Wisconsin Primary (Event)

[NHPolitico]

Your right Gustaf... but hell! I need something to hold onto for the time being... see in my little universe the nomination isn’t settled yet and Edwards is still a real player for the nomination…

Sorry snapping back into reality now… ultimately Edwards should have beaten Clark in Oklahoma… had he done that Clark would have been out and I would say that Edwards would have come a good second in Michigan and done better in Maine and then probably won Tennessee and come a close second in Virginia then he could have strongly contested in Nevada and DC and by now we would have a tough race in Wisconsin with Kerry being forced to fend off a real Edwards challenge…rather than the rather desperate effort Edwards is being forced to launch at this stage…shame really but there you go…        

You shouldn't give up on Edwards, yet.  He just has to figure out how to get his name out there. I'd challenge Kerry to more debates for starters.

[NHPolitico]

it looks like after all the hoopla the Wisconsin results are gonna look a lot like Iowa:

Iowa results
Kerry   38%
Edwards   32%
Dean   18%

Wisconsin (35% reporting)
Kerry   39%
Edwards   37%
Dean   18%

Everybody gets delegates and Edwards will pretty much get exactly the same number as Kerry. The race continues!

[NHPolitico]

Hey guys, I hate to be an "I told you so" but the strong showing of Edwards in Wisconsin lends a lot of credibility to a post I made several weeks ago where I said that the Edwards "populist" message was a major winner for the Democrats if they would only give up the other garbage. Here's what I said a few weeks ago about Edwards and his message:

"So, it's my contention that the average American will be highly suspectible to the rhetoric of Democrats (like John Edwards or Dick Gephardt once one of them becomes the VP candidate to Kerry) who rail against the loss of jobs to foreign workers. I still think Bush is a solid favorite to win, but this Jobs/Trade issue could prove to be the Holy Grail to a Democratic Party which seemingly had ZERO message from 2000 to 2003."

Edwards should go on Lou Dobbs a few times between now and Super Tuesday. That's two weeks to hit the issue hard.

[NHPolitico]

This is sooooo funny. I'm watching Kerry's speech in Wisconsin and all he can talk about is "fair trade" and the loss of jobs overseas. At least someone in his campaign was paying attention to these results.

The bad news for us Republicans is if the Democrats can SHUT THEIR SILLY MOUTHS about weapons of mass destruction and how they'd turn the war on terror into a criminal justice issue, then they might actually win this race if they keeping hammering this fair trade issue.

The GOP can always nominate Pat Buchanan...

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

Well...you may have turned me into a "fair trade" guy, but in a race between John Kerry and Pat Buchanan, I'd have to vote for a third party candidate. There is absolutely NO scenario where I would vote for an anti-semitic piece of garbage like Pat Buchanan. Besides, Buchanan wouldn't fight the War on Terror any more aggressively than the Democrats...have you heard his isolationist views on foreign policy?

Pat's just a realist. He thinks that we're committing ourselves to eternal war in the Middle East.

[NHPolitico]

Yeah, so I guess it just makes sense to sit back and wait for the terrorists to gain a stronger foothold among the general Muslim population, and wait for the inevitable "end of the world" type scenario when they acquire widespread use of nuclear weapons.

Using Buchanan logic...well...at least we'll have a strong economy when the nuclear missiles start killing millions of Americans. Buchanan's foreign policy positions are a joke...not an anti-american, surrender monkey joke like the Democratic Party, but a joke nonetheless.

Work on better human intelligence and attack actual WMD sites. That's a start in the right direction and away from general pre-emption.

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

Well...you may have turned me into a "fair trade" guy, but in a race between John Kerry and Pat Buchanan, I'd have to vote for a third party candidate. There is absolutely NO scenario where I would vote for an anti-semitic piece of garbage like Pat Buchanan. Besides, Buchanan wouldn't fight the War on Terror any more aggressively than the Democrats...have you heard his isolationist views on foreign policy?

Pat's not anti-semitic. He believes that the interests of other nations aren't always the same as ours. Another guy believed that, too:

"Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation, which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." - George Washington

Another brilliant man, Alexander Hamilton, wrote, "In respect to our foreign politics, the views of these gentlemen [Jefferson and Madison] are, in my judgment, equally unsound, and dangerous. They have a womanish attachment to France, and a womanish resentment against Great Britain. They would draw us into the closest embrace of the former, and involve us in all the consequences of her politics; and they would risk the peace of the country, in their endeavors to keep us at the greatest possible distance from the latter."

[NHPolitico]

Besides, Buchanan wouldn't fight the War on Terror any more aggressively than the Democrats...have you heard his isolationist views on foreign policy?

Buchanan would absolutely fight the War on Terror and make Americans safer and still keep our freedoms.  

He supported declaring war on the terrorists responsible for 9/11 and the nations that harbor them.  Was Saddam involved in the massacres of Sept. 11? Was he behind the anthrax attacks? Was he harboring terrorist cells of al-Qaida? Was he preparing nuclear or bio-terror weapons to attack us?  The answer is no.  We must make it clear that we will be strong and swift in punishment for attacking the US-- that's how you keep enemies at bay.  

Going to war in Iraq hurt our post-9/11 anti-terror ties with Britain, Russia and NATO and shattered the Afghan war coalition and inflamed the Arab street (its population who can be recruited to terrorize us) and destabilize our Arab allies-- Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Pat would protect us by supporting an immediate moratorium on all immigration, expanding the Border Patrol to 20,000, which would still give us only three Border Patrol personnel for each mile of our 6,000 miles of borders with Canada and Mexico, slashing radically the number of visas we extend to states that harbor terrorists, expediting the deportation of the eight-to-11 million illegal aliens, beginning with those from rogue nations, and stop any plans for amnesty.

He'd also move out the UN from the U.S., and thus remove from the United States all diplomats of states that harbor terrorists, denying them diplomatic immunity and diplomatic pouches as they do their dirty business with their sleeper agents already inside the U.S.A.  

He'd also warn that any terrorist caught in the U.S. on a mission of massacre will go before a military tribunal and be put to death quickly and in secret, as we did to German saboteurs we captured during WW2.

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

Buchanan initially did not endorse the war in Afghanistan. He remained silent until it started going well, then he said he was in favor of it.

Buchanan supported going into Afghanistan, getting  bin Laden and other Al Qaeda, overthrowing the Taliban, get out and go home -- and let the Arab and Islamic world work out its own destiny.

He also opposed the first Gulf War.

Yes, because Iraq didn't attack us in 1991. He's consistent.

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

Buchanan initially did not endorse the war in Afghanistan. He remained silent until it started going well, then he said he was in favor of it. He also opposed the first Gulf War. He opposes anything that has a positive impact on our ally Israel and/or a negative impact on any nation or group that HATES Israel.

If you doubt his anti-semitism, try reading the article I linked below. If you still think he's not anti-semitic...

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

As Pat notes, a passionate attachment to Israel is a "key tenet of neoconservatism" by neo-cons' own admissions.  There's nothing wrong with such a belief. Some have it because they view Israel as a beacon of democracy in a wasp's nest of despotism.  Some have it because of religious ties to Israel. There's nothing anti-semitic about asking why our foreign polic objectives have to be exactly the same as Israel's. You can insert the name of any other country.  Our interests should be ours and ours alone.   George Washington did not send the US in to engage in the French Revolution. Was Washington anti-French? Even if he was, his action here isn't evidence of it.

[NHPolitico]

NHPolitico,

By the way, Buchanan even incorrectly defines what constitutes a "neo-conservative" in order to paint them all as Jewish leftists who moved to the right just to help Israel. Buchanan may not be Adolf Hitler, but he would have looked pretty nifty in a SS Uniform.

Pat doesn't suggest that neo-cons are a Jewish cabal. People who want to paint him as an anti-Semite do so.  Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, just for starters-- not a semite in the bunch.  The Project for a New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute support the idea of Pax Americana-- the American Empire.    It's not paranoia, as they say, if they really are out to get you.  There's no ambiguity about what doctrine they want our foreign policy to advance.

[NHPolitico]

County and CD map are now on-line.

You're a busy beaver.