It is immaterial that the runner-up in the Republican Primary -- Mike Huckabee -- is a bleeding heart on death penalty cases. That's why many of us rejected him. What has that got to do with John McCain?
If the point is that there are a lot of people who agree with Huckabee's sta ce... well, I don't know. I'm sure there are some, as there must be. Obviously the death penalty is popular in America and particularly so in the Republican Party so... huh?
Seems like a good ad to me.
People don't vote on "issues." They vote impulses-- that is, they do not look to see what a candidate claims his precise position is on ever single issue. They look for his general impulse -- on trade, is he basicaly pro or basically anti? On taxes-- raise 'em or lower 'em? On crime and punishment -- justice first or mercy first?
I'm so tired of hearing from the left that we need a "substantive" discussion on the exact points of Obama's health care program vs. Hillary. Why? They're both fantasies anyway. Even if a health care plan were to be passed at all, it would be so changed by legislative bargaining as to look almost nothing at all like the starting presidential proposal.
As said in the Way of the Gun, "A plan is just a list of things that ain't gonna happen."
And so it is with Barack Obama. This is a powerful ad, I think, because it lets us know on what side of the justice/mercy line he's on. He's on the compassion/mercy/rehabilitation/let he who is without sin side of the divide.
That's important information. Why it's a wrong or crude to point that out is beyond me.