The Democratic Presidential Debates: A View from the Heartland

Yes, it's true. I live in what is commonly referred to as a "fly over state", one that is seldom mentioned in the realm of national politics. We Nebraskan's are a funny breed when it comes to politics, while we are by and large a red state that doesn't mean we vote in lock step with one political party or another.

However after watching the Democratic National debates on television I'm fairly certain none of the candidates there can expect to win our 5 electoral votes during the general election. I honestly wish I could say that would be true of every other state as well, considering what a terrible overall performance I thought all of the candidates gave in responding to various questions.

The utmost question in my mind, and I believe on the mind of most of us who live in the heartland, is what our next President will do in regards to international terrorism. In this regard I found each and every candidate that spoke during the Democratic debate last night sadly lacking, not one of them had anything even remotely close to a plan as to how to deal with this most important issue.

Granted, all of them were more than willing to point out what they felt were mistakes made by the opposing party and by the current President, but not one of them put forth any useful ideas or a plan of their own. While this might play well to a crowd that already has some rather strong negative feelings about President Bush, honestly it's not what I'm looking for in a candidate.

Being an armchair quarterback is easy. Anyone can sit back and look at the thousands and thousands of decisions that needed to be made in the war in Iraq and point out how this could have been done differently, or that should have been done better. It doesn't require much effort nor much commitment on the part of a candidate to merely criticize someone else performance. I certainly don't agree with all the decisions that have been made in regards to the war in Iraq, but I'm a lot more interested in where were going in the next four years, not about the mistakes we made in the last four.

What really interests me in this debate is, where do we go from here? Who has the best plan to protect America and deal with international terrorism after Bush leave's office? So far from what I've seen of the Democratic candidates very few of them have a clue, much less a full fledged plan.

Barrack Obama in particular made a huge misstep when he started mentioning how he would meet with leaders of rogue nations without any conditions if he were to become President. I'd heard a lot of hype concerning Obama, but after witnessing this dismal performance I'd have to say he looked a lot more like Billy Carter than John F. Kennedy. He seemed completely out of his depth whenever the conversation or questions steered away from his list of approved 30 second sound bites, ones that his advisors so obviously had him memorize before the debate.

Hillary Clinton came off as a lot more polished, but for the most part she also came of as a lot more rehearsed. I have no idea what she stands for, and neither does anyone else, much less her campaign staff. Her answers all seem to be carefully scripted to avoid making any commitments to anything, I think in large part because she's trying so desperately to win her parties nomination but in doing so doesn't want to appear so out of the mainstream that she can't win a general election. Either way she won't have my vote, if she's not willing to stand for anything other than the latest Gallup poll on any given issue then she's not a leader, much less presidential material.

My impression of John Edwards was the same impression I get when dealing with most used car salesmen, he struck me as the sort of guy that would say anything he thought you wanted to hear as long as he could make the sale. Sorry John, no sale. If I wouldn't buy a used car from you I certainly wouldn't give you my vote for President of the United States.

Dennis Kucinich is always entertaining, but he reminds me far more of someone's crazy uncle than of a serious candidate for president. But while I found all of these presidential hopefuls disappointing I think Joe Biden is perhaps one of the worst choices being offered at the moment.

His recent assertion that we have done "nothing" to deal with Afghanistan or Pakistan is just a huge slap in the face to a lot of brave people who are putting there lives on the line every day to do exactly that. It shows not only a complete lack of respect for those serving in Afghanistan, it displays a total ignorance of the topic at hand.

What worries me the most about all of these candidates is that not one of them seems to have a grasp of the danger we face in regards to international terrorism. All of them are still apparently living in a world before 9/11, before we were given a wake up call and began to realize that our enemies were not only fanatical and determined, but that they could hurt us badly here on American soil if we failed to take some sort of action to stop them.

In the post 9/11 world we need to stop and take stock not only of ourselves but of our enemies as well, and realize that the danger we face from them is both real and terrible. These are not people who can be reasoned with, and if there is one thing the war in Iraq should have taught us is that all of this ridiculous clap-trap we hear about American "foreign policy" being the problem is simply that, total nonsense. They hated us when Carter was President, they hated us when Reagan was President, they hated us when Clinton was President, and they still hate us today.

Just look at all of those Muslims in Iraq who have been butchered by Al-Qaeda and like minded groups, and one thing becomes perfectly clear. These terrorists will not stop no matter what American foreign policy is, or how nice we are to them. They want us dead. Plain and simple, they want all of us dead. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party, you name it, they hate us all.

They hate anyone that doesn't agree 100% with their dogged, narrow view of Islam. As far as they are concerned anyone that doesn't proscribe exactly to their view of Islam is sub-human and deserves to be destroyed. Everything else is just propaganda and nonsense, and their willingness to slaughter even other Muslims who live and work in Iraq should stand as a glaring testament to this basic fact.

Now, take these small groups of fanatics and marry them with a somewhat sympathetic rogue government who also has an ax to grind against the U.S. or its allies. All they have to do is supply the terrorists with a nuclear device or something equally devastating such as a chemical or biological weapon, and this rogue government now has a deniable delivery system. No need to spend millions or billions of dollars developing missile technology that can be easily traced back to your country, just turn over a device or two to some terrorists and let them use it instead. The death toll would be catastrophic, and if were not careful this is exactly where we'll be headed in the next 10 years if we don't do something about it and soon.

Sadly after watching the Democratic debates I was left very much with the impression that not only do none of these candidates have a plan for dealing with any of this, many of them simply do not have the slightest clue as to the real danger involved. They would prefer it seems to haggle over tax cuts for the "rich" and things like the minimum wage.

Like most people I haven't had a job at which I made minimum wage since I was in high school some 20 odd years ago, and honestly I could care less about how much the "rich" pay in taxes. I figured out a long time ago that blaming the "rich" for all my woes was a total waste of time, if I wanted to get ahead in life I'd have to do it myself. Whenever anyone starts talking about how much the "rich" pay in taxes, I'm always reminded of what my grandfather once said when a politcal activist came to his door and starting discussing this same subject many years ago. "Why do you guys always pick on the rich? I don't know too many poor people that give other people jobs, do you?"

As a registered independent at this point I haven't really decided who I will vote for yet in the upcoming election, but if these Democratic debates are any indication I seriously doubt I'll be voting democrat. I want a President who's more interested in dealing with problems, especially the big problems. I don't want somebody who's going to be pointing fingers and playing the blame game, I want somebody with a plan of their own. And sadly after watching this last debate it doesn't look like any of the Democrats running for president have one. Maybe that is why they so rarely if ever seem to win the support of the heartland.