The Winter 1999-2000 Update
to the Elect Hobie Homepage

I.  The Y2K Presidential Campaign [Below]
II.  Campaign Finance Reform
III.  Guns
IV. Guns & Legislation
V. Guns & Kids
  VI.  Federal Budget, Waste
& Other Matters

Y2K Presidential Campaign
Surprise... for the very first time we have not just one candidate that is strongly committed to campaign finance reform, but two... one Republican and one Democrat... And while Hobie disagrees with both candidates on major specific issues, campaign reform is the gateway issue... without it no real change is possible... so just pick one -- to vote for AND help!

Senator John McCain

    Senator John McCain has been the point person on campaign reform for many years now... and the strength of the opposition to campaign reform is perhaps best illustrated by the type of person it takes to challenge the status quo... a true hero who has not only survived but prevailed over 51/2 years as a prisoner of war, including torture and 2 years in solitary confinement.... only this type of courage, conviction and stamina can stand up to the entrenched, political establishment....
    Hobie, as most Americans, prefers stronger gun regulation (although McCain did break with the NRA to vote for background checks at gun shows), and a less restrictive pro-life position....  But the realities of the Republican primaries force any viable candidate to espouse these positions...
"The Senator from Arizona is raising the eternal, inevitable forlorn hope that politics can be made different, more 'honorable' -- cleaner -- somehow... the spectacle of a man on a white horse attempting to traverse a muddy field is one of the most compelling in public life, and McCain's ride has been particularly entertaining.  He has pretty much abandoned his stump speech.  He'll tell some jokes, make a few opening remarks... and then quickly open the floor to questions.... The questions are sophisticated, detailed, and often hostile; McCain allows interrogative rants and invites follow-up questions.  He enjoys the confrontation; indeed he seems touched by the ceremony of democracy.
"He is a war hero who has survived unimaginable physical suffering with grace and honor.  His experiences in a North Vietnamese prison camp -- five and a half years in captivity, more than two of them in solitary confinement -- are now legend.  He was tortured repeatedly, in part because he refused an offer of early release made after his captors learned that his father was the admiral in charge of military operations in the Pacific.  It is hard to name many other public figures who have been willing to endure pain -- even mere political pain -- for the sake of honor or principle...."
In a Times Magazine article, one writer admitted to being so smitten with McCain that he could not credibly cover the man; others like Mike Wallace of Sixty-Minutes have publicly admitted a desire to drop everything to work for him." Joe Klein, New Yorker, 1/17/00
"McCain is not like anybody you and I have met along the way in recent American politics.  He comes from some ancient place.  His sense of honor is not at all contemporary.  It is absolute, not relative.  And that makes him difficult for us to understand at first -- all the recent political models we've seen are variations on the theme of artifice.  The question of each campaign is 'How will I present myself to the public.' That is a question McCain doesn't ask himself.  He has no choice in the matter."  L. Smith quoted by Joe Klein in the New Yorker 1/17/00
"If the disgraceful whispering campaign against Senator McCain is met with cynical winks and shrugs then we truly have stopped expecting that basic decency be a part of our political discourse.  In this turn of events, which would have made Orwell proud, bravery is a sign of weakness, heroism is the sign of a character disorder, and exemplary service is a liability.  This is done to punish Mr. McCain for his position on campaign finance reform, and by tarnishing his service record, to make the less than stellar record of other candidates seem acceptable."  P. Dan NYT Letters 11/25/99
"I am not surprised by reports that Senator John McCain's political enemies have been spreading rumors that his famous temper is a sign of a broader 'instability' caused by his imprisonment in Vietnam.  In fact, a few weeks ago I received a call from an old friend who is also close to the George W. Bush campaign soliciting comments on Mr. McCain's 'weakness.'  As I told that caller, I think John McCain is solid as a rock.  And I consider it blasphemy to smudge the straight-arrow prisoner of war record of a man near death when he arrived at Hoa Loa prison in 1967.... The truth of imprisonment is best learned from the writings of men who have spent a lot of time in cells, like Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  The last described his feelings of high mindedness in his gulag writings:  'And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.  Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.... And that is why I turn back the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, 'Bless you, prison.' I understand that, and so does John McCain."  J. Stockwell, retired Navy Vice-Admiral
"...the intricate ballot rules for the Republican primary are in fact calibrated unfairly to exclude as many candidates as possible except for the one favored by state party leaders...."   Editorial, NYT 1/28/00  Note:  After the NYT called keeping McCain off the ballot a "Soviet-style" tactic, and after McCain's incredible victory in New Hampshire, New York Judge Edward Korman found the process "shocking" and allowed McCain on the ballot.
But not only has Bush raised $70 million compared to McCain's $15 million, Bush has the  strong backing (New York Republicans were told it would be "a cardinal sin" to back McCain) and enormous resources (volunteers, offices, literature, phone banks, etc.) of the  state Republican leaders.  By comparison, McCain's has virtually no state organizations with most true grass root volunteers operating literally from their living rooms.
McCain had not taken a poll from January till the middle of December of 1999.
"The cynical premise of the Bush campaign is that the people are easily manipulated.  McCain seems to believe that voters can think.  Bush's empty slickness only draws attention to the contrast.  The more that Bush's retainers try to outspend, outspin, and outposition McCain, the more they prove McCain's point:  Big Money politicians think the people are stupid."  J. J Barlow, Cols Dispatch, 2/10/00
"When our country has been taken from us by the special interests, the big-dollar donors, pride is lost to shame."  Sen. J. Mc Cain NYT 11/4/99

Bill Bradley

"Money talks in Washington and members of Congress listen.  Money drowns out the voices of regular citizens.   ...the moneyed interests make a mockery of representative democracy."  B. Bradley
"I can tell you right now, if we get campaign finance reform, it will be like cutting oxygen off for the lobbyists."  Bill Bradley NYT 11/5/99
"If you don't trust the people to tell the them the truth in a campaign, then how can the people trust that you're going to tell them the truth when you're the president of the United States."  B. Bradley to Al Gore in the last primary debate in NH.
"Politicians believe you don't really care about campaign finance reform.  They don't respect you enough to even hide their actions or pretend."  Bill Bradley NYT 11/23/99

And the other Candidates?

Al Gore was either incredibly unobservant, had an incredibly inept staff, or was incredibly needy for political contributions to visit a Buddhist monastery and accept money from vow-of-poverty monks with close ties to foreign countries.
Without soft money "our Republican Party and conservative values don't have a chance."  G.W. Bush  [As John McCain says:  I always believed that what is best for our country was best for my Party.]
"We're all sinners, buddy.  And far be it for me to cast the first stone."  G. W. Bush campaigning in New Hampshire
"There ought to be limits to freedom."  G.W. Bush, on trying to quash the parody web site www.gwbush.com
"Admittedly I was willing to fall into the mosh pit.  You know why I did that?  Because I think that exemplifies the kind off trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign"  Alan Keyes   "This opens up entire new avenues of  presidential campaigning for the youth vote:  'Admittedly I was willing to serve as a guest referee at the World Wrestling Federation Crushfest.  Making decisions is what my candidacy is all about."  G. Collins, NYT 1/28/00  [Or more accurately, following the script is what my campaign is all about."]
"This is Preservation Month.  I appreciate preservation.  This is what you do when you run for president.  You've got to preserve."  G.W. Bush speaking to elementary students in Nashua, NH  [It actually was "Persevere" Month.]
"I want to make sure that people understand that a campaign funding reformer must be held to high standards."  GW Bush, NYT 2/11/00  "High" as in higher than me.
GW Bush started his South Carolina campaign at Bob Jones University, a school that prohibits inter-racial dating, and whose Web page refers to the Catholic Church as "a satanic counterfeit."
"George W. Bush running for president claiming to be an outsider is like the rooster taking credit for the sun rising.  His grandfather was a United States senator, and his father was a lifelong Washington political insider who ended up president.  His brother is governor of Florida, and George W. himself is serving his second term as governor of Texas.  He has been anointed for the nomination by the Republican Party powers that be.  He has raised $70 million form wealthy people and special-interest groups.  So if Mr. Bush claims to be an outsider, could someone please tell me what an insider is?"  A. Orling, NYT Letters 2/11/00
The way to know an outsider is:  he takes on powerful interests, as McCain does when he rails against corporate welfare and pork-barrel spending.  He is massively losing the endorsement game (26 out of 31 Republican governors, 38 out of 54 Republican senators, and 180 out of the 222 Republican House members have endorsed Bush.)  And Dan Quale added his endorsement the day after the New Hampshire primary. "No pollsters predicted the decisiveness of McCain's victory in New Hampshire.  I guess their margins of error aren't calibrated for when the public is offered something other than politics as usual." A. Huffington, Cols. Dispatch 2/9/00
Bush's fund raising began March 7, 1999.   Within a month he had raised $6 million.  By the end of 1999 the total was over $63 million, an enormous amount that scared other candidates out of the race before a vote had been cast.
Texas has a weak governorship.  "Many offices that are filled by gubernatorial appointment in other states are independently elected in Texas, so the governor doesn't have a cabinet.  The lieutenant governor, who presides over the senate and chairs the board that prepares the budget, is more powerful than the governor."  By one count only 137 people work under Governor Bush, compared to 1,400 under the governor of Arkansas and 42,000 under the mayor of Chicago.  "If (I'd guess when) he takes office this time next year, he'll come to the presidency with a lighter resume than anybody has in at least a hundred years:  Helping to manage a professional sports franchise and a term and a half as governor of Texas.  Openly admitted drift before that.  No experience handling a crises or solving a major conflict.  Good political instincts and a gift for connecting with people.  A decent, trustworthy guy.  Not especially knowledgeable or curious, but a quick study.  Growing.  That's it....  [I]magine how thin his claim on the presidency would be without the family connection."  N. Lemann, New Yorker 1/31/00
"Vice President Al Gore comes off as one of the most ardent, ambitious aspirants to the Oval Office in quite some time, a man who would crawl across broken glass to get there.  Mr. Bush comes off as a man who wants it, but not at any price, and sometimes not as much as he wants to wake up in his own bed...."  F. Bruni, NYT 1/26/00
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Campaign Finance Reform
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Last Updated 02/11/00
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