[dar-list] Ralph Nader speaks; anyone but a Bush or a Clinton

[JD Rockefeller]

The consumer advocate hinted Thursday that he would enter the presidential 
race in the next year if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes the Democratic 
nominee.  "Flatters, panders, coasting, front-runner, looking for a 
coronation... She has no political fortitude," Nader said in a local radio 
interview... "She's just another bad version of Bill Clinton."

For another dispassionate viewpoint here, lookup James Burkee, an assistant 
professor of history at Concordia University Wisconsin, co-founder of the 
bipartisan political action committee Americans for Responsibility in 
Washington.

His article which appeared recently in the L.A. Times:
Anyone's better than a Bush or a Clinton

Having refused a third term as president, George Washington offered the 
nation a farewell address in 1796, urging Americans to cherish the Union and 
to avoid the "baneful effects" of political partisanship.  Successors such 
as Thomas Jefferson warned against the formation of an "unnatural" 
aristocracy of men who inherited great fortunes and political office.

Both warnings have been overlooked in the debate over Hillary Rodham 
Clinton's 2008 presidential run.  But if she secures the Democratic 
nomination, wins and serves two terms, by 2017 the United States would have 
been governed by either a Bush or a Clinton for 28 years.

That's three decades governed not just by the same two families but much of 
the same supporting staff.  As Dick Cheney is a name familiar to both Bush 
presidencies (as George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense and his son's vice 
president), so, too, may a Hillary Clinton presidency resuscitate familiar 
names such as Harold Ickes, Paul Begala and James Carville.

And it might not end there.  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, encouraged by 
Republican leaders and the current president (who said, "I would like to see 
Jeb run at some point"), has not ruled out a White House bid or a vice 
presidential slot on the ticket in 2012 or 2016.

If Washington's caustic, partisan atmosphere is to change, the era of Bushes 
and Clintons needs to end in 2008.
....
Recent polls suggest that a significant body of Americans, perhaps 40 
percent, will not vote for Hillary Clinton under any circumstances - so it 
is unlikely that she could enter the Oval Office with a strong electoral 
mandate.  The ironic upshot is that such a Hillary Clinton presidency - 
weakened by low approval and beset by partisan sniping - would mirror George 
W. Bush's presidency.
....
The nation needs today, as it got in Ford then, a president respected by 
Republicans and Democrats who can restore trust in politics.  It needs new 
faces and new ideas if it is to confront advancing crises of war, debt and 
entitlement reform.  And it needs a president who can assume office in 2009 
swimming in the political capital that only a mandate can bring.  The nation 
needs a candidate who can win 55 percent or more.

And that will not happen with a Bush or Clinton on the ballot.
..

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