A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Leigh Saavedra

The length of the 2008 primary season has lulled many of us into thinking that the actual days of decision will never come, but time often moves with a sudden thud. As of November 24, we have 40 days until both major parties call together caucuses across the state of Iowa. There will be plenty of Christmas trees that haven't been taken down on the night it fully strikes us that it is HERE.

For Democrats, there has been a fair period of time when people have assumed that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee. There have been enough debates that we should all know the differences in the candidates, but it doesn't appear that we are acting on this knowledge.

In the last Congressional election, the people handed Washington an unequivocal mandate: get our soldiers out of Iraq. By now, most non-cavedwellers have learned that the reasons used to send our planes and ground forces to invade a sovereign country were, to put it as delicately as possible, contrived by those who saw gains to be made by conquering Iraq. We supported moves based on lies. And a lie is no more immortal than a human. As the truth has revealed itself, and as a pretty firm figure, two-thirds of our citizens now want OUT.

A single night's boning up of the formation of our country will remind us of the emphasis our forefathers placed on having a well-thought-out balance of power to prevent our ever suffering the wounds of a one-ruler country. In their design, the president would have a third of the power in the country, as would the legislature and the judiciary. There would be no one single individual who ruled as in the old days of monarchs and conquering generals. No single person would be "the decider," a term used frequently in recent days. The "deciders" would be the citizens of this country.

So we, the citizens, have decided. In most polls, the so-called war is considered the primary issue, and two-thirds of the people want to get out of this ill-conceived war. Now it's time to put traceable ballot marks where our mouths are.

IF you are one of the third of the country who thinks we are gaining by staying and fighting in Iraq, you will probably decide to vote Republican, the party who has given a big grab at the reins to the neocons who led us to where we are today. The only Republican candidate who opposes the war is Representative Ron Paul.

If you are one of the two-thirds of the country who wants to stop the killing and destruction and bankruptcy of our country, you are probably leaning to the Democrats, who (though too weakly) are fighting this neverending war. All the Democrats running for president claim to oppose Bush and bring our soldiers home. But according to the polls, our leading contender is Hillary Clinton, who supported George Bush in the initial invasion and even recently in his early preparations for the possible invasion of Iran.

I have great admiration for Hillary Clinton. I find her to be far superior to all Republican candidates except Dr. Paul in her position on the war. BUT -- maybe hawk blood just can't morph. Senator Clinton is by nature quite hawkish and, in comparison with the other Democratic candidates, she is a raging hawk, under whom we risk an all-out war with the entire Mideast.

So here is the question keeping me from sleep: If Senator Clinton is the least likely candidate to get us out of Iraq, then why are the majority of Democrats polled, those demanding that the war be ended, supporting her? I have no theories except to suppose that the voters do not yet know which candidates represent which stances.

We have two fine second-tier candidates, Senator Barack Obama, gaining a bit of ground lately but still running a distant second place to Clinton, and former Senator John Edwards, who runs some distance behind Obama. And yet the COMBINATION of votes expected for Obama and those for Edwards often overwhelm those in support of Clinton. The most common complaint made against these two second-tier candidates is that they are short on foreign policy experience. We sometimes forget that these two men have far greater foreign policy experience and general knowledge of the world than Governor Bush did when he ran against Al Gore in 2000. At that time, even Republicans who acknowledged Bush's lack of worldliness assured us (and themselves?) that he would have a staff to rely on, experienced people upon whose experience he could immediately draw.

Interestingly, the REAL experience, counting ALL candidates, Republican and Democrat, lies with some of the third-tier Democratic candidates. My own choices overall have been for Senator Chris Dodd and Governor Bill Richardson. Many would say no one out there even IMAGINING sleeping in the White House has experience to compare to Senator Joseph Biden. And for a peace candidate, no one has fought harder for so long than Dennis Kucinich, winner of the 2003 Gandhi Peace Award. And though I don't believe he has gathered the steam that his message warrants, it is the rare candidate who is as straightforward and honest with us as former Senator Mike Gravel.

So here we are, less than 40 days from the Iowa caucuses, and it does indeed have the feel of 40 days in the wilderness. Millions of people need desperately to take the time to find out which of our candidates is the most serious about undoing the great debacle of the past two generations and how they will do it. If voters are unaware that Hillary Clinton, despite all her many outstanding abilities in other areas, is the most likely to continue this destructive war, it is vital that s/he take a few hours and study the candidates.

With Clinton's current lead and taking a sort of grudging look at all the polls, it does not seem practical to look at our third-tier candidates, and with my devotion to Dodd and Richardson, it is hard for me to say this. But we MUST make a turn if we are to hope to see this hated war end. Aside from stopping the deaths and life-altering results of the fighting bestowed upon our young soldiers, besides the thousands of deaths of innocent Iraqis, besides the loss of worldwide prestige, besides the damage to U.S. credibility, and besides the unfathomable amount of money being charged every day to our grandchildren, besides all that, this war is putting our nation at great military risk as we put all our eggs into one basket, one woven tightly, designed to hold oil and oil revenues.

The horror is not the almost comic picture of thousands of Iraqis rowing boats from halfway across the world with inferior weaponry tucked under their arms so that they "can come after us at home;" it is the growing power, primarily financial, of China; it is the growing alliances of other countries with whom we can not in any responsible manner allow to be looked at as our enemies. There is frightening volatility all over the world. Look at Pakistan, Putin's inscrutable plans, the swaggering amount of the U.S. now owned by China. We must, as two-thirds of us know, get out of this so-called war that is generating terrorists and hatred for America, as fast as we can.

It may not be possible for one candidate to rise up at this point and overcome Hillary Clinton. But the two second-tier candidates, Obama anad Edwards, topple Clinton in short order when their support is combined. Even taking away Obama supporters who would not join in supporting Edwards for a running mate and Edwards supporters who might not join in supporting Obama as the carrier of more votes than Edwards, we still have the noticeable support for Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel. These supporters are concerned primarily with getting out of the Mideast. Knowing the facts, most of them should fight to have a peacemaker take the expected nomination away from Clinton.

It would be primarily up to John Edwards, who is running third. It would be a heroic act, but I have seen enough sparks of heroism in Edwards. His joining in and giving his support to Obama and leading the third-tier candidates to do the same would give us what may be the ONLY chance of overcoming an otherwise strong candidate who suffers, alas, from any genuine credibility in her determination to stop this Mideast jingoism. In that one aspect, she is frightening close to the Republican contenders.

How many supporters of John Edwards would take deep breaths and turn their attention from the candidate they most admire to pile up the support Obama needs to overtake Clinton? The same goes for the supporters of the third-tier people. And the BIG question is whether John Edwards himself could be persuaded to consider such a heroic move.

All politics start with something someone makes time to do or say in the kitchen, so I will volunteer to begin that by switching my own allegiance from Senator Dodd and Governor Richardson and pushing with all the strength I can find in these next 40 days to help in whatever ways I can to see a true peace candidate overtake Senator Clinton.

It is not a draconian nightmare to fear what will happen to our country if the current policy continues. We don't want to think about it, but "deep in our hearts" many of us know we are running for the cliff like lemmings.

It is a strange moment in history, a time when it is possible that one man, a very GOOD man with absolute presidential ability himself, could step forth and create a coalition that would make it possible for us to place in the White House a person with the wisdom, intelligency, and character to end this nightmare.

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION

Leigh Saavedra, often writing under "Lisa Walsh Thomas" is a veteran activist, having fully re-enlisted immediately after Election 2000. While writing in several genres over the years, she has focused on political papers and poems in these difficult recent years. She appreciates comments at leighsaavedra@yahoo.com.

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