It’s easy for the Democrats to pander to the Left of their party especially during the primaries. But, there is a risk. It’s hard to come back to the middle for the election if you go too far. Hillary is playing the safest. John Edwards and Obama are not. The Iraq war may not be popular. Using torture and horrible prisons are easy positions to oppose. But, stopping the war against an enemy that will not stop attacking freedom leaves many Americans wary. A system that condones torture is not acceptable. A ticking time bomb use of Physiological forms of torture is acceptable by most Americans. If Mohammad Atta was in custody on Sep 10, I don’t think many Americans would have opposed interrogation to reveal the unfolding plot.

Alan Dershowitz echoes these thought in a Journal piece

John Stossel tackles the school voucher issue in Utah. His hard hitting 20/20 story on the public education system still annoys the teachers unions. He exposed the failures in the new York education system including paying bad teachers to sit and read magazines because it is not possible to fir them due to union regulations. Now, he lends his support to school choice.

Utah School choice initiative

Hillary Clinton is not Bill Clinton. It looks like she can be flustered. The Achilles heel has been exposed. It looks like the Democratic contenders can use the blitz and make Hillary look like Rex Grossman. She looked confused and frustrated. Everyone, including Tim Russert, piled onto her miscues in the debate last night. I bet she was ready to kill someone after the debate. Watch for the Clinton team to attack Russert and pull the victim card out again. I’ll post video when it hits Youtube. Some good stories below on the debate

Obama, Edwards attack; Clinton bombs debate

Obama, Edwards Take on Clinton in Debate

Clinton feels heat after testy debate

In the Bloomberg article, it describes the Rangel tax hike for the top tax bracket. How does 48% sound. One out of the two dollars you earn will go to the federal government. That makes it an average of 13% higher than our average trading partners. It would be the fourth highest behind Denmark, Sweden and France. That looks like a great list of economic powerhouses. The devastating quote is from the Clinton camp, Senator Clinton and Rep Rangel share the goal of progressive tax reform”. In other words, a vote for Hillary is a vote to join that economic juggernaut, France.

Bloomberg article

I do love a good quiz. The best part of this quiz is that all you answers are right. It’s designed to find your ideal candidate. Answer the 11 questions and it will rank your answers against the position papers of all the candidates. Not only will it give the candidate that most agrees with your views, but it will give you the anti-candidate, the one who has your opposite views, as well. Take the quiz .

Yes. Just ask Harry Reid. In an energy hearing, he made remarks he later had to “clarify”. Good old Harry is not going to let any tragedy go by without a good political remark. If we can’t blame everything on Bush or Global Warming then who can we blame. It’s not like there ever was forest fires or Hurricanes before 2000.

The Democrats are getting very comfortable in their position. Hillary is a heavy favorite and Bush is at an all time low in the polls. Thoughts of a sweep are dancing in their heads. What to do with the new found power. It’s time to roll back any tax hikes of course. Congress needs money to spend for the “needed” programs. After all the world is about to collapse from Global Warming. But, the American people might not like a tax hike. How can we disguise it. Let’s get out our favorite diversionary trick. Let’s beat up the rich. Here is the plan

• Raise taxes back to 44% for the upper tier
• Raise the Capital gains tax to 30 percent
• Raise the FICA limits
• Let the Bush tax rollback expire except for lower brackets
• Impose changes to partnership rules to get those pesky hedge fund dollars
• Token change in AMT

Yep, that looks like a good place to start. Drudge has a good link to the start of the festivities.

Watch how the play unfolds. The stock market will not like it at all.