Resources and Information about
the 2008 Presidential Candidates
(from a slightly biased source - me)

The Green Candidate

Cynthia McKinney:

Ms. McKinney is a former 6-term member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia. Her courage and lucidity in that office led her to, among many other things: oppose the war in Iraq; introduce articles of impeachment for both Bush and Cheney; author legislation to outlaw the use of depleted uranium weapons; demand a full investigation of the events of September 11, 2001; and eliminate federal subsidies for corporations that move jobs overseas.

She has left the Democratic Party, primarily because of their lack of support for her as their own candidate for Congress. She's joined the Green Party, and is now seeking our party's nomination for President.

Her campaign web site is Run, Cynthia, Run. You can watch her grill Donald Rumsfeld on DynCorp's sex-slave trade, the Pentagons's missing trillions, and the events of 9/11 at this page on YouTube.

The Libertarian Candidate

Bob Barr:

The Libertarian Party's national convention in May selected Bob Barr as their Presidential nominee for 2008.

Mr. Barr is a former 4-term Republican member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia. Among the "high points" of his term in Congress are:

• Being one of the leaders of the movement to impeach Bill Clinton for lying to Congress.
  (We should remember that "No one died when Clinton lied.")
• Supporting the "drug war," including condemning the use of marijuana even as a medically prescribed drug.
  Interesting footnote here - an ad campaign by the Libertarian Party against him on this issue was instrumental in causing him to lose a re-election bid by a 2:1 margin.
• Fighting against religious freedom by demanding that Wiccan services be banned from all US military bases.

Mr. Barr's campaign web site is Barr '08.

The Democratic Candidate

Barak Obama:

Mr. Obama seems to be a progressive voice, especially for the minorities in this country. One thing troubles me, though - from early on, he had a huge campaign chest, but no obvious source for the money. Then I saw it: he's in tight with AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, meaning he's financed (controlled?) by the Israel lobby. What's wrong with that? See my discussion of Israel on my Issues page.

In fact, the first major speech Mr. Obama made after he clinched the Democratic nomination was at a convocation of his old friends, AIPAC. (To be fair, Clinton and McCain also made the required pilgrimage to pay their tribute to the AIPAC kingmakers.) For an insightful view of what happened there, see this article from the Global Research web site.

You can find an excellent analysis of Mr. Obama's campaign and positions in Count Me Out - The Obama Craze at the CounterPunch.org web site. It's written by Matt Gonzalez, who is running this year as Ralph Nader's Vice Presidential candidate. (But don't let that stop you from reading the article; it's still spot-on.)

"A (person) is known by the company (s/he) keeps." We've all heard that one - look at Mr. Obama's main foreign policy advisors:

• Zbigniew Brezinski: Mr. Brezinski seems to have been behind Obama from the beginning, orchestrating his primary campaigns as if they were CIA coups. We also ought to mention that Mr. Brezinski is the author of The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, handbook for the United States to control the world.
• Philip Zelikow: He was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, a major part of whose job was to investigate the Cheney/Bush administration's failures in that tragedy. However, he had deep ties to the Cheney/Bush administration, making his leadership of the commission questionable at best.

We probably also ought to mention that Mr. Obama has one very important characteristic in common with George W. Bush: he's utterly inexperienced in the process of running a nation - especially in the area of foreign policy - and so will have to rely on his advisors for everything.

His presidential campaign web site is Barak Obama.

Though he's dropped out of the race, I'm going to include my original comments
on the best of this year's original Democratic candidates, Dennis Kucinich.

Dennis Kucinich:

Dennis Kucinich's integrity, honesty, and progressive ideas scared the people in charge of this country so thoroughly that he was excluded from Presidential debates, and even from ballots in some states, like Texas. He was far and away the best non-Green candidate in the race. However, ethics, character, and issues don't win elections any more. In these days, when the media speak and the vast majority of the people bleat along behind them, Mr. Kucinich looks like Abe Lincoln - and everybody knows Lincoln just wasn't "presidential."

His presidential campaign web site was Dennis4President, but it's been taken down. To learn more about him, go to his House campaign site, Kucinich.us.

The Republican Candidate

John McCain:

As far as I can see, there are two things John McCain has to recommend him. First, he tells the truth as he sees it. In Michigan, for example, he said that some of the jobs that had moved overseas weren't coming back. (Romney won the Michigan primary with the lie that they would.)

The other thing he has going for him is that, unlike our current flight-suit-in-chief, he has actually fought in war, and knows what it's like. For a long time I'd hoped this meant he was less likely to get us into another stupid, wasteful, immoral, and illegal war like our invasion of Iraq.

I was wrong.

McCain has stated that we're in Iraq to stay, and that we might be there for the next hundred years. For a perspective on Mr. McCain's beliefs and thoughts about our involvement in the war in Iraq, look at this special comment by Keith Olbermann on Mr. McCain. (The video is in two parts, so be sure to click the link on that page taking you to the conclusion of the comment.)

McCain is on record as opposing the right of women to do what they will with their own bodies - he's a "pro-life" advocate, in other words. To see what I'm talking about, watch this YouTube video of people being surveyed about McCain's attitudes on this issue vs. Bush's attitudes. Did you know the answers to the questions?

Also, he - like Mr. Obama - has kissed the ... nether parts of AIPAC in hopes of money and votes from them. I'd hoped to give you a link to a video entitled "McCain Pledges Allegiance to AIPAC," but YouTube has removed the video and suspended the person who posted it; too much truth?

A candidate's spiritual foundation and convictions are the surest ways to evaluate him or her for fitness to lead. Well, Mr. McCain finally distanced himself from the two men he'd been calling his "spiritual" advisors. You know he did that because his handlers told him to, but those advisors have still influenced him and his attitudes. Let's take a look at them:

• John Hagee: Rev. Hagee is an extreme (-ist?) member of the Radical Sacriligious Right who is the senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, an evangelical church in San Antonio. Among his other perversions, has decreed that "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." He continued, "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, because there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the (sic) Katrina came."
• Rod Parsley: Rev. Parsley is the leader of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio, a huge Pentecostal church whose sanctuary seats 5,200 people. He has called upon Christians to wage a war against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. At an evangelical rally in Cincinatti in February, Mr. McCain called Rev. Parsley his "spiritual guide."

Mr. McCain's campaign web site is John McCain.

And, as I did with the Democrats, I'm going to include my original comments
on the best of this year's original Republican candidates, Dr. Ron Paul.

Ron Paul:

Ron Paul was the only Republican candidate this year with a shred of ethics, patriotism, or integrity. (He's also the smartest.) You can tell that from listening to him or by looking at the dedication with which the corporate-owned media frantically tried to shut him down, dismiss him, and discredit him. Funniest thing, though: nearly every dirty trick that got pulled on him, he just rebutted, defused, and in the end turned to his advantage.

Did you notice that the day after "Super Tuesday," every state with a caucus reported that he got a double-digit percentage, but every state with a primary reported him with a single-digit percentage? Could that have anything to do with the fact that in the states with primaries, votes were counted by machines (pun intended), but in states with caucuses, votes were counted by people?

To find out more about Dr. Paul, start by visiting his campaign web site. There are also lots of unofficial sites about him; one of the best is the Daily Paul.