Embrance populism, even if not George McGovern

My attempt to gin up support for a George McGovern presidency has met with mixed results. My McGovern 2012 Facebook group is limited to people on my friends list. Some have been so excited as to brandish their original McGovern for President buttons, others have questioned why I would pick anyone over the age of 89 to mount a campaign for President and ultimately occupy the White House. Perhaps I should clarify.

In your heart, you know you're right.

The point wasn't necessarily to persuade the 89-year-old George McGovern to give up his Florida winter home and start making speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire. The point was the American public believes in the core issue of higher taxes for better government services. Don't believe me? Check out these polls in Utah, Nevada, and yes, even George McGovern's home state of South Dakota. Even in these so-called "red states," people want government to work for the people. Oh, and Paul Ryan's plan to virtually replace Medicare with private insurance? That's not going over so well.

Yes, Democratic presidential candidates lost badly in 1972, 1984, and 1988, and I'm well aware of who just took control of the House of Representatives. But that doesn't mean Barack Obama or any other elected Democrat should simply cede ground to extremist corporate interests. Doing so only serves to further alienate the general public and re-affirm the belief that government doesn't work for the people among skeptics.


The time to turn things around is now. This is not the time to apologize for Barack Obama's inability to provide sufficient assistance the millions of Americans who are struggling financially because we perceive it politically unfeasible. Rather, the only reason he isn't running away with a second term is because he fell into a self-fulfilling prophecy that Americans didn't want more government. I merely proposed that the man partly responsible for this timidity among progressives unseat Obama and smash the myth of a "conservative" America once and for all.

Well, it probably won't happen with another McGovern presidency. But if the "sensible liberal" can understand that Americans want health insurance instead of bailouts for corporations and tax cuts for millionaires, that's an important step in the right direction.

Oh yeah, and in case you haven't seen it already, a video about the ultra-liberal state of North Dakota. They have another bank besides Wells Fargo.