<div>Paul Rumelhart wrote:</div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">It's going to be an interesting election.<br><br>Whoever we get, can they really be as bad as who we have now?</blockquote>
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<div>This quote from John McCain on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert from June 19, 2005, suggests McCain is not a parroting mouth piece for the oil and coal industry, like W. Bush (note I wrote "suggests"). In fact, one of the recent attack talking points from conservatives against McCain is his apparent willingness to push substantive action reduce CO2 emissions:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8245636/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8245636/</a></div>
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<div>John McCain:</div>
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<div>...but we've got to start reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases now. And we can do that with cap and trade which is a free-market kind of process. </div>
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<div>The terrible thing about climate change is that we're not going to see the effects of this for some years ahead of us although we're seeing some now in the Arctic, in the Antarctic and other manifestations of it. But the worst effects of it are down the road, and if we wait until those effects have taken place, then it's going to have serious consequences. Tony Blair said--look, suppose we act now and develop these technologies and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and there's no such thing as climate change, we have a cleaner world. But suppose we're right and climate change is taking place and we don't act, it's very serious consequences for our environment.</div>
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<div>Paul also wrote:<br> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Still, I won't be half surprised if some sort of orchestrated<br>"catastrophe" or "emergency" happens right around election time and our<br>
President postpones the elections because of "national security".<br><br>Paul<br><br>P.S. Just call me "conspiracy boy"...</blockquote>
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<div>I don't dismiss what you are implying as a "conspiracy," in the sense of not being credible, though I doubt they would postpone the election. </div>
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<div>"Orchestrated emergency," you write? Recall the claims of yellow cake uranium Iraq obtained from Niger, offered as solid evidence of a Iraq nuclear weapons program (along with the phony claims of Iraq obtaining centrifuge tubes for nuclear fuel processing, etc), by President Bush, in the hyped propaganda effort to justify the Iraq invasion? The dire warnings of a "mushroom cloud over America," by Bush and Condi Rice, an image specifically meant to inspire fear of a immanent nuclear attack from Iraq? </div>
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<div>There was no solid evidence Iraq had a viable nuclear weapons program, much less was even close to having an actual nuclear weapon they could deliver to US soil. And even if so, bombing runs, which were already routine over Iraq before the invasion, could have destroyed nuclear weapons facilities, an option less risky to American and Iraqi lives and treasure, than an actual invasion and occupation. And after Ambassador Wilson exposed the Niger yellow cake fraud, his CIA operative wife Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush administration. Scooter Libby probably was the fall guy for this scandal... Cheney should be in jail!</div>
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<div>Article on Libby as "fall guy" quoting juror in Libby trial:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/06/libby.juror/">http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/06/libby.juror/</a></div>
<div>--------------------------<br>They would not need to postpone the election to keep the neo-con agenda in power, which McCain to some extent represents, at least in his Iraq policy. If a "catastrophe," i. e. a terrorist style attack, occurred, that scared the population enough, McCain could garner many votes as the strongest national security candidate, the best president to defend the US against it's "enemies." And the current opposition to the war in Iraq might weaken, especially if a link, whether credible or not, could be made between the attack and extremists groups in Iraq, lessening the negative impacts in the voters minds of McCain's "stay the course" policy on Iraq.</div>
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<div>I wish it were not so, but I feel very uneasy about the Democrats nominating either a black or a women as a presidential candidate, given the level of sexism and racism in the US. Writing purely as a cynical Machiavellian strategist, I question, why can't the Democrats find a God fearing Bible toting southern "progressive" white man who is a viable presidential candidate, let's say with NRA credentials and subtle ethical "qualms" about abortion and gays, while still taking a firm stand on human and civil rights, who speaks tough on the war on terror and not letting Al Qaeda make a home in Iraq, while still adopting a strategy for the US to lessen our militaristic approach to solving the Iraq/Middle East mess, with a progressive agenda on education, the economy, health care and climate change? Let them have their guns, their "right to life," and their homophobia, if we can only change direction away from a militaristic oil dominated foreign policy towards an alternative energy economy. </div>
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<div>Has my idealism faded? No, but I am more inclined to adopt a realistic political strategy to achieve certain goals, even if it means making a deal with the devil. What did progressive idealism lead to in the USA in the last forty years? Eight years of the Bush administration... This is a serious failure, that should inspire a total rethinking of strategy.</div>
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<div>Anyone who thinks they are making some kind of noble idealistic statement by voting for a third party candidate, rather than Clinton, if she is the Democratic nominee, should carefully consider the 2000 election. The idealists who voted for Nader in Florida, without a doubt kept Gore from the White House, though in Idaho I voted for Nader, knowing full well Idaho was solidly Bush territory for Idaho's electoral votes. The coming election will probably go for McCain in Idaho, so again a vote for Nader here will not hurt Obama or Clinton. Gore, with all his faults, would not have fallen for the neo-cons Middle East domination ideology, and the invasion of Iraq. I could not believe the Nader followers in 2000 who kept insisting there was no substantive difference between Gore and Bush!</div>
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<div>All it may take is a percentage or two of voters who are sexist or racist, and/or voting for McCain due to his military image, if there is a manufactured or real "emergency" impacting national security, to hand McCain the While House. We know Obama and Clinton will be torn to shreds in the media by the Republican political machine. Get ready for the "swift boating" of either Obama or Clinton.</div>
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<div>But is it still possible for an Obama/Clinton ticket? I'm not sure if this would help or hurt the Democrats chances.</div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div><br> </div>