COLUMNS: Nothing is scarier than presidential race
How have you celebrated this Halloween season? Did you visit a corn maze or a haunted house? Did you rent your favorite horror film? Well, I’ve been doing something much scarier-following the presidential race. Here are my thoughts on the leading candidates: Rudy Giuliani is arguably the most frightening person running. Everything about the man is downright creepy-from his awkward relationship with his young wife to his double life as a drag queen (and an ugly one at that). His foreign policy is especially terrifying. Because Giuliani has no foreign policy experience, he will heavily rely on his advisers. Who, then, are these people? Norman Podhoretz, the “Godfather of modern neoconservatism,” is one of Giuliani’s top advisers. Podhoretz recently met with President George W. Bush to argue for immediate military strikes against Iran. Michael Rubin, another adviser, agrees. Then there’s Daniel Pipes, a man boasting “a long and distinguished career of advocating war against every Arab and Muslim country in the world.” He has also pushed for the profiling of American Muslims in the U.S. government. And finally, Giuliani’s terrorism adviser-Thomas Joscelyn, who baselessly contends that Saddam Hussein was, and Iran is, connected to al-Qaida. With these neocons at the helm, one can only imagine how reckless Giuliani’s foreign policy will be.
Giuliani is not the only New York politician I’m worried about. In recent weeks, Hillary Clinton has solidified her front runner status with a staggering 31-point lead over Barrack Obama. Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer Clinton over any candidate in the Republican field, but I want her to earn the Democratic nomination, not assume it.
While Clinton is an intelligent and accomplished candidate, she fails my liberal litmus test. Of the Democratic candidates, she has been the most hawkish in her foreign policy approach. She helped the Bush administration make the tenuous case for war against Iraq back in 2002, and she now echoes much of the administration’s rhetoric against Iran. She is also deeper in the pockets of corporate interests than any other candidate from either party.
Hillary needs to disavow the “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war and divorce herself from corporate influence before she wins my vote. I’m personally hoping John Edwards makes an impressive showing in the early primaries and gives Clinton a run for her money (of which she has an obscene amount).
Others expect Obama to cut into Clinton’s lead, but I’m not so confident-his campaign has been underwhelming thus far. Obama’s “politics of hope” have rendered him unable to effectively attack Clinton. And as a result, his campaign has lost its momentum.
Monday marked my biggest disappointment with Obama. As part of his “Embrace the Change” concert tour, Obama included gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. Here’s the issue: McClurkin espouses a very anti-gay message. He has called homosexuality a “curse” and accused gays of “trying to kill children.”
Given this history, it was a mistake to cede the stage to McClurkin at Monday’s concert. Instead of singing, he used the opportunity to preach the evils of homosexuality and share his personal story of alleged deliverance from homosexuality by God.
The religious and intolerant overtones of the concert were inappropriate for a presidential campaign. Obama is usually a powerful advocate for the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender community, but he let us down this time.
Like Obama, Fred Thompson has yet to live up to his hype. And he, too, is mired in a controversy over homosexuality. The Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-gay hate group masquerading as a church, recently released a quasi-endorsement of Thompson. Westboro first achieved national notoriety years ago in picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay youth and victim of a vicious hate crime. Today, they celebrate soldiers’ deaths (and other tragedies) as divine retribution for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. Thompson was hired for a mid-1980s sexual harassment case on the recommendation of Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps. It was through this case that several church members got to know Thompson. In their press release, they applaud Thompson’s support for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, but urge him to explicitly endorse their homophobic views-views with which he once agreed, they claim. “We know what your position used to be on the homosexual question-and it was wonderful, and we saw eye to eye,” church members wrote.
If Thompson did, in fact, give their hateful beliefs any credence, he is unfit for public office.
Scary stuff, my friends. Scary stuff. Just be grateful you’ve been enjoying Halloween parties instead of putting up with political parties.
Happy Halloween.