Category Archives: General

Campaign Thoughts

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Eight years ago I was in a long-distance relationship with a grad student who lived in Atlanta. He came up north over his spring break, and we spent several days in Boston and one night on Cape Cod.

We stayed on Cape Cod on a painfully freezing Tuesday night in the middle of March. We were the only guests at our bed and breakfast. After checking into our room, we went out in search of dinner only to find the main street was dark and deserted. God knows what we were thinking, Cape Cod in the middle of the week in March. Eventually we found the Lobster Pot, a great seafood restaurant that was filled with people. It was an oasis of warmth and friendliness. We went in and had a great dinner.

When we woke up the next morning, there was a big breakfast waiting for us in the kitchen, along with a newspaper with word that Al Gore and George W. Bush had trounced their respective opponents, Bill Bradley and John McCain, in the previous day’s Super Tuesday primaries.

The next day, we were back in New Jersey and I drove C to the airport to send him off. We said our sad goodbyes at the gate.

Meanwhile, John McCain was dropping out of the race on CNN on the airport TV. He spoke outdoors, with a beautiful Arizona landscape as his backdrop.

For some reason I’ve always remembered that. It just compounded the sadness I was feeling at saying goodbye to C (with whom I broke up amicably three months later). I liked John McCain. He was a Republican, but I liked him, especially because he was running against the Dark Prince, George W. Bush, whom I loathed.

I’d been rooting for McCain to beat Bush. I’d been thrilled when, three days after Bush beat McCain in the South Carolina primary with the help of dirty tricks, McCain came back and beat Bush in the Arizona and Michigan primaries. I was working a part-time job at Barnes & Noble at the time. I watched the news of the Arizona and Michigan victories on the TV in the food court while on my dinner break, my mouth agape. Weird, the details we remember.

And then McCain lost all but the New England states on Super Tuesday, and then he dropped out, leaving Bush as the Republican nominee.

I’d always felt bad for McCain after he lost. Now, eight years later, he seems the likely Republican nominee. Even though I won’t vote for him in the fall, I feel happy for him. Not only is it an amazing comeback from last summer, but I feel like he’s getting what was denied to him eight years ago. He’ll be the second-oldest major party nominee ever (after Bob Dole), which inspires me; I hope I’m still visiting new horizons in my 70s.

Don’t get me wrong; I disagree with the man politically on most issues. But I respect and admire him more than I do any of the other GOP candidates.

So for the first time since JFK was elected almost 50 years ago, the next president will probably be a sitting U.S. senator: Obama, Clinton, or McCain. And I don’t loathe any of them.

It feels good.

New Signing Statement

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Yes, the presidential race is sexy and exciting. But meanwhile, as Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe reports today, President Bush has issued yet another signing statement saying that he can ignore a validly enacted law. A law that he himself just signed.

President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. …

Bush asserted that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them. …

One section Bush targeted created a statute that forbids spending taxpayer money “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq” or “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq.”

The Bush administration is negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The agreement is to include the basing of US troops in Iraq after 2008, as well as security guarantees and other economic and political ties between the United States and Iraq.

The negotiations have drawn fire in part because the administration has said it does not intend to designate the compact as a “treaty,” and so will not submit it to Congress for approval. Critics are also concerned Bush might lock the United States into a deal that would make it difficult for the next president to withdraw US troops from Iraq.

Bush is still president for another year. While the presidential race is important, I hope people keep their eyes on him. He still has one more year to create lots of damage to our country and our constitution.