state Democrats. The issues are things like fighting climate change, protecting Social Security, promoting public education, providing health care for all, stem cell research, ideological freedom, the right to choose and so forth.

As far as I am personally concerned the important thing is getting a person in the white house who is for these things and getting as many progressives in both houses of congress and in the state offices as possible. These issues are the important thing and to me personally I do not care about who delivers these things but that they get delivered. John McCain will not be a progressive but would be 4 more years of Bush. Things like geography, age, race, gender, national origin and personal choices of lifestyle on the part of a Democratic candidate mean nothing to me personally.

There are many women in the Congress who would be good presidents like Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Loretta Sanchez, etc.. There are many blacks in the Congress like Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters and the others in the Democratic black caucus that would be good presidents.

There are many others like Chuck Schumer of New York or southerners like Al Gore and John Edwards that would be good presidents as well.

All of these have substantial assets and most if not all have at least one million and many of these have much more. None of these are for leveling everybody down to the lowest common denominator like the far right tries to say in their underground emails.

All of these believe in work for those who are able bodied and under retirement age. All of these realize that government in our time has to play a role to solve those problems that the individual cannot but all of these believe in private business, especially small business.

None of these that I am aware of are advocating the world government idea but all of these realize that international cooperation by negotiation is needed to solve the problems facing our environment, the trade disparities and the need for ideological freedom without the use of force from the outside so that people everywhere can make their own personal choices, etc..

There are differences among Democrats of course and elected officials must be mindful of public opinion and specific issues in their own states and districts. The lies and fake conspiracies that the far right continually talk about are simply means to try to stop the solutions that are needed for our country and to reverse things like Social Security, Medicare, public education, etc..

Whoever the Democrats nominate would if elected have a diverse administration with people from various groups and various locations. On the other hand John McCain will not have the interest of average people at heart.

In the case of Hillary and Barack there is the reality of who they are but to win swing voters they must have an image that makes enough of the swing voters feel comfortable as they would with the southerners that I mentioned.

The reality is that Hillary is fully capable of being president if Bill were not there. If she is elected she will have the power and not Bill. She could if she chose to simply tell him to leave. Each has plenty of money to live on separately if they chose to do so. On the other hand having Bill around can create the image in the minds of some of the swing voters that are necessary to win that their marriage is intact and that the successful Clinton philosophy is back. The colonial American ancestry can help as well.

Obama can help his image in the following ways. He recently said in a speech something to the effect that government has to do what people cannot do for themselves but that people have a big role to play such as parents making kids study their lessons instead of the video games n school nights. This needs to be mentioned often. Because there are low down people like the Republican Congressman from Iowa who tried to falsely put the radical Muslim label on him Obama needs to continually mention his faith.

The fact that his mother was a white lady from Kansas with typical colonial and Magna Carta ancestry from both of her parents who also rendered service in World War II needs to come out more. Obama has the kind of ancestry from his mother that is typical of most presidents. He needs to get more documentation down to Edwin Hickman and down to William Harris in Colonial Virginia.

I think that Obama probably has at least one ancestor who served in the American Revolution and if he can document down to the two people that I mentioned then he can ride on the claims of many others on down to the immigrant ancestors and on to the Magna Carta. He was raised by his mother and her parents so he has an upbringing that should not scare some of the swing voters that are necessary to win.

The other problem that he faces is the fact that if he should be nominated he needs Florida and Michigan to win against John McCain. If the Democrats in these two states were responsible for changing the dates of the primary then the argument about the rules would be different. It was in fact Republican Governor Charlie Crisp of Florida and the Florida legislature that moved the dates in Florida and the Republican legislature in Michigan that pushed that state.

Punishing Democrats only makes the Republican trick work. Obama needs to accept the results that are already there and move on. If he can still win the nomination he will be stronger in these two states in November against McCain. If he has to keep these delegates out to get nominated then he will have a problem in these two states in November.

The far right hates Hillary because Bill has won two presidential elections and he is the only Democrat since Roosevelt to have done it. Employment rose and the deficits and crime dropped during the Clinton years in the nineties.

Some people want Obama as the next president. Others like myself want the Democrat to beat McCain regardless of which one of the two leads the ticket. There are some Republicans who have voted for Obama in the caucuses and primaries who think that he would be the easiest to beat in November and who fully plan to vote for McCain in November.

Obama needs to join with Hillary in demanding that the Florida and Michigan delegates be seated without any more money spending or inconvenience to the voters of these two very important states. Then they need to stop talking about each other and both go after McCain. We need state by state polls instead of just the national polls to try to see which one scores the best against McCain and do some electoral math.

I believe that Hillary has the better chance against McCain but if Obama got things straightened out and actually won in November I would still have the last laugh at those Republicans who thought that they were making the Democrats nominate the weaker candidate.