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"Pay close attention to that man behind the curtain!"

Saturday, August 09, 2003

Variations on a theme of "tweedledum" and "tweedledumber"

I guess some of you have might have wondered if the California recall has anything to do with next year's U.S. presidential election -- being that California carries 54 electoral votes (more than 10% of the United States' 538 vote total). If so, I'd tend to agree with you. (It looks like somebody at Pacific News Service does, too. Buzzflash, even more so -- with lots of annotated evidence to back up the argument.) Even if you believe -- as many people have opined -- the bit about Gray Davis' handling of the California budget (which by any measure would pale in comparison to the utter mess Bush has made of the federal deficit), this recall is a farce. Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Arianna Huffington vs. Gary Coleman vs. Gallagher vs. Angelyne vs. Georgy? It's quite possible that no major Democratic candidate will run, turning this so-called "show of solidarity" into a certain loss for the party; however, since Schwarzenegger's entry into the race, that may be changing.

Back to the subject of next year's election. While I really like Eric Blumrich's stuff on Bushflash.com, even he felt he needed to put up a disclaimer about his latest animation. (I don't see the disclaimer today, but the animation is up.) Featuring Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich as the best choices for "the democratic wing of the democratic party," it basically pits them against the Republo-crats Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman -- all of whom backed Bush's invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act. Unfortunately, while these two potential candidates seem to hate Bush just as much as I do, Howard "Statistics-up-the-Yin-Yang" Dean ("we're the 'party of responsibility,' and they're not") and Dennis "Whisper-to-a-Scream" Kucinich ("two-thirds of the Democratic 'carcass'"?) both come across in my eyes as not-so-articulate half-ass wannabes. Why weren't they screaming and quoting statistics long before Bush decided to commit troops to Iraq?

This is by no means intended to slight Mr. Blumrich in any way. It's obviously much harder to find a real solution to Bush than it is to just replace him with something -- anything. But American voters need to do more than just replace Bush. They need to replace him with a viable alternative. Go see the Bushflash animation for yourself, and see what you think about all this. I think I'm gonna be sick.
Posted at 11:37 PM by: [Permalink]
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