The upcoming 2008 election will be the most decisive in history. It will be the final chance to reverse direction on the road to the destruction of this American republic.
I have been saying for years that 2008 will be the last free national elections. I did not anticipate the candidacy, and the response to it, of Ron Paul, who is the only hope to avert the coming disaster.
The reason for my pessimism has been that in 2011, the projected interest on the national debt will exceed the projected federal revenues which means that the government will be faced with two distasteful alternatives. The first will be to default on its obligations and the second will be to crank up the printing presses to fund them, in a word inflate or hyper-inflate.
The first would require courage so politicians will choose the latter. That could result in the hyperinflation of the infamous Weimar Republic, which in turn, would set the stage for a demagogue to seize power. In this country it would be unlikely to be an overt military coup. With a constitution-be-damned madman like George W. Bush, Harry Truman, Janet Reno, Alberto Gonzalez or Abraham Lincoln as president, it could easily be done through martial law and the unilateral suspension of habeas corpus.
This campaign will require an abundance of money. Finances will be necessary for the long stretch.
It’s sobering to realize that John Kennedy announced his candidacy for the 1960 presidential election in January. From the snows of New Hampshire, next door to his ownMassachusetts, his campaign was a horse race right up to the Democratic National Convention that nominated him just six months later. These campaigns for the nominations could be decided by this time next year.
So, let’s look at some of the contenders.
First, there is Hillary. She has name recognition and she has received very high marks for her assimilation into the Washington social circuit. However, she has very high negatives. For some reason, she alienates people. I don’t know what it is since she seems reasonably pleasant but many people hate her. Is it her dogged defense of her husband, calling it a vast right wing conspiracy? (I found that very intriguing since it was the right that was supposed to be paranoid.) Or is it that she is a committed socialist? I think it’s more the latter.
Despite all their worries, the American people are tired of socialism and I don’t think they are in any mood for socialization of health care. Hillary is committed to socialized medicine and people, though they don’t articulate it, are wary, especially after what they have seen so far with the partial socialization after Medicare and Medicaid and the disaster that is the American education system.
And she voted for the war.
But then, she can’t alienate her base in New York which is heavy with Jewish Democratic voters who equate interventionism in the Mideast with the survival of Israel. This may doom her among the rest of the Democrats.
History is also against her. Only two senators have gone directly to the White House, Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. But she’s a frontrunner and won’t be deterred.
Then we have John Edwards, former senator and vice-presidential candidate. Another committed socialist, he has the burden of having made his money as a personal injury attorney. That doesn’t play well with a public tired of seeing their insurance premiums constantly increase due to imaginative torts and class action lawsuits.
But Edwards has another negative. He just looks too blow dried. His wife’s recurrent cancer can play many ways but I don’t think it will work against him. They’ve confronted the issue head on and Americans respond to that. He’s in it but, I think he’ll fade to Hillary and Barack.
Barack Obama. Like or loathe his politics, it’s very difficult to dislike him. From his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention to his interview on 60 Minutes, he comes across as honest and sincere as does his wife. He’s confronted his drug usage and, as with Edwards, Americans respond to honesty.
His speech at the convention had a very nice optimistic message, tinged with self-reliance, but his voting record is socialist. A positive, he voted against the Iraq incursion. He and Dennis Kucinich are the only Democratic office holding candidates who can say that. A negative is that Senate to White House jinx but a he’s developed a huge Hollywood following makes him hard to dismiss, plus it cuts into Hillary’s financial base which previously belonged to her and which the Clintons had counted on.
Consider Dennis Kucinich. Dennis who? ‘Nuff said. Any recollection people have of him likely is limited to the pictures when he withdrew his money fromCleveland banks after they refused to float Cleveland a loan when he was mayor.
There’s also Al Bore, er Gore. The only possible presidential contender in history who will have an Oscar in his resume. He did win the popular vote in 2000 and with solid name recognition, he’s an instant strong force. His problem? He’s probably too late and anyone who waits for a last minute draft movement at the conventions, will probably be sorely disappointed. Another. His likely source of funds, Hollywood, will already be split between Hill and Barack. I’d count him out.
Joe Biden shot himself in the foot with his ‘clean’ comment about Obama. Chris Dodd? Chris who? And the same goes for the most of the rest of the Democrats.
But, there’s Bill Richardson. A few weeks ago, when I first started work on this column, I wrote ‘Bill who?’ But the candidates have just released their financial statements and Bill Richardson scored well, however he just doesn’t have the name recognition. Yet his Mexican ancestry makes him an attractive running mate and he’s just gone to Korea to retrieve the remains of Americans from that war.
Put him down as a strong possibility for the VP slot on a Democratic ticket headed by Barack or Hillary. That would give either of them the coveted balance factor in national races. Barack and Richardson may be willing to be a running mate for Hillary but there’s no way Hillary will accept a position as a running mate on anyone else’s ticket.
The Democratic race will come down to Barack vs. Hillary. The just released financial statements have shocked everyone. From out of nowhere, Obama has pulled in $25 million, just 4% short of Hillary’s $26 million.
There’s panic in the Clinton camp. What they thought would be a cake walk to her nomination, is now a horse race.
But the Clintons are nothing if not tough infighters. Watch for a slugfest to the nomination and a lot of dirt about Barack Obama suddenly appearing in the media.
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One reader challenged the statement that I made about the projected interest on the federal debt exceeding revenues in 2001, in my article HANDICAPPING 2008 – the Democrats. He wrote that a simple Google search on my part could have shown that this is impossible.
I did a Google search and found that the national debt is around $8.89 trillion by current government accounting methods. The annual interest is somewhere in the range of $250 billion to $400 billion per year.
The operative phrase here may be ‘government accounting methods’. Government is always allowed to take financial liberties that would land people in jail if they used them in privagte industry.
I’m not sure exactly where I got my information but, as I recall, it was a source that I consider reliable. Suffice it to say, that numerous economic prognosticators are predicting that the government will have to face the choices I noted, default or inflation within the next few years. Since default will mean that the politicians will have to admit their past lies, they will choose inflation.
I apologize for any error and try to be more careful in the future.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”