Describe your ideal candidate

What would a candidate have to be like to earn your enthusiastic support?

For me:

A truth-teller: The candidate would demonstrate this by coming right out and putting all his or her flaws on the table, and then proceed to say why none of those flaws matters. What matters is that the candidate will not lie about anything, will tell the truth about where he or she stands on everything including abortion, the war in Iraq, the "war on terror", even if it is deemed by conventional wisdom to be politically unviable.

A fighter: The candidate will not allow the opposition to define him or her. The candidate will not allow the opposition to tell lies. The candidate will not write off any group that can be convinced to support him or her.

I may add other traits as they occur to me, but those are my keystones.

LOL.

John Conyers' face is perfect as far as I'm concerned. Just wish I saw it more on Sunday morning talk shows.

Kucinich looks like a crazed little pixie, bless his soul. The looks lottery is just so unfair. I should count myself lucky that I got a mug that's about a 6.5 on the "10" scale...

He was in "The Manchurian Candidate" , "John Q", "Training Day" and a number of other progressive-themed films.

Are you sure about that?

I had been hearing that he was a War supporter for a long time.
I didn't want to believe it.

I believe it was during an interview with his co star of Manchurian that the host started talking about the war. The costar - Glenn Close? said something about the war being a bad thing.

He got extremely angry and did not back down one bit!
I was shocked.

Within the last few months, I have heard that he is very supportive of GW and donated an apartment building to house the families of injured soldiers when they come to Washington to visit their loved one.

That is a fine thing to do, don't get me wrong but I believe he was motivated by his political beliefs.

According to Hollywood gossip, he is having problems in his "perfect" marriage.
The Enquirer mentioned it a bit but lots of people in the African American community have heard about the break up.

I did see him on one of the Hollywood Award shows and he flashed his wedding ring, did not happen to see him on the Red Carpet part with his wife Pauletta.


If someone else can bat down what I have heard, please do, I would be delighted because he was certainly one of my heroes.

Conyers, Kennedy and many solid Democrats fighting the good fight underneath it all every day.

connected with the DLC.

First: The kraken. That is, he or she or it (I'll just stick with he from now on) has contacts and friends everywhere, in both parties, in every camp, in every jurisdiction, in every district, in every branch, in every state. Yeah, that'd be easy to abuse, but two things are crucial to victory in politics (and I'd like my ideal candidate to win, too): influence and information, and being the kraken provides both.

Second: The revolutionary. In this case, the revolutionary who supports the Permanent Revolution. I define it as never being willing to settle, even if you're satisfied and happy, and always striving for more. He wouldn't just try to improve upon his own performance, he would extoll the constituents of every district and state to take a long hard look at the people they chose to represent them, and if their challengers are willing and able to do more than their current people, to elect them in, regardless of party or how much they actually like their current representative.

Third: The prophet. Perhaps because he has an innate understanding of the mind, or he studied psychology as a minor when he was pre-law, or he's the kraken (see above), he can predict the way a given politician will move, meaning he's prepared for their next maneuver. He's not never surprised, but it's a rare thing.

...who can reach across party lines and take seriously both the small and big pictures associated with laws and legislation. I don't even have to agree with them on everything (though ageeing on most things would also be a requirement of course).

He was a truthful fighter and even people who hated his ideology respected him for that.

the "vast right wing conspiracy" loved him enough.

Wonderful, wonderful man!

Intelligent. Caring. Honest.

before the next election.

You can't NAME ONE DEM who hasn't been defined by the media for the last ten years since the GOP bought control of most broadcast media.

Clinton was IMPEACHED because of it. Gore was branded a serial liar. Bush was branded a stoic hero. Dean was branded as a screamer. Edwards was branded as no gravitas. Clark was branded as distrusted by his fellow military. Kerry was branded as aloof flip-flopper. Murtha was branded as senile.

Name the Dem who CAN'T be defined when the GOP controls most of the broadcast media.

Wes Clark's mind and honesty....would make a helleva perfect candidate in a "normal" United States if a Chimp let a 9/11 happen, took us to war with the wrong country for no reason and we wanted to get out in this war best way possible, cut the pentagon budget, and if voters actually informed themselves on candidate's history and experience.