Hillary is NOT the "Heir Apparent"

One of the very first posts I put up on this blog, over a year ago, was a plea to Hillary Clinton to not run for the oval in 2008. To my chagrin, everywhere I turn it seems, she (or John Kerry) is already the nominee, before a single primary vote has been cast.

Well, Glory Hallelujah! Leave it to Iowa to show some common sense and gumption. In a poll conducted for the Des Moines Register of likely caucus attendees, John Edwards leads Hillary by a 30% to 26% margin, and Kerry comes in third, with 12%.

I have a couple of roots in Iowa – last week I was so homesick I could smell gravel – and it surprises me not in the least that those polled took Edwards over either Clinton or Kerry. Lots of “red state” Democrats feel the same way. I have secretly been carrying a torch for the entire Edwards clan since he spoke at Union Station here in Kansas City during the 2004 campaign. He impressed me then, and he impresses me now.

So I will go on record here and now: I back John Edwards for the Democratic nomination in 2008. I believe, at this point in the game, that he is the best horse to bet. Sorry, General Clark. However, I do believe that you would make a damn fine Secretary of Defense, and I also believe that John Edwards would have the good, common, country-bred sense to install you in that position.

Our country is in deep trouble, and tax-cuts won’t get us out of the hole we find ourselves in. (Remember the first rule of holes? When you find yourself in one, stop digging! ) There is plenty to do – we have infrastructure problems that will require a WPA-style effort to ameliorate.

Health care is crumbling, and providers are too few. Every year, providers leave the profession to do other things that are less stressful and more gratifying – I should know – I have left health care a couple of times because of burn-out. We need a massive effort to train qualified individuals to be nurses, doctors, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, radiology technicians, health researchers, etc. It is in the best interest of the nation to train these individuals, and forgive all debt acquired in the education process once a proscribed term of service to an underserved area is contractually completed.

Education is a mess, especially where I live in Kansas City, the city so fucked up that the state controls our police department (for over 70 years now) because we can’t shake the yoke of corruption; and a school system that finds itself at the bottom and falling, and either under control of a federal judge or on the verge of having the courts resume control.

And then there is energy…Don’t get me started there. I may be a military scion, but I have roots in farm country, and still hold as truth my grandfather’s dictum that anyone who drives a pick-up truck and doesn’t need it is a pretentious jackass. Instead of subsidizing gas for guzzlers, as GM is doing, how about we only sell trucks and vans to those who can demonstrate need, do away with SUV’s all together and retrofit them for military use, and slap a 100% energy tax on any vehicle sold that gets less than 30 mpg. Scale this number up each year, and force Detroit and Tokyo and Seoul to up their efficiency, or face sales losses because of the tax I propose.

And for god’s sake, lets stop building coal-fired power plants! The time for nukes is nigh, and anyone who wants to question my “green” credentials on that one, prove it. Three Mile Island wasn’t the disaster feared because the containment chamber worked as it was supposed to in the event an accident occurred.

We need a leader who will tell us hard truths, and not give us our way for whining. John Edwards just might be the guy to tell us to stop sniveling and get our asses to work.