Mickey Kaus really doesn't like him..
Some emailers--not many!--have asked about my preferences. Right now,they are, in order: Edwards / Dean / Gephardt / Lieberman / a Bush-Clark tossup / the complete telephone books of all major American cities / Kerry.
..but Abiola Lapite is cheered by the bouffant senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses and his reported 10 point lead over Howard Dean:
As a small "L" libertarian, I'd rather have a candidate who combined social liberalism with fiscally conservative policies, but I realize that it simply isn't going to happen anytime soon. My choice then comes down to picking between a candidate who is more liberal than I'd prefer on things like taxation, but who at least won't be bashing me over the head with his religiousity, or trying to legislate sexual morality, and, on the other hand, a president whose sole nod to libertarian concerns - tax cuts - has been more than compensated for by his reckless spending and willingness to pander to the religious right. Frankly, the latter bothers me more than the former at the present time.
It is a little ironic that Abiola is creeped out by Bush's religiosity when his preferred Democrat candidate is "Holy" Joe Lieberman but I have to say: I'm creeped out by Kerry. I have to wonder whether Mickey Kaus, surely an insider, knows more than he is letting on about Kerry, an impression reinforced by his comparisons with Gary Hart's abortive campaign:
The Kerry victory in Iowa reminds me, not unsurprisingly, of Gary Hart's come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire in 1984....A Hart "surge" was clearly happening, although none of us knew its magnitude until that evening. I turned to the happy Hart guy next to me and said something like "You know, Hart looks good at first glance, but as people know him more I'm not sure they'll like him." I immediately felt like an ass for declaring that I knew something about Hart that he didn't. But the rest of the campaign did more or less correspond to a scenario in which Democrats found out more about Hart and decided "on second thought, no." I expect a similar scenario to unfold with John Kerry. The idea of John Kerry is appealing. The reality is less so (and a lot more less so than was the reality of Hart).
The thing about Holy Joe's religiosity is that, as a centre-left Jew, there are definite limits to how much of that sort of thing he'll be able to get away with. Abortion? He's for it. Gay civil unions? Yup. Creationism in schools? No sirree. On nearly all of the religious right's hot-button issues, Lieberman's voting record has been consistently well to the left.
Besides all that, on issues of free-trade and deregulation, Lieberman's record is, if anything, better than George W. Bush's. Of all the Democratic candidates, Lieberman is the only one who hasn't pandered even slightly to protectionist sentiment. I'd find Bush's ostentatious piety easier to swallow if he governed like Reagan rather Nixon.
As for John Kerry, it could well be that Kaus knows something we don't, but the impression I get is that he just has an instinctual, personal aversion to the guy. I'm interested in hearing what it is about Kerry you find unattractive.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite | January 23, 2004 at 12:56 AM
As it happens, Lieberman would be my preferred candidate. Perhaps I "misunderestimated" your worries about Bush's religiosity: I took it to mean your impression of his rhetoric. Lieberman has a similar "creepy" rhetoric. I hate hearing politicians make a big deal about their religion or their relationship with God but it wouldn't be enough to stop me voting for them if their policies were closer to my own preferences.
As for Kerry: it is perhaps a superficial impression but he seems to me to be a (preposterously) vain and shallow opportunist. I do realise that this is hardly a novelty for a politician but he seems somehow worse than the others.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | January 23, 2004 at 11:26 AM
There's something in his presentation that puts me off, but I just want the strongest guy to come out and come out fighting. Unlike some of the others in the race, he has been in politics for 35 years. I'm not sure what makes him an opportunist.
Posted by: dublingal_ny | January 25, 2004 at 07:38 PM
What I mean by "opportunist" is that he embodies the career politician's quality - of saying what he thinks you want to hear as opposed to what he believes - somehow to a greater degree than the others.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | January 26, 2004 at 11:51 AM