Why I hope Giuliani's late start approach works

I was thinking about the election today and I came to the realization that I really hope that Giuliani's plan to start late into the primary season focusing on traditionally more blue states in the Republican race works well but still fails miserably.

I want the strategy to do well enough to encourage other candidates to try it in later presidential elections. I would find it ideal if people got back to the feeling that it was OK to run for the nomination in all states rather than trying to build momentum on Iowa and Vermont. Two very nice but electorally unimportant and non representative states.

If people ran on the whole country I think we would get a more balanced campaign and candidates would have to focus on projecting their issues to the whole country rather than focusing on a few states while the rest of us sit in the cheap seats and watch the theater.

On the other hand I hope his strategy fails because I don't feel that Giuliani is qualified to be president. I wouldn't honestly follow him to the bathroom. I think he has no idea what "limited executive power" is, and I don't think that closer inspection of his real dealings Americans aren't going to find anything they like (Bernie Kerik).

And not to make light of tragedy of 9-11, but that situation will make anyone in executive power look good. The President is the prime example of this, his approval rates have had nothing but a downward trend since the immediate aftermath of that event, which probably means he was never a great president but people give you leeway when they think your saving their world.

Responsibility for delegated authority.*

I'm a big fan to the Constitution (right up there on my list of favorite documents ever). But despite all of the wisdom encased in that document it fails on one serious point. That is providing a clear job definition of the work that the vice president should do.

The original document stated that the vice president should be the person who came in second in the general election (which honestly makes impeaching the president so much more appealing). The 12th amendment changed the manner by which we elect vice presidents but the document as a whole leaves very little clarity on what the office is responsible for.

I don't have a problem with the fact that the President has delegated significant amounts of power to the VP. In his own way Cheney is a very capable administrator with a lifetime of Washington experience.

The problem is who do you assign blame to when he does something wrong. As obscene as it seems the office of the VP is not a normal cabinet office. He is an elected official and serves at the will of the people. Everyone else is nominated and approved by the Senate and serves at the pleasure of the President.

The motion to defend the office of the vice president as part of the executive branch is indeed theater and is in my opinion low theater. As a matter of tradition the VP is a member of the executive branch. If he is breaking the rules, congress shouldn't act like an unhappy parent and withhold his allowance. They should follow the steps that are granted them in the Constitution. That is impeach him.

The hard part is deciding who to impeach. Do you impeach the President for poor delegation or do you impeach the Vice President for breaking the laws that he was given to enforce.

I say impeach them both. The vice president has broken laws and ignored the constitution. He has abused the trust of the American people and it should not be permitted.

However, to return to my previous point, the job of VP is not defined beyond Senate tie breaker and presidential understudy. Therefore any additional power that he holds is delegated from the President. As we say in the military you can delegate authority but never responsibility. The president of the United States has granted incredible power to the VP. Failure to ensure that that power is used correctly leaves him just as guilty.

*This post was originally posted here as a comment.

I haven't had time to watch the entire Republican Debate, but I've read several things about and watched the above video.

I haven't made up my mind on Ron Paul but I think he has the tip of a great observation. That is that American policy over the past 50 years has caused people to in the Middle East to hate us. I don't think he had time to fully articulate it in 60 seconds.

It is certainly true that the core of the Al Quiada operation hates us completely. It is very much an irrational hate, and something that no amount of policy changes will resolve. You can find philosophical underpinnings of this movement in Qutb's book Milestones. The people who subscribe to this point of view are the people willing to commit suicide in the hopes to do us harm. These are the people that we must hunt down and remove from circulation.

The most of the people in the Muslim world are most likely not willing to engage in actual conflict with the United States. However many Muslims do dislike us for a variety of reasons. If the United States made an honest effort to understand these reasons and apply them to our foreign policy the world would be a safer place. It is also easy for a real terrorist to hide among people who just dislike the United States. If the United States followed a foreign policy was realistic in addressing the dislikes of the worlds Muslim population, terrorists would loose supporters, recruits and a population to hide among. It is possible that if we had done this sooner 9/11 may not have occurred. Ultimately there is no way to tell. Hopefully we can try it now and see it help prevent the next attack.

McCain, rebranding himself as the Obama of the right.

ABC News reports that McCain is attempting to relaunch himself and his campaign.

He did so by trying to cast himself as an independent conservative appealing to not just Republicans, but the nation.

"Ours are not red state or blue state problems," McCain said before a crowd of approximately 300 well-wishers underneath an overcast sky. "We can't muddle through the next four years, bickering among ourselves, and leave to others the work that is ours to do."

Honestly it sounds allot like he is trying to pick up Obama's with a Republican twist. "Ours are not red state or blue state problems..." sounds like it is lifted almost directly from Obama's speech at the Democratic convention.

To bad he surrendered credibility by pandering to social conservatives and overplaying the security situation in Iraq.

Casey's Two Brigades

NPR reports that Gen. George Casey testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he only asked the President for two Brigades to help secure Baghdad rather than the 5 the current surge strategy calls for.

I want to believe that this is what he called for, but it brings up several questions. One is that feasible, or does it indicate a lack of judgment? Two is this a political move to back the President. If it is there are two ways that the statement can play.

1. The president is sending more troops then were asked for. Sending more troops is a sign of commitment to create peace in Iraq. It also shows that he is a strong leader and shouldn't be criticized for not sending enough troops.

2. Holding to the logic of the first point the statement by Casey gives the president wiggle room. If the Generals say that 2 brigades can get the job done then the President can back down based on publicly announced expert advice.

I'm no general and I don't know how many brigades it will take to secure Baghdad and Anbar. However the president has always said that gives the Generals what they want. It strikes me as strange when the American people don't agree with the decision is when he has given more then they asked for.