THE BEST, THE GOOD OR THE LEAST-WORST?


In an ideal world, Dennis Kucinich would be at least less than an out-price for the Democratic Presidential nomination and the general election itself. Of all the candidates with ideas (him, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo), his are clearly the best. If the dollar is to be saved as the world's reserve currency, all of this war-on-terror stuff has to be trashed. Kucinich is the only candidate who wants to cut it all back if not out entirely. If a President Kucinich could do that, he might be the only candidate in a position to CUT taxes and increase services. As crazy as it sounds, he might actually be the tax-cutting candidate in the race. He's an odd-bird, but he's no fool. He knows he's got the right message but no money to sell it with, so he sized-up the situation and did the American thing to get free publicity: got himself a doll for a squeeze and put her on display wherever!


He's obviously tough enough to handle the job, don't let his Department-Of-Peace idea fool you on that score. It's not a bad idea for one and it merely reflects his pacisfism (not weakness) and unlike the insecure Obama, Kucinich was cagey enough NOT to commit to meeting with any dictators or capitalist populists that the corporate media like to label a dictator -- OK. Chavez. Shit, as far back as 1979 Kucinich bet his entire career on keeping Cleveland's utility bills low. Have you ever seen Kucinich take any shit from anyone in a debate or interview?


Kucinich is the only candidate to advocate a single-payer health care system full-stop. His views on just about everything would put him in the middle of every left-wing or center-left party of any other major industrialized nation of the world and most of the emerging ones of Latin America. He's definitely right of English MP Claire Short and probably right of English MP Gordon Brown, to give two relatively familiar examples.


Dennis Kucinich is the candidate Kelso would like as President of the United States.


Pure fantasyland. Emma Goldman's corpse has a good a chance as Kucinich.


One of the real committed supporters of American progressivism 2007, Sheldon Drobny, however, has adovcated Michael Bloomberg for President and that's not a bad point of view at all. We'd settle for Bloomberg in a heartbeat, just glad someone else of Kelso's political stripe gets it about Bloomberg.


We admit to having voted against him twice, merely out of the habit of voting column "A." Going into Bloomberg's first run, two things stand out: (1) He's old-school Solly. Kelso was either close to or on at least nodding terms with many of the Liar's Poker/Long-Term guys and knows that at that time Solly only took the best, (2) When asked for the first time why he was running as a Republican as his personal politics were so liberal and he'd always been a Democrat, he gave the classic Solly answer--"because I have no shot to beat Green or Ferrer for the nomination."


If twenty prominent American politicians were half as candid, you might not be in the mess you're in.


A few things about Bloomberg were not so cool: a couple of let-them-eat-cake remarks he made at the outset of his first campaign with regard to asthma clusters and public education. Having a son in the NYC Public School system, we believe his choice of Joel Klein as chancellor either betrayed bad judgment or complicity in Klein's apparent desire to put the boot in. Kelso found Bloomberg's handling of the transit strike a little ham-handed and slightly racist, to the point that the polls showed the public supporting labor over management for the first time in how the hell long? Then again, just imagine how Giuliani would have handled it. If calling Roger Toussaint a "thug" was the worst of Bloomberg's transgressions, what would the-Lisping-Fascist have done? He probably would have burned all of King's County to the ground with a cheering throng of Staten Islanders and Howard Beach-ites cheering "Ru-dy, Ru-dy, Ru-dy."


If it were Kelso as Toussaint as head of the Transit Workers' Union, he would have employed the power of the union's pension fund to borrow Yen, lend Dollars, add a small put on the swap as a hedge, and do it all with maximum leverage, pocketing the carry and filling the union's strike fund and paying of the fines in the process. Toussiant could then have held out as long as he liked and told Bloomberg "beat that, finance genius!" Kelso can't help it and neither could Bloomberg that Toussaint wasn't that smart.

Just by not being Giuliani, Bloomberg let a lot of steam out of the city's problems. He dealt with the budget shortfalls without raising income taxes and keeping property taxes a bargain-basement levels, albeit slightly higher. He let private poker clubs and proper strip clubs come back, and as you've noticed was always a calming influence. Compare his handling of the Jamaica after-hours tragedy with the mess Giuliani made of every similar problem.
Ideologically, there really isn't a Presidential candidate more progressive in this group than Bloomberg is other than Kucinich. We'd surely put Bloomberg to Edwards or Gore's left.


Didn't love his loud support of Lieberman despite Bloomberg's own dovish views on Israel. But in a democracy you never get everything you want out of any candidate.


As a short, Jewish man himself, Kelso can't help but root for the guy. Is he electable? Other than that he'd be the shortest President since Martin Van Buren, why not? The test will come if he gets in, gets himself left of Clinton and hits back hard at Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, George Stephanopolos, Chris Wallace, Chris Matthews and the usual beltway media villains. If he gives a namby-pamby response like "well, Tim...I like to think I'm above all that...I'm a uniter, not a divider...there's a third way...," screw him. Otherwise, good-to-go. Does he even want it?


The idea of Bloomberg winning the presidency is a little less silly than the idea of Kucinich, but with all the self-funding capability, why not? He is still a bid long-shot. This, of course, leads us back to reality and who's the least-worst?

The least-worst is, it sez here, Clinton. You know exactly what you're getting. A moderate Republican who has spent 8 years in the middle of the beehive and has won two U.S. Senate elections. The Big Dog will have a role to be sure which is a good thing. This time it will The Dog pushing his wife to the left, as opposed to his being pushed by her to the right. She's as careful a debater as she is a campaigner and seems to have the mightiest chin in politics. Kelso expects Clinton to bring a token number of surge troops home but keep the Iraq and Afghanistan fantasies going basically full throttle. What she won't do is start contemporaneous wars with Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Lebanon and Cuba. Whatever changes she'll make to the system of insurance and health-care delivery will bear some resemblance to the bird's-nest-soup she cooked up last time: no real expansion of coverage, giveaways to insurance and pharma, and a system of intrusion of either the FBI or local law enforcement or both into the doctor-patient relatioship. Outside of Kucinich's, Clinton' s acatually got the most expansive plan of all current candidates. She'll do her damnedest to hold the dollar and with any luck it will hold for a little longer. She will not disgrace her country nor the office of the president. This is not a progressive candidate but uhlike the rest of the main contenders, she's not the most regressive. If Gore runs, he wins, otherwise we're seeing a decent sized win by the Clinton/Richardson ticket over the Romney/F.D. Thompson ticket.

It is Kelso's understanding that something's going on with regard to Harry Potter so we'll leave Ms. Rowling in charge of the fantasies. We'll leave those Democratic voters who see some combination of Matin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall when they look at Barack Obama to their own devices. If Obama's merely a fool, he can go to back to Illinois. If he's a knave, he ought to declare Repulican right now. He'd win the nomination easily and could beat Clinton heads-up in a general election. Obama's got three outstanding traits, but if Kelso wanted a Conservative Republican for President, he'd be for Browback or Huckabee. If Kelso wanted a Black Nationalist for President he'd take that Mohammed guy from the Nation Of Islam. If Kelso wanted a confused amateur, he'd take Warren Buffett or Lee Iaccocca. Kelso, however, wants none of these, so he'll bite down hard and take the likely winner and hope for the best from the least-worst.

Or go for Bloomberg.

Kelso's Nuts love you