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I must say, calling people stupid seems to be a fitting slogan for the Hillary backers, I see that a lot these days.
If 9/11 had occurred before 1992, I am not sure "it's the economy, stupid" would have even worked then. It was another time.
The economy tanking would certainly not be good for the Republicans, but we also have to remember that the economy being good did not lead to Gore winning by a steal-proof margin in 2000.
In 04 we tried to make the economy the main issue, and if we would have been able to succeed, Kerry would have won by a steal-proof margin in 04. But at least in 04, the economy played second fiddle to other issues.
Iraq is the dominant issue. So still is security/terrorism. This issue has played for the Reps before. We have to nominate, first and foremost, a candidate who is viewed as strong on national security/defense/foreign policy. With this in the bank, we can concentrate on the economy, health care, and other issues that are good issues for us.
Yes, it is true, that the Reps have fucked up foreign policy,and this has itself made our economy worse.
My point is, however, that unless we put people at rest in trusting us on security, we won't be able to point the issue to the economy.
That is one of the reasons I like Biden. More so than the others, he has an appearance of strength on foreign policy. I think the Reps could try to (and with some success) portray the others as wimps, but this would have difficulty sticking with Biden.
I think this is, rightly or wrongly, one of the reasons Hillary has tried to tow the line supporting Iraq, Iran, etc. I can see how they could portray Obama as being weak (I see it here on these boards, all thils talk about him not being ready, etc so I am sure the Reps would do it too) and Edwards doesn't have a lot of foreign policy credentials either.
I am not endorsing any candidate yet, so I don't have an axe to grind. But this is how I see it. We need to talk about the economy, and structural change. Edwards seems to be best able here, expecially structural change. But we need to nail the defense image, or it may not even get on the radar screen of issues in 08.
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