Wednesday, October 25, 2006
(9:34 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Disbelieve the Hype
Every major newsweekly in the United States was apparently required by law to run a front-page story on Barack Obama this week. I have been an Obama skeptic ever since I received a fund-raising letter in which he claimed that a Democratic congress would force Bush to follow through on his promises. That struck me as a dumb strategy, since what Bush is promising is a bunch of bad things. The story in Harper's this month only confirmed my suspicions.If I had to choose an Illinois senator to run for president in 2008, I would choose Dick Durbin. (Perhaps before 2000 I would've been hesitant due to his first name, but our current vice-president seems to have single-handedly rehabilitated the name Dick.) But I suppose we want someone with "sex appeal," so why not John Edwards? He's pretty good-looking, and his last name is not at all reminiscent of "Osama." Plus he actually talks about poverty!
So that's my pick: John Edwards in '08.
The true fantasy matchup, however, would be the "new" Al Gore vs. the "new" Bob Dole. It seems like losing a presidential election was the best thing that ever happened to those guys -- both are now demonstrably human beings, for instance, where that was sometimes unclear previously.
