As I mentioned in a very recent post, the Informed Constituent ran a print debate including myself, the incumbent, and his Dem primary challenger, Tom Raleigh. I reviewed McNulty’s positions in the previous post.
Now on to Raleigh:
1. Regarding restoring confidence of the people in their elected officials, Raleigh, like McNulty, supports campaign finance reform.
Also like McNulty, and other supporters of such “reforms”, he fails to explain how this will actually make a difference. It’s my firm position that past campaign finance reforms helped incumbents dramatically by making things more difficult for challengers. The proposed reforms will do so even more. The problem is not campaign finance, but various aspects of the election process that favor incumbents.
Raleigh also prophesizes that his campaign will shock the political system. So far the only shock looks to be the clobbering Raleigh will take in the primary since almost no one knows who he is and he has no clear message.
2. Asked what he would do to help working families, Raleigh discusses two issues: health care and fuel/energy.
On health care he calls for a “national health care strategy”, but fails to explain what that means in any substance. On his website he sort of says he’s for universal health care, but he’s still not clear on it.
On fuel and energy, he calls for reducing our dependence on foreign oil and shifting to renewable sources of energy. He does not explain how we’ll get there, either in the debate or on his website. He does oppose drilling in ANWR, a position all three of us share. Raleigh’s reasoning for that is identical to my own – it’s a strategic reserve, best left in the ground until we really need it.
3. On the balance between federal and state power, he says he supports States’ rights. Like McNulty, he fails to mention individual rights in his answer.
4. Regarding the “War on Terror”, he gives a lengthy answer. To summarize, he seems to say the war in Iraq was wrong, that we should work with other countries, use diplomatic and economic power, and develop our intelligence forces. I mostly agree with Raleigh on this, but think he doesn’t go far enough in withdrawing US troops from overseas in general. He still seems like an interventionist, but with a different approach from Bush & McNulty.
5. On the balance between security and liberty, Raleigh gives an empty answer, making vague comments like we must “tread very carefully” and “Congress must not be timid”.
6. On the “greatest challenge facing America”, he picks two. First he says “we must come together as a nation.” Next he says we must mend fences abroad. His only specific is on the second, saying we should limit the number of politically appointed ambassadors. Presumably he thinks ambassadors should be professional diplomats.
I don’t think he’s nuts on the ambassador thing, but if that’s what he thinks is the greatest challenge facing America today, he’s way out of tune with the American people.
Strangely, McNulty also said that restoring our international reputation is the greatest challenge. I think very, very few Americans are concerned about our international reputation.
7. On why voters should choose him, Raleigh says we need more military veterans in Congress. He pretty clearly implies that those without military experience cannot truly understand or appreciate the complexities of the post-911 world.
I respectfully disagree. As someone who hasn’t been suffocating in the US military bureaucracy for Raleigh’s 22 years, or in Congress for McNulty’s 18 years, I appreciate that the world was already complex before September 11, 2001.
One interesting thing about Raleigh’s responses is the length. His responses were more than double the length of mine, though he says fairly little in all of that space. McNulty’s responses were about the same length as mine, and I think he said more than Raleigh in that space. Between McNulty and Raleigh overall, I disagree strongly with many of McNulty’s answers, and some of his answers were dishonest. Raleigh said so little of substance in his responses that I don’t disagree with him as much, but then again I don’t really know where he stands. If I were voting in the primary, I’d vote for Raleigh, and I will encourage my Democrat friends to do so.
