Backstory: Remember, they're only running for office
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A few rules to follow this election season - from the candidates' point of view.
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If any of the presidential candidates are thinking seriously about tax reform, they have kept the information to themselves. And that is a pity.
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For senators with presidential aspirations, 2007 looms like a potential minefield.
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Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton points to his resume as evidence that Obama is not ready for the White House. "He was a part-time state senator for a few years, and then he came to the Senate and immediately started running for president," she says dismissively.
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At least eight people are vying to hold a job crucial to the Democrats' future direction.
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In the evolution of political campaigns, from whistle-stop trains to TV sound bites and celebrity pitches, why shouldnt i-campaigning come next? Just so were clear, thats i as in Internet based, not the I many politicians seem to put ahead of the people.
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When it comes to presidential politics, the news media loves front-runners. And seems to hate them, too.
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According to conventional wisdom, front-runners win presidential nominations. Democrats and Republicans who start the race for a presidential nomination with the largest amount of money and the best poll numbers are supposed to be the ones most likely to walk away with victory months later.
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Independent groups are using their financial muscle as never before to influence the presidential race.
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They are not wealthy. Their home states are politically symbolic. Their occupations or their circumstances suggest salt of the earth.
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With the 2008 campaign just months old, the G.O.P. candidate has already made some memorable misstatements
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A close inspection of candidatesâ wares offers the prospect of a peek into their characters and hoped-for constituencies.
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Your virtual candidate calling Comment Politicians long ago gave up on politics. Instead of articulating great ideas, the choice that faces voters today is between identikit managerial bureaucrats who've never had a job outside politics. Most of their adult lives have been spent in the hermetic world of wonkdom. So it's little wonder, then, that they have trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality.â¦
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Both candidates have plans for dealing with our fiscal mess. But neither are addressing the real problems
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Both parties have similar kinds of candidates. Meet the Charismatic, the Practicals, and the Base-Wooers.
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Los Angeles Times - They lost at politics at an early age. Since then, they've rarely made the same campaign mistakes twice.
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It was an interesting election until the Clintons started calling Obama the nice young African-American candidate. Yeah, I lived in the south long enough to understand what that means. When I went to Tulane I was often explained as soandso's Jewish friend Dave. It meant that I could come over for dinner, but there would never be a marriage. I should say The Old South. The problem for the Clintons is that the country has changed, as recently as the generation that's now in its early 20s. Because of my experience at Harvard, I know quite a few of them, and I promise you, race doesn't mean to them what it meant when I was their age. To them, this country is a melting pot where we've not only accepted blacks and Hispanics, but people from incredibly far away with incredible complexions, hair, clothes, traditions and names. Amazingly, it's still America.  Once again we are the melting pot. And this time around a young African-American with a funny name is very mainstream, so much so that the blatant appeal racism of the white-haired old man is as ridiculous as the praise Trent Lott gave to the almost-dead holdover from the Old South, Strom Thurmond.  Problem for Clinton is actually much worse, we now saw how she'd govern. Let's say a young African-American Senator from Illiinois got in the way. Would she argue the issues with him in a respectful way? Why bother when you can smear him into silence. Now she spins around like her husband oblivious to what the rest of us suspected, and now knows for sure. If there isn't now a landslide of support for Obama, from all segments of the Democratic Party and from many Republicans, then our country truly is without hope. I suspect that's not what will happen, and we'll see the same kind of weak attempt at redemption that Trent Lott tried after his fiasco. It won't work, because, as with Lott, we've seen too much. Now do we know that Obama would be any different? We don't. My cynical side says of course he's just like the Clintons say. "Give me a break" -- it's a "fairy tale." (BTW, I'm quoting Bill Clinton accurately, a form of respect they don't practice.) Maybe they're right. Maybe this is the last gasp of hope in America for America. Okay, maybe so. But I'm willing to give it one more try. I think it would say to the rest of the world that America has caught up with reality. Look at how we've changed. Maybe they'll put pictures of Obama in their public buildings as they did with JFK. I could think of worse things. (Carolyn Kennedy thinks it's possible.) What a fantastic way to recover from Bush, who so completely represented the greed and arrogance and uglyness of America, to reinvent ourselves in the image of our best, in the image of hope.  Hope, that's the difference, and it's not just a word. We've all been disempowered during the Clinton and Bush years, sidelined. I remember when I gave up on Clinton, it was during the brightest period of hope for the web, when they passed a compromise that said that the First Amendment didn't apply here.  There are some things that are so important that you can't compromise on them. It was then that I knew that Clinton (and Gore) were phonies. Maybe Obama isn't. I never thought I'd get another chance to use my vote to say, along with so many other Americans, that we still believe the bullshit they taught us in school and that our grandparents taught us, and that the flag says to us every time we think of what it means. There's a reason this country is so great. We forgot it. Let's remember. Bill Clinton wanted us to think well of him when he spoke at Davos in 2000. I choose to remember what he said then, Find A Shared Vision. If by any chance he should read this, I'd say it's time for you to not just say those words but to live them.