Well, Roxie touches on the crux of the matter when she says that the fundamental difference between Barack and Hillary is leadership.

Obama's skill at bringing parties together, and his willingness to engage the "evildoers" in direct dialogue, will help to create a more peaceful and collaborative international community, regardless of whether we're talking about Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, China, Russia or whomever.

The coming years are going to be very difficult. There may even be nuclear brinkmanship (say, for example, between Pakistan and India). Pray we have someone in office, as during JFK's years, who has the wisdom, judgment, integrity and moral courage to help us through that time.

Great, if you're done, I will end the topic with this: Obama has laid out a timeline, Clinton has not. Right now the race is very tight. The call to action for the peace community is to push your candidate of choice to take a more firm stance. How will Clinton differentiate herself from Obama, and how will Obama differentiate himself from Clinton? The front runner should pull to the lead based on their stance on how they plan to end the war. Right now they are similar with very important differences. Let's get those differences to be greater. Their plans are wishy washy compared to McCain's. Neither of them will be able to counter McCain in a debate where he has is able to back up his stance with the "success" of the surge with a summer withdrawal of 25,000 troops and a glowing report from Petraeus in April, whoever the candidate is needs to be prepared. The point is that Obama is more prepared, but not by much. The point of the blog is NOT their stances in the war, the point of the blog is getting them to cement their stances in the war which- I have said over and over again. I understand that being passionate about a subject matter can sometimes lend itself to reading what is not there, but let's be clear on this, this we all want the best candidate supporting us, and I for one and not going to stand in the shadows and shake. I am going to demand that both candidates be at the top of their game so we never have to relive the past eight years ever again.

Roxie - I voted for Barack Obama in the California primary and hope he wins the Democratic nomination. You make many very valid points; I happen to think a Democrat in the White House and a substantial majority in Congress will be the best case scenario to effect change in Iraq policy.

I don't think Obama and Hillary differ on Iraq excepting her initial vote which was a mistake.

Oh, and to tie this back in with the discussion re Clinton/Obama and the Iraq debacle ...

Congress is NEVER going to get us out of Iraq. We will only ever get out of Iraq if our disenfranchised, apathetic, and disconnected people wake up and get involved! And I think we will with Obama speaking to US, which will translate in to US speaking to our representatives to the degree that WE will overpower corporate interests.

I am exactly addressing the point in the blog which is the candidates stances on the war. For Democrats to say Obama has the better strategy since her initial vote just isn't factually true.

In fact, Obama's Senate voting record on Iraq is nearly identical to Clinton's. Over the two years Obama has been in the Senate, the only Iraq-related vote on which they differed was the confirmation of General George Casey to be Chief of Staff of the Army, which Obama voted for and Clinton voted against. In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Obama conceded that his position on the war is not the "polar opposite" of Clinton's.

Barack Obama also declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war and said quote, ''I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports, what would I have done? I don't know".

Barack Obama was also against establishing timelines in Iraq and in 2007, he voted against the effort to de-fund the Iraq war effort. Barack said that after the Bush veto Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker “wants to play chicken with our troops.”

No one is more anti-war than I am, that is why I want a Democrat in the White House; neither Barack nor Hillary will pursue the militaristic neo-con policies of George Bush.

I had guns with bayonets pointed at me, inches from my chest at the Penatgon while protesting the Vietnam war as a young kid with my father. I have been tear gassed, my anti-war cred is strong. The real danger is McCain and not Hillary.

I'm done. That's all I will say on this subject; it's something I feel strongly about.

You're clearly very passionate about Sen. Clinton, John, and I think that's terrific. I've never really cared for her, even though I'm one of those white middle-aged women that she's supposed to appeal to so much. I never distrusted her, however, until her Iraq war vote, and like I said, it wasn't the vote that got to me so much as her explanation. Her explanation did not connect in any way to all those hours of testimony that we all listened to from people like Hans Blix, Scott Ritter, and other very credible testifiers. It came out of somewhere else completely, which is why I attribute it to some outside special interest.

And of course I don't have information to support my conclusion, because my conclusion is based on my sense of her responses to the testimony during the Senate hearings to authorize Bush to take us to war w/o getting Congress' authorization. I listened very attentively and critically to those hearings, and I read and listened to an enormous amount of expert verification and analysis of the hearings. As Senator after Senator after Senator fell into lock-step march behind the Bush administration, I just KNEW that Sen. Clinton would be a voice of reason. She was not. She had her moment and she blew it.

I don't think I'm bashing Sen. Clinton. I think I'm explaining very logically why I did not vote for her in the Feb. 5 CA primary.

Since I don't believe anything any candidate promises or states while campaigning, I made my choice in the Clinton/Obama race based on leadership style, too. Clinton has stated on many, many occasions that her experience working alongside her husband and on her own with the various individuals and agencies which make up our huge, bureaucratic government will make her a better president. IMHO, that is exactly what we do NOT need right now. That is known as an administrative style of leadership.

Sen. Obama, in contrast, has a very different style. Based on his actions so far, before he became a Senator, as well as during his campaign, he will lead our country by inspiring our people to become involved to the extent that they will regain their role of being who/what it is that our national legislators are answerable/responsive to. I believe it is time for radical, fundamental change in our country, change that MUST come from the people, and not from government officials and agencies. This is what I think Obama can achieve. He is inspirational. He is able to reach across partisan demographics. His is a visionary style of leadership.

That would be a great blog for you to post John. There are shortcomings in Obama's universal health care plan and Clinton's is considered to be better. This particular post is about Tom Hayden's piece in Progressive Democrats of America about getting the peace community involved in the Democratic candidates stances on the war. Turning it into an issue of candidate bashing as have done, and often do, misses the point of the post. No one is preventing anyone from posting opposing viewpoints and since you're a blogger on this site, I'd prefer you do it as a separate blog. You're an exceptional blogger.

Yes, it is a very interesting and healthy conversation isn't it. What I object to is this . . .

"Somebody, some group, some special interest, got to her outside of the Senate chambers and convinced her to vote as she did".

Sounds like a GOP campaign ad doesn't it?

This is the kind of warrantless Hillary bashing I am talking about, thank you for making my point. I challenge you to prove that this is true. Do you have information to support this? Or is it just another example of an Obama supporter bashing Hillary Clinton?

If you want to talk about issues though, you might want to talk about why Hillary Clinton supports true universal health care and Obama doesn't. That not a very popular discussion on progressive blogs these days is it?

goodgirlroxie -
Thank you for bringing the post back on topic in an intelligent and informed way.

This is a very interesting discussion. There's a lot going on in it, and the various reasons that Bush became our president in 2000 are being treated as if they do not overlap.

You can talk about democrats being divided, about Ralph Nader, about elderly voters in PBC, about all the other circumstances that resulted in a Bush presidency.

Both the 2000 and the 2004 elections were rigged. If you can't believe this, then you are simply not going to the trouble of being well-informed on all the various ways both elections were rigged. People like Karl Rove just love that progressives are scapegoating Nader, and the Supreme Court, and every other detail surrounding the political environment in 2000.

We have to accept that right now, elections are very close, even razor-thin. As long as political operatives are able to keep these razor-thin margins alive, and to direct their messages at this margin, they will also be directing efforts at electronic vote-flipping, creating hanging-chad scenarios, promoting long waiting lines at targeted precincts, gaining the confidence of Registrars of Voters to ensure that badly-designed and confusing ballots are given out to specific voting demographics, voter roster purging, and all the other hundreds of ways to continue to tweak elections.

Yes, had Nader not run in 2000, Gore would have gotten the presidency. But it's also true to say that, had the U.S. paper ballot company that manufactured the PBC hanging chad ballots not been coerced to produce and distribute to PBC specifically paper ballots that were, for some unknown reason, cut from paper that did not meet the company's minimum criteria for paper ballot-quality paper, Gore would have gotten the presidency. And it's also true to say that, had Florida's Secretary of State not also been the state's Republican party chairperson, Gore would have gotten the presidency.

But since this is a discussion about Obama and Clinton's Iraq war positions, I will weigh in on that as well. I listened, on NPR, to the entire Senate hearings leading up to the Senate's decision to grant pre-emptive war powers to Bush. I listened to the testimony of every single witness that was called before the panel. I listened to every single speech by a Senator. I heard every single question asked, and every single answer given.

When it came time for Sen. Clinton to give her speech before declaring that she was going to vote aye, I could not believe my ears. It was truly as if the hearings had not occurred at all. It was as if her mind had already been made up, and that the criteria for her decision came from outside the hearings. For this reason, I do not trust her at all.

Yes, I am angry at her for her vote in that instance. But I am mostly angry at her completely disingenuous explanation for why she was voting aye. Some body, some group, some special interest, got to her outside of the Senate chambers and convinced her to vote as she did. As a result, I have zero confidence that she has the best interests of the U.S. at heart. I am not saying that she is working against the U.S. I am saying that her thought processes are not transparent. When you compare her personal and public lives, you can see patterns develop that indicate that she is willing to compromise in ways that most other people that I know are not.

Sen. Obama is a very transparent person. He walks the talk. He has never done anything that causes me to jerk my head back and say, "What was THAT all about?" He was not my first choice, nor my second, but in a race with Sen. Clinton, he's my choice.

Rather than vote for a president based on campaign promises and statements, I am voting for a president based on private and public records of action.

And if you want to blame the deaths in Iraq on someone, blame them on the actual person who fraudulently sent our troops there, George W. Bush.

No, I said it works for the GOP, not that it would ensure a victory for McCain. I am not a psychic, I don't know what is going to happen between now and then, nor do polls mean much anymore as New Hamshire and California showed.

What I do know is that supporting Democratic party unity is far preferrable to the alternative that we saw before the South Carolina primary.

It's a reasonable thing to disagree about; but the stakes are very high this time so I would ask if there is even a chance Democartic infighting could cost votes; is it worth it? Is there a reason this can't be done in 2009? I've never gotten an answer to that. I think that is beacause there is none.

Nonimus, you make many valid points. Nader was someone I admired greatly before he became an egomaniac and put his own agenda ahead of what was good for the American people. Did he think he was going to win? What good did his running do? Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada.

We can agree to disagree, nothing wrong with that in a democracy is there. It is not factually contestable though that if Nader had not run, Gore would be have been president. That's just the truth as much as one and one equals two.

Well, John, since your entire argument is that attacking a Democratic candidate would ensure a McCain presidency, then you should check out this TIME poll.

Obama 48%, McCain 41%
Clinton 46%, McCain 46%

You can frame the argument however you like, but Nader did not lose the election in 2000, nor cause the deaths in Iraq.

Nader, specifically, has a decades-long record of being nothing but an intelligent, passionate public servant. His list of accomplishments in making our society better, fairer and safer is longer than my leg.

You're assuming that the people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore otherwise. I dare say that the people who voted for Nader wouldn't have voted in the election, at all, if they didn't have a candidate who inspired them.

If you want to remember correctly, the Florida election had a difference of 98 votes in favor of Bush before the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the recount to be halted. That is a failure of poor ballot design mixed with elderly voters, as well as Republican machinations.

To carp about or vilify Nader is to shoot democracy in the foot. In a healthy, vibrant and free society, everyone deserves to vote according to his/her conscience.

Fact is, if we used instant runoff voting, this also wouldn't be an issue.

http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/28538-instant-runoff-voting

You are absolutely correct Nonimus in stating the other reasons that contributed to a Democartic loss in 2000. However, the fact remains that George Bush would not have been president were it not for Ralph Nader's ill-advised run. Let's have a clear memory on this, there was a cacophony of warnings about what that would mean. Many pleaded with Nader not to run as he would surely draw votes from the Al Gore. Many made the case loudly and often about what that would mean to the Supreme Court and look at what has happened. Did Nader's candidacy do any good for pushing for a multi-party system? No, nothing changed for the better at all. Multi-party systems work well in parliamentary governemnts, not in a republic/representative democracy where an electoral college "winner by one vote takes all" system exists.

I wonder if this Nader conversation would resonate with the hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives in Iraq.

I like how we refer to the Dems by their first names. That says a lot, in my mind. We feel familiar with the candidates, and this is an intimate, personal election race. "Barack" means "blessed," and "Hillary" means "cheerful." Hallelujah.

By the way, the Republicans don't need our help to demonize Hillary. They've already got that covered. They are chomping at the bit for her nomination. They would love it, because they feel they can defeat her.

As for other candidates, such as Nader, he's doing the country a favor, by really pushing for a multi-party system... if the Greens, for example, can get 5% of the vote. Nader did not lose the 2000 election. The Democrats lost it. They lost it because of Bill's philandering. They lost it by not carrying Gore's home state of Tennessee. They lost it because of confusing ballots where old folks in Florida mistakenly cast their vote for Buchanan. They lost it because Republicans wrongly purged 28,000 minority voters from Florida rosters. And so on.

Let's all have a little backbone in standing up for democracy -- not the semblance of democracy, but the fully fledged kind.

Calm is how cows march into the slaughterhouse. I don't want this country and the world to be subject to another reactionary like John McCain in the White House for four years, I don't know we would survive. Both Obama and Clinto have been very clear on the Iraq war, their position are known as you just illustrated by posting them. It has been discussed ad-infinitum, in seemingly a hundred debates, over and over. They have both been on countless one-on-one Sunday talk shows, everyone is clear what Barack and Hillary think about Iraq. No one is going to change their minds at this point. What was said has been said and how they voted will not change. There is nothing to be served for progressives to fight about that at this moment in time when Democratic party unity is called for. Either one of them will be far, far preferable to McCain.

The bias towards Barack Obama is obvious in many progressive arenas these days, I can read; Way too many Democrats in the blogosphere and media seem to enjoy attacking Hillary Clinton. There is a visceral hatred that is not limited at all to Republicans. The fact of the matter is that I prefer Barack Obama and have issues with Hillary Clinton to say the least. But I am not willing to tear one down at this late stage because I feel it only works for the GOP.

This is not just another presidential election year and the stakes are way to high as far as I am concerned for a Naderesque stance on principle that only serves to divide the Democratic party, embolden the GOP and give the Independent voters who will decide this election pause when they pull that lever.

You see a million people or more actually died because Nader ran for President and almost 3 million people were stupid enough to vote for him. To imagine and fantasize about a legitimate multi-party system in a Republic, a representative democracy like ours at that time was without purpose and it's "real" effect on this country and the world was devastating. So while the Democrats fight it out with little substantive difference on most of the issues (by their own admission)and spend money they could spend in the general election, John McCain will raise money, spin, campaign and have momentum going into the general election as he moves to the middle and goes after moderates and independents.

To think that this primary contest should be about changing the Democratic party is not politically smart or practical and the result of that could mean another GOP war-loving lunatic in the White House.

I think political patience is a virtue at this moment in time, and there is nothing to be gained between now and Januray 2009 by anything other than Democrats uniting together. There will be plenty of time with a Democrat as President and majorities in Congress to push and pull and demand that progressive ideals become more of the fabric of our government and our laws. The time to do that is then . . . not now.

A McCain presidency will mean a 6 or 7 person ultra-conservative majority on the Supreme Court; for 50 years they serve for life, militarism, war, certainly a draconian decimation of social programs, more support of corporate greed at working people's expenses, the end of abortion rights and a plethera of other Bush-like policies that will be more than this country can stand.

There is nothing more important than uniting to make sure that will not happen and after the August convention it may be too late if between now and then the hatred and demonization that has characterized the Democratic primary to date continues.

Democrats shouldn't even be within 10 points in any national polls at this time. Yet they are. Losing elections they shouldn't lose hangs like an albatross around their necks and I hope it is not happening again this year.

Clintons = DLC

Progressives are fighting tooth and nail to end the DLC's stranglehold on the Democratic party.

This primary matters a LOT to our movement.

Calm down John. No one is attacking any candidate here. The point is to get both candidates to make their stance on the war more clear and more concrete. Right now, Clinton's is far from concrete - Obama's is slightly more structured. In the coming months it would be great to see them both use the final primaries to strengthen their stances to better prepare for the final race to the White House.

There is little substantive difference between Obama and Clinton on any issues, including Iraq. What Hillary did in 2002 is not relevent to today in terms of keeping a Republican out of the White House and that should be the only thing that matters to any Democrat or Progressive right now. Do I like how she voted? No. Do I have issues with her on policy? Yes. Do I have issues with Obama on policy? Yes. But I am not going to encourage attacking any Democrat for any reason through November. There is nothing to be gained except to encourage a Nader or Bloomberg and to enable independent voters and moderates to be turned off by Democratic in-fighting and to move towards McCain in significant enough numbers for him to win.

There will be plenty of time in January of 2009 for progressives to hold Hillary or Obama accountable and to fight our collective asses off for working people and justice in this country. Now is not the time to bang heads with Democrats and the sooner this Democratic hate-fest is over, the better.

The time for political pragmatism is now. The time for Democrats to be team players is now. Otherwise we will be looking at a 7 person conservative majority on the Supreme Court for the next 50 years and a continuence of most all of Bush's policies across the board.

I don't give a damn which Democrat becomes president. Not one damn bit.