Uninformed Political Opinion

There are ten Democrats who have announced that they're running for President. And unless you're paying a lot of attention, you might not have formed an opinion about each of them. Unless you're a Republican, I guess; then you can skip the whole problem. Anyway, it's occurred to me that an informed electorate is key to a successful democracy. And like I say, some people can't even name all the candidates. I certainly can't. The only way I know there's ten of them is because Jon Stewart said so on The Daily Show last night.

So here's the deal. I'm going to find out who the candidates are, go to their websites, find out if there's a difference between them, jump to some hasty conclusions, and then share them with you. It'll be sloppy and rushed, but I'll still end up more informed than the average voter.

And then, because I am under no obligation to be fair, I'm going to make jokes about the candidates here, so that you can share my small level of knowledge.

Incidentally, the reason I'm out of the loop is that I'm so tired of regular political coverage. The usual articles are all about the race, whether Guy A made a good move when he did something, or if Guy B scored points in the debate. Articles about politics hardly ever talk about the candidates' positions. It's odd.

Wesley Clark

His website catchphrase is "Leadership. Character. Courage." I assume the character reference is to imply that unlike Clinton, he'll resist the urge to end up talking about sexual relations to Congress. He's ex-military, having spent 34 years in the army, topping out at four-star general and NATO Supremem Allied Commander. So I guess he's planning on continuing his upward mobility to become President, who's the head of the US military.

His resume is very heavy on all the military stuff he was involved in. He's got a lot of medals and awards, including knighthoods from Britain and the Netherlands. I'm not sure that's allowed, actually; if you're a British knight, doesn't that mean you're part of their military system? If we go to war with the Dutch, what happens?

My favorite part of his biography is where it mentions that he's also a licensed investment banker.

I'm not sure where he stands on the various issues, but he only declared yesterday, so I guess I can't really hold that against him too much. He's got a vision statement, but it's about as comprehensible as most vision statements. He seems to be for a balanced budget and opposed to unemployment.

John Kerry

John Kerry is currently a US Senator, representing Massachusetts. This makes him already sound more liberal than, say, a four-star general. His campaign website, once you get past the annoying bit where it turns your cursor into a big hammer, has a section where he talks about the issues, which is nice. He sets out his position on 20 basic issues, like Crime (against it), and Protecting America's Workers (for it). In the gun control section, he starts off by pointing out that he's a gun owner. That seems like a good idea. If you're going to talk about a touchy subject, start off by telling your opponents that you're one of them. Like if you want to cut farm subsidies, you should spend a few years as a farmer.

Kerry is also ex-military, with a handful of medals from his time with the Navy in Vietnam. Back when he was a prosecutor, he "put the Number Two mob boss in New England behind bars." How many mob bosses are there in New England, exactly? Are they just in Boston or do the ski resorts have a bunch of burly guntoting guys in the background, running maple syrup across the border?

Howard Dean

Howard Dean, who used to be governor of Vermont, is the really popular name on the internet. In addition to his official campaign site, he's got an official weblog. I guess that's refreshingly 21st-century, but I know a lot of bloggers, and there are very few of them I'd trust with a whole country. Plus, how come Dean's on Blogspot? That seems to imply that I've got a bigger Internet budget than he does.

Dean's rhetoric is a little heated. When he's talking about the environment (he'd like to keep it around) he refers to Bush and his "henchmen". It's not always like that; when talkign about Agriculture, it's "President Bush and his House Republican colleagues." Although he's still not very complimentary. I guess I'm out of the loop, but I had no idea Bush was in the pocket of the big commercial meatpackers.

There isn't much done to separate the various Democratic candidates from each other. Dean's talk, for example, is almost totally focussed on Bush. I guess that makes sense from a long-term perspective, but it's not helping me decide which of these ten guys I like best. I may be forced to watch the debates. I can only hope that Saturday Night Live does a good job. Seriously, I mock SNL a lot, but "...strategery." was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Dean is a doctor (excuse me, "physician"), which means that if one of the military candidates starts insisting on being called "General", Dean's at least got a title he can pull out if necessary. His bio says he used to share a medical practice with his wife, but it also says that it was only four years after he got his medical degree that he went to the Vermont House. So unless being in the Vermont House is a part-time job (which wouldn't really surprise me, I guess), he couldn't have been in a practice with his wife for too long before he turned to politics.

Oh! On looking at his wife's bio, I see that the state legislature gig was, in fact, part time. But when he became Lieutenant Governor four years later (like Benson!), it was full time. I wonder if fans of The West Wing are going to get confused and vote for Dean on the theory that he's a liberal governor of one of those little New England states and has a wife who's a doctor.

Al Sharpton

I don't actually know much about Al Sharpton. I mean, I know what he looks like and I know that he's often used as an easy punchline. And that he's a reverend.

And if this is his website it's not helping much. Maybe this is it but it doesn't say "official" anywhere I can find.

Three of the ten reasons Sharpton is running for president are "Increase political consciousness and awareness," "Stimulate more people to get involved in the political process," and "Increase voter registration." Those all seem like the same thing to me. They also don't sound like he thinks he's going to win.

Another four reasons all involve supporting Constitutional Amendments. I don't think our Constitution is perfect, but I think four amendments at the same time would be a little extreme.

Having said that, I like the other three reasons Sharpton's running for president. I don't think he'll get many votes out of trying to get Washington, D.C. turned into a state, but I think it makes sense. It would be a pretty small state, but it's always seemed dumb to me that the nation's capitol isn't in a state. It's weird.

Joe Lieberman

Joe Lieberman I know a thing or two about, because I was paying attention last election. But I wasn't paying attention until after the primaries, which is why a bunch of these other people who ran last time are still ciphers to me.

Lieberman has been on The Daily Show a lot, and he seems to be trying to cultivate a fun image. He's the candidate who can banter! He's got anecdotes! And he's named "Joe", even though I could swear it used to be "Joseph". If I had to make a guess, I'd say he's trying to seem casual to distract people from the formality of his religion. Because he's got a lot of rules he's got to follow, you know. And it might help if the headlines on his campaign site just called him "Joe".

Lieberman is a Connecticut senator, and it is at this point that I would like to ask if there are any Democrats anywhere besides the northeast. Sharpton's from Brooklyn and Clark's from Arkansas. I guess Arkansas isn't really "the Northeast", although I'm sure you can appreciate that to someone like me, who's almost always lived on the west coast, they're nearly the same thing.

I like that Lieberman's father "worked his way up from the back of a bakery truck to own his own liquor store." I think there should be more liquor stores in political biographies. I'm a little suspicious of Lieberman having a granddaughter named Tennessee. Tennessee Lieberman? Isn't that a Tom Robbins character?

Okay, enough of the making fun of people's names; onto the issues (or as the site says, "Joe's Agenda for America." See how they're on a first-name basis with him?). Lieberman wants to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants, which I believe would be a change in policy from our current system of driving around the border with a pickup truck full of INS agents.

Bob Graham

Boy, how many of these guys are there? This seemed like an easy idea when I thought of it; just hit some websites and copy down some information. And now it's turning into this whole big thing.

Okay, sorry about that. Bob Graham is a Senator from Florida. Incidentally, all these senators have official Senator WebSites in addition to their campaign sites. I can't bring myself to look at them, because I don't want to get bogged down in what Graham's telling the good people of Florida. It's his campaign site I'm interested in.

Graham is running for president, it seems, because he doesn't care for the way Bush is going about it. You know, Graham was governor of Florida twice. All I'm saying is if he's such a big wheel in Florida politics, he should have been in there in 2001, meddling in things like everyone else was.

There's a picture of Graham at the top of his site with ihs wife and what I assumed were his three adorable children. But I'd forgotten how old the typical Presidential candidate is; he's got four children and ten grandchildren. So I guess those are the three that were the cutest or something. In his bio, he mentions that he was student body president in high school. I thought that was the sort of thing you weren't supposed to put on a resume.

Graham's hobbies are aggressively outdoorsy: reading, golf, swimming, tennis, hunting, horseback riding and walking. Well, reading isn't necessarily outdoorsy, I guess. Really, I'm just thrown by the idea that "walking" counts as a hobby. Isn't it just transportation?

Dennis Kucinich

At last, a change from all these senators. Kucinich is in the House of Representatives, from Ohio.

Kucinich, it says here, is a longtime critic of the WTO. As a Seattle resident, I tend to associate "critic of the WTO" with "those jerks who rioted downtown and meant that a bunch of my friends got clouds of tear gas in their living rooms". But he's probably the more mainstream kind of critic.

I wouldn't guarantee that, though. I've seen clips of him on The Daily Show (which I'm mentioning way too often) and he seems to be carving out a niche as the guy who yells crazy things in the debates. Good for him!

Oh, hang on! It says in his bio that he "marched with workers through the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO's policies". So I guess that means he was one of those guys who clogged up traffic. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he wasn't with the "anarchists" who demonstrated their dislike for the WTO by smashing in the windows of the Gap and Starbucks.

Carol Mosely Braun

Carol Mosely Braun is a black woman. I mention that because, well, there aren't that many who run for president. She's a lawyer from Chicago who's been a senator and ambassador to New Zealand. In fact, she stopped being ambassador in 2001. Why would anyone stop being ambassador to New Zealand? Even to be President, it seems like the New Zealand gig would be pretty soft. Although it looks like she also had to be ambassador to Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Antarctica. What? Why do we have an ambassador to Antarctica? The only people that live there are at the South Pole research station, and aren't they American?

Her website doesn't have much on the issues, but it does say that she's not actually declaring for president until next Monday. So it's really just the website for her exploratory committee, and I shall therefore not bother linking it. Sorry.

Richard Gephardt

Now, look. I know for a fact that Gephardt has run for president before. Wasn't he one of the group of Democrats in 1984?

Okay, anyway, his website doesn't thrill me. It's got a popup, for one thing. And look at that URL. Ugh!

Oh, sorry. That was shallow. Apparently, he's in the lead, although I'm getting that from his own site. And 16% isn't that big a chunk, considering that the same poll has Dean at 14%, Lieberman at 13%, and Kerry at 11%. Sounds like a big bunch of undifferentiated candidates to me.

Gephardt is a congressman from Missouri, because we've run out of New England. He's been in Congress for 26 years, which seems like a long time. He also isn't afraid to take a stand: his bio says he's "a fiercely loyal Cardinals fan and Rams booster." I'm not sure I like the idea of a president who gets fierce over a baseball team. Even Bush doesn't seem to care that much about the Rangers, and he used to own part of the team!

John Edwards

Is this the last one? Oh, thank god.

First of all, he's not the guy who claims to talk to dead people. Try not to get confused.

Let's see. Another Senator, this time from North Carolina. Boy, it must be awkward in the Senate right now, with so many of the Democrats running against each other. He just recently declared, and his site isn't fully up to speed yet. It does mention that he's a lawyer. As in, that's what he's spent most of his life doing. Most of these people have law degrees (which is good, since they're, y'know, lawmakers, but law appears to have been Edwards's profession.

There's a section for Issues, but I can't face it right now. Besides, since Edwards declared his candidacy, he's been a little busy with Hurricane Isable, which (last I heard) is pointed directly at North Carolina.

Okay, that's all of them. I've learned a little, but mostly I've learned that there are way too many of these candidates, and they're insufficiently different from each other to distinguish at a quick glance.

I may go back to apathy. It's a lot easier.