McCain at a town hall meeting in NM said today that he agrees with bringing back the draft.

From Think Progress

A Questioner said:

If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

To which McCain responded:

Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.

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Well here's a real attack issue, spread the word.

From: Think Progress

At a NM townhall today mcCain a questioner said:

If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

McCain's response:

Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.

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I need to make a confession. I am not wholeheartedly a  Hillary supporter or an Obama supporter. I voted for Hillary in the New York primary, and I am working hard and voting for Obama in November.  Ending the slaughter in Iraq is my absolute priority.

I am a lifetime member of the War Resisters League, a sixties  radical who never recanted. I love the song "Universal Soldier" and Phil Ochs's "I Ain't Marching Anymore." If we had a draft, there would not have been an Iraq War.

When I have attended African American churches, I am always horrified by the number of former congregants who have died in Iraq. The voluntary army has offered better opportunities to  African Americans than American society as a whole, so they too often fight our wars for us and die in much greater numbers.

Shouldn't progressives question a "voluntary" army? Why not fight genuine life-and-death battles against racism, instead of absurd battles against an ally like the New Yorker?  Of course, I am asking a rhetorical question to which we all know the answer. The anti-Vietnam Movement only got started when white middle-class college students could no longer get graduate-school deferments.

I would be glad to offer my draft counseling skills. I wonder how many people have personally known a conscientious objector?

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My first specific political memory centered around the duck-and -cover, hide-under-our-desks, exercises that were a regular feature of my early school life from age 5 on. I knew enough about nuclear war to be terrified. We lived one mile away from an air force base, and I used to go out to the backyard, look up at the planes, and try to determine if they were American or Russian. What I thought I could do about it, I don't remember. I even checked a book out of the library on aircraft identification. When I heard Joseph Stalin died when I was 7, I remember asking if that meant no one would drop atom bombs on us.

In 1954, when I was 9, I had a severe case of the measles and my Grandma Nolan came to help nurse me.  My eyes hurt so much I had to stay in a darkened room and couldn't read. Grandma was listening to the Joseph McCarthy army hearings. Hatred of McCarthy's voice might have shaped my entire political development. In 1956, just turning eleven, I fell madly in love with Jack Kennedy as he made an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidential nomination. A good catholic schoolgirl, I was initially attracted by his Catholicism; ten minutes later I was smitten by his intelligence, wit, and charm. I was luckier than his other women. Loving Jack Kennedy was good for me.. From 1956 to 1963, I read everything I could about Kennedy, politics,  and American History. I read the newspaper from cover to cover daily.  

When I was 15 I did volunteer work for his presidential campaign. In high school we had political debates to imitate the famous Kennedy/Nixon debates, and I represented Kennedy. What he believed in, I believed in. Gradually I moved to the left of his pragmatic liberalism. Kennedy was responsible for my decision to major in political science in college and graduate school. Kennedy's assassination, occurring in the fall of my freshman year in college, devastated me. I felt like there had been a death in my immediate family. I quickly transferred my political allegiance to Bobby Kennedy.

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Delegates, pay attention.

You have a 48-47-4 Scenario.  No candidate has a total majority of votes.  As is being said on CNN, by Jeffrey Toobin, this is the worst of all possible worlds for the Democratic Party.  Obama is revealed as having real flaws. while Hilary doesn't seem to have a path to the nomination without potentially ripping apart the party.  Clinton captures the Reagan Democrat demographic.

Either candidate stands to only win a close election at best.

Why not go for the landslide?  Take a compromise candidate-- one whom captures Clinton's blue collar strengths, and one who espouses the Optimism of Obama.   Make the convention matter.  Show that we thrive with a representative vote.  We discuss issues in our party.  Why should we sacrifice the opportunity for maximum exposure that an Open Convention would bring?  This could show the Democratic Party at its best-- with senators and governors having equal footing with ordinary citizens.

Why not take the sure thing?  

Think about it.

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