Neil Young's "Looking for A Leader" Is Now My 2008 Theme Song

[Dunvegan]

I'm still looking for an extraordinary Gore + someone ticket for 2008, I just can't let go of that hope.

And Gore plus a woman or minority vice presidential candidate would be extraordinary.

I'm taking up Neil Young's "Lookin' for a Leader" as my personal campaign song until further notice.

Anyway, it's a hell of a song...do yourself a favor, go and listen to "Living With War" HERE.

("Lookin' for a Leader" is cut number eight.)

LOOKIN' FOR A LEADER
by Neil Young

Lookin' for a leader
To bring our country home.
Re-unite the red, white, and blue
Before it turns to stone.

Lookin' for somebody
Young enough to take it on.
Clean up the corruption
And make the country strong.

Walkin' among our people
There’s someone who's straight and strong.
To lead us from desolation
And a broken world gone wrong.

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call.
And maybe it's a woman
Or a black man after all.

Yeah, maybe it's Obama
But he thinks that he's too young.
Maybe it's Colin Powell
To right what he's done wrong.

America has a leader
But he's not in the house.
He's walkin’ here among us
And we've got to seek him out.

Yeah we've got our election
But corruption has a chance.
We got to have a clean win
To regain confidence.

America is beautiful
But she has an ugly side.
We're lookin’ for a leader
In this country far and wide.

We're lookin' for a leader
With the great spirit on his side.

Someone walks among us
And I hope he hears the call.
And maybe it's a woman
Or a black man after all.

[lostexpectation]

1. we'll should bomb saudi arabi

and we'll continue neo-imperialism but do it on the quiet la la la

[Dunvegan]

4. Okay, lostexpectation...I'm up for the translation.

Could you possibly sell me the bridge that gets me from the OP to your post?

Perhaps I'm just a little tired and obtuse at the moment. Thanks.

[Syrinx]

2. Gore/Davis 2008!

Artur Earl Davis (born October 9, 1967), American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 7th District of Alabama (map), a district created under the Voting Rights Act to be black-majority, and which includes the rural black belt area as well as urban portions of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa.

Davis was born in Montgomery Alabama. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in 1990 and Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1993, and was a civil rights lawyer and Assistant United States Attorney before he ran for the House in the Democratic primary against 10-year incumbent Earl F. Hilliard. Davis had run against Hilliard in 2000 and lost narrowly. Hilliard was criticized for taking a trip to Libya in 1997 despite U.S. sanctions. Hilliard also had voted against a 2001 resolution expressing solidarity with Israel in its fight against terrorism. Davis received many contributions from pro-Israel groups and was helped by the fact that Hilliard's district had been greatly altered in 2002 redistricting, adding many white voters in Birmingham. Davis defeated Hilliard narrowly.

Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and resides in Birmingham, Alabama. Known as a bipartisan legislator, he has earned praise from publications such as Roll Call and the National Journal. Davis was appointed to the Senior Whip Team for the Democratic Caucus of the 109th Congress and is the Co-Chair of the centrist House New Democrat Coalition, as well as the Southern Regional Co-Chair for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Seen as a rising star, he announced in May 2005 that he would like to run for a seat in the United States Senate in 2008, or for governor of Alabama in 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artur_Davis

[Dunvegan]

3. Many thanks, Syrinx. I'll go look into Davis' voting record.

Why is it, you think, that Davis is not very well known nationally?

His credentials are moderate and bipartisan. Why is he lesser known?

And...what do you think of Conyers for a ticket spot in 2008?

[Syrinx]

5. Conyers Is The Greatest!

But I think he's too valuable in the House. We need to keep him there.

As for Davis, his stock is rising. Check out this post about him:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=137x3272

[DFW]

6. John Conyers

"JC" as he is known at his office in DC, has had a stroke,
and though his mind is still sharp, I don't think he'd stand
the physical pressures of the presidency unless he took as much
vacation as Bush Lite, and you all see what that has brought us.

As long as his health holds up, I'm pleased to see him in the House,
but he'll do a much more effective job if he stays there.

[MH1]

7. Sometimes what you're looking for is already right in front of you.

I know the leader I'm looking for - it's John Kerry.

I just read the Scheer article (http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/35568) and while he gets it a bit wrong about the Iraq quote - wrong about what was said and the reason for it (guess the truth still hasn't caught up with the lie), he is probably right about what Kerry should have said...but read what else Scheer says, where he nails it about the most fundamental requirement of leadership:

OR: Are Americans capable of recognizing a good president?

RS: I do. I think the problem here was the failure of the democrats. When Kerry was asked by Bush, "Knowing what you know now, would you have gone into Iraq?" he should have said, "No." He should have said, "You lied to Congress, you lied to the American people, it's unconscionable." He would have won the election, but Kerry was not comfortable in his own skin. Here's the boy-scout war hero who seemed to be faking it, and yet in real life, this guy performed every time. And there's George W., who has been faking it his whole life and somehow came across as more genuine.

The rest of Scheer's article is about how, in order to win, candidates tend to buckle under to the manipulative tactics they must pass through in the campaign, and then fail to live up to their former selves once they do win office.

Having studied him closely since the 2004 campaign, I strongly believe that Kerry will never buckle under like that. He will find a way to win within the framework that is forced upon him - but he will keep his integrity and bring it to the job of righting this country from its current disastrous course. And THAT quality - if you believe the general thesis of Scheer's interview - makes John Kerry a very rare and special commodity in our corrupt political world.

Where Kerry failed in 2004 - and he came damned close to not failing - was to understand and cope with the framework of manipulation in order to win. Between strong winds, damaged hearing from Vietnam, and thinking he knew what the question was, he effed up that day at the Grand Canyon - but it was the failure of follow-up by the campaign to effectively correct the misstatement that has us still having to correct people like Scheer even today. And the campaign probably failed there because they couldn't figure out how to handle it successfully in the manipulative media environment that Scheer describes.

Kerry is a very smart man who isn't afraid to confront his own mistakes, and analyze and learn from them. That bodes well for an effective adjustment to better handle the unusual challenges of a presidential campaign the second time around.

As for "not comfortable in his skin": anyone who knows Kerry knows that is not at all true generally - but given the physical stresses of a campaign and the manipulative atmosphere which I strongly suspect was way beyond what Kerry had experienced in his Massachusetts races, as nasty as some of them were - there were probably many moments during the campaign where he wasn't his usual relaxed and focused self. So Scheer's comment there is probably true to some extent within the context of the campaign, although it had nothing to do with Kerry answering the "go into Iraq" question wrong, because that was simply mis-hearing the question. Again, the "comfort" issue is a problem where he will be better prepared next time, because he's been through it once now and it won't be foreign to him anymore. I have difficulty imagining any "new" candidate stepping forward who would not have to go through the learning process that Kerry did in 2004. We just don't have that many Bill Clintons willing to run for president, and in any case I'll take Kerry's politics over the Clinton charm anyday.

I suspect I'll get a lot of responses nixing Kerry for one reason or another...but that's okay. I'm speaking for myself. I'm certainly open to other leaders too - but I'm not going to turn away from a great one we already have.

[Dunvegan]

8. I don't nix Kerry one scintilla...I worked my butt of for John...

...in 2004.

I'll take Kerry or Gore or Clark for the top spot in a heartbeat.

Also any combo of the above, or any of the above with a good veep candidate.

But, my focus is on the Draft Gore movement, because Al speaks to all my most critical issues best, IMHO.

It'll all shake out at the convention. And whomever we choose, I'm going to do my best to help see them to the White House, as I suspect will almost 80K DUers.

[zulchzulu]

10. Agreed...

If he runs, he's my first choice.

[blm]

11. It's long been a tactic to tear down the most recent prominent Dem

The corporate media did it to Gore - how often were we forced to hear how RELIEVED the country was that Gore wasn't president on Sept. 11? That was a SET UP - nobody with a brain cell was thinking that, but the corporate media repeated it so often for months that it became conventional wisdom.

They have been doing it to Kerry. Facts and truth have nothing to do with anything anymore.

[Malamute]

9. I've come to appreciate Al Gore since 2000

I think he's an improved candidate, not to say he wasn't damn good then.

He's got my vote, if he wants to run.

I think he'd have fought harder if he'd known in Y2K what we know now about serial election cheating by the Republicans.