Draft Gore 2008 PAC

There is no doubt in my mind that John Edwards won, or that the format and "user generated content" was a lot less stale than the faux gravitas of whoever is doing "Tom Brokaw" duty for the network that was hosting/producing the prior moments of infotainment and soundbite gotcha.

But that isn't the most important conclusion to draw from yesterday's matchup. The most important conclusion is this: in alphabetical order, Dodd, Edwards, Gravel, Kucinich, and Richardson are, on the Iraq War question, and therefore its cognates affecting the Departments of Justice, Intelligence, Defense and State, indistinguishable from Al Gore and his position of record since 2002. On that question we are united, and divided from Senators Biden, Clinton and Obama.

Joe Trippi sent out a note after the event to the Edwards campaign's supporters. It was typical of the art, proud of his candidate's performance, and simultaniously effective as a fund raising tool, and he gave five planks of that should be the platform of the Democratic Party:

1. Ending the war in Iraq.
2. Taking on the insurance companies and HMOs to fight for universal health care.
3. Taking on the oil industry and fundamentally changing our energy policies to end global warming.
4. Taking on the powerful who care about nothing but profits and greed at the expense of working people, the middle class and the poor.
5. And returning our government of the people to the people.

But Joe's letter has a very serious error. The error is in this line:

Contribute and spread the word about the one candidate and the one campaign that will change America.

Al isn't the only candidate, and all of the Draft Gore campaigns rolled into one, isn't the only campaign that will transform what we have and don't want, into what we don't have and clearly need. Neither is John or his campaign and neither is Chris and his campaign and neither is Mike and his campaign and neither is Dennis and his campaign and neither is Bill and his campaign. Any one of these candidates and their campaigns will do, on Iraq, and the assault on reason.

Each fails on some part of the rest of these five planks, and the candidates and their campaigns can be ranked on how far each is from perfection (its not just big oil, its also big coal) but the difference between these is not so very great, compared with those with whom we are divided, in our own party or the party of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

We have to recognize that getting three or four or even five of the planks right is more important than which candidate and which campaign. No matter who or which it is, the work of scientific, social and political reasoning on some issue will still need to be done. If it is Al, he'll still need minding to divorce him from the Clinton/Gingrich "welfare reform" and reminding that NAFTA and CAFTA and fast-track generally have non-solved environmental, social justice, and economic dislocation consequences. John will have his must-be-minded issues, as will Chris and Mike and Dennis and Bill.

Any of five, or six, will do. Each of them will campaign for transformation. Any of three won't. Each is attempting to transact their way to 2,181 delgates, and there really is a difference.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Technical Director
Draft Gore 2008 PAC