Ralph Nader is once again mounting an independent presidential bid, vowing to fight “corporate greed, corporate power, corporate control.â€
He won’t matter this time. For one thing, it’s not a good year for third-party candidates, because there’s a surprisingly high level of voter satisfaction with both major party candidates.
Moreover, the premise of Nader’s past runs — the two parties have the same agenda — has been proved demonstrably false. As Barack Obama said in dismissing Nader’s run: “He thought that there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later I think people realize that Ralph did not know what he was talking about.â€
A front-page article in The Eagle Saturday noted that as Barack Obama comes closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, the buzz is growing about Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate. She’s “the hot name right now,†Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza wrote Friday. Her executive experience and track record as a Democrat who can attract Republican votes would be pluses. As Cillizza noted, “picking Sebelius would add to the historic nature of the Democratic ticket and draw huge amounts of media attention.â€
But Sebelius has no national security experience, which an Obama administration would sorely need. And her Democratic response to the State of the Union address flopped with her party’s base.
Nevertheless, a Sebelius vice presidential candidacy was further endorsed Sunday by fellow guest Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell on CNN’s “Late Edition,†during which Sebelius talked up Obama and talked about the issues so vital in her home state of Ohio, which votes March 4. “I’d like to see Kathleen here as his running mate. The prairie duo,†Rendell said.
Former Bush adviser Karl Rove thinks Barack Obama’s 45-minute Houston speech last week set him up for failure, because he “dropped the pretense of being a candidate of inspiring but undescribed ‘postpartisan’ change†and turned proudly left-wing. “As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world,†Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Then again, Rove may be calculating that Hillary Clinton would be the easier Democratic nominee to beat.
Associated Press looked at how John McCain earned the nickname “Senator Hothead,†and considered the notion of whether the leader of the free world can afford to have a temper. One of McCain’s past targets, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, referring to McCain’s outbursts as “aggressive expressions of differences,†said McCain apologized immediately and “we’ve moved on down the road.†But in 2000, New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici said, “I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.â€
If elected, of course, McCain won’t be the first president to fly off the handle. Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson all were hotheads at times. Even President Bush has been known to get angry and profane when the going gets tough.
Changes to the Tiahrt amendment were supposed to change things for cities wanting gun-trace data. But Baltimore and New York City are newly sharing their own information about seized illegal guns, and are trying to get other cities to sign on to their database detouring Tiahrt’s measure.
“Cities are fighting crime in isolation. Congress has a treasure trove of data and we are not allowed to see it,†said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has crusaded to overturn the Tiahrt amendment.
