SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

RAW POLITICS by (me!) sandra, ttgp #juryduty

as i watch and listen to each one, i try and picture that person communicating and negotiating with various leaders around the world. and we are in a very tricky place, us americans. we must work toward world wide respect. must work toward world peace. offer good will but without empowering terrorists or risking our national security.

for unjust reasons i cannot fully explain, as i listened to richardson, dodd, kucinich and gravel, i decided that while they each have one or two great ideas our future president will want to adopt; they are missing that elusive x factor a leader needs in order to succeed.

and maybe this is a successful manipulation of the media, but pretty quickly, as i tried to work toward my personal "top pick" from the democrats, i was deciding between edwards, clinton, obama and biden
and despite the respect i've developed for biden over the years, he was one of the first to go from my short list
this is unfair. no one should perform so well over the years and then be judged on the use of one word, one answer

but he said, "we need to recognize how weak iran is..." and three or four times he referred to iran as weak and i wanted to pull out my hair. i understand the objective.. in a noble effort, he was trying to let us know we do not need to engage prematurely with military force to prevent the iranians from employing nuclear weapons because this nuclear missle capability is quite far off for them technologically. -but words are powerful, powerful things. to me, this type of communicating, this choice of word can only result in two bad things:

resentment and challenge. resentment of united states dominance, and a direct challenge for iranians to prove themselves otherwise. anyone like to be referred to as weak?

i don't see that as a bridge or good negotiating tool. but i believe in biden's experience and knowledge, many of his ideas and certainly his ability to get things done. i think he just needs a few communications classes, and then he should serve as secretary of state or something..

we need someone who can do two things more brilliantly than anyone else: talk and listen.

this puts obama at the tiptop of my short list. numero uno! he is by far the best speaker when it comes to presence, delivery and vocabulary choice. -but in addition to that gift, he masters the rarest of all skills among politicians called listening. he can actually repeat back, in plain english, and accurately, what you've said; and what he's heard.

magical things happen when people feel they've been heard. this is an outstanding quality, and it is this quality alone that makes me want to purchase and read the audacity of hope and then vote for obama.

but i have this thought too. hilliary comes with two important things no one else has:

white house experience and bill.


and together they've got a history of failures.

successes too. but a number of failures.

anyone whose been around a while also understands there is no better teacher than failure.

in my imagination, hilliary and bill clinton ache inside for the opportunity to return to the white house and APPLY what they've learned.



but everyone knows jurors really make up their minds way before they sit down to deliberate.

if i were a bettin' girl, i'd put my money on clinton or obama.

posted by SHE @ 1:04 PM