On the draft, Obama in '08, Kucinich, and other matters...

[WilliamPitt]

The draft

The idea of a return of the draft has been a concern around here for several days, and for good reason. Understand, however, that barring some massive calamity - an invasion of flesh-eating aliens or the Earth crashing into the sun - there will be no draft. Not because there aren't politicians who want it, but because the military simply will not stand for it.

The military nowadays is a hell of a lot different from the one we had the last time there was a draft. Back then, it took about eight weeks or so of boot camp to "make" a soldier. Today, because of the new training, tactics and equipment, it takes months (if not years) to make a soldier. An influx of green, raw, non-volunteer recruits would absolutely shatter the system and wreck virtually every branch of the service.

The brass know this, and want no part of it, and will not stand for it. Rangel knows this, too, I am sure, which is why his call for a draft was almost certainly political posturing designed to highlight the Iraq situation and the "rich man's war, poor man's fight" phenomenon. There will be no draft.

Obama

Obama in '08 feels, to me, like a new Senator thinking about running for Vice-President. This is incredibly common: a lot of the candidates in any general election aren't actually running for the Oval Office, because they know they won't get it, but want to position themselves for either the VP spot or a cabinet position. I get the sense that this may be the drift of Obama's thinking; he hasn't been around long enough, perhaps, to seriously consider the top spot, but as VP would be well-positioned to take the reins after someone else's term.

Given this assumption, savor the flavor: Edwards/Obama, Gore/Obama, Clark/Obama, Boxer/Obama, Clinton/Obama, etc. He would be fantastic on any campaign trail as the second voice on the ticket, I think.

Dennis

The announcement that Dennis Kucinich will run for President in '08 has been met with a great chorus of approving voices here. It will be very important to have a voice and a perspective like his in the race - "Hi, my name's Dennis, and I was totally right about the war all the way back in 2002" - but I have one caveat to offer that I hope you decide to take very seriously.

I worked for a litle while as the Kucinich Press Secretary during the '04 run, as some of you might recall. Thanks to a variety of outside and internal circumstances, combined with my own utter lack of experience and what has to be called my rank incompetence in a position I had no grounding for, I am pretty sure you can pen me into The Book as the Worst National Campaign Press Secretary In The History Of All Known Universes.

Therefore, I will put this very simply: watch the Kucinich campaign closely. If they start hiring people like me on as main staffers, be very, very, very concerned. No matter how solid a candidate may be, a campaign can die in the cradle if the staffers don't know what they are doing. If these kind of hires start happening, you are going have to wonder what the point of the exercise is, because winning anything won't be on the menu. Period.

'Nuff said. Cheers.