Meet The New Democrat…It's the Same As The Old Democrat

Democrats rejoice, your savior is here. After descending from the heavens, Sen. Barack Obama, (D–Ill.) is here and his millions of followers want to make sure you know he is the new Democrat. He’s going to do things differently, they say.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Obama’s actions have unfortunately not lived up to his rhetoric. Can one really blame him though? After all, change isn’t poll-tested. Even his highly-touted policy of running a strictly positive campaign is fading with his poll numbers.

It is one thing for a candidate to say he is different from his opponents, it is quite another to actually be so. Luckily for him, words now speak louder than actions.

Back in July, Obama said he would hold diplomatic conversations with hostile nations, Iran in particular, during his first year in office. When Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) called his stance “irresponsible and frankly naïve”, he quickly backed off. In early October, Clinton checked her old feelings at the door and reversed her opposition from 3 months earlier. Obama poked fun at her flip-flopping and went on to say “…when I am president of the United States, the American people and the whole world will always know where I stand.” In other words, the American people will be able to rest easy at night knowing that where Obama stands on an issue is based entirely on Clinton’s latest move.

There are virtually no material differences between Obama and Clinton. Obama claims he is the most anti-war major Democratic candidate; his supporters have said he is the only anti-war candidate. Granted, he didn’t vote to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization like Clinton did, but his phased withdrawal plans for the Iraq war are shared by almost every other Democratic candidate in the field, including Clinton.

So what makes him so different? Not much, in fact.

In all fairness, he is still a better candidate than Clinton because he is less polarizing and more electable. Just look at Facebook, for example. There are more people in an anti-Clinton group than there are in the groups supporting any other real candidate, Democrat or Republican.

A recent Zogby International poll asked likely voters which candidates they would never vote for. Clinton topped the charts with 50 percent of those responding saying they would vote for her under no circumstances. Obama did significantly better with 37 percent. Both, however, along with every other Democrat and Republican residential candidate, were bested by Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) with 34 percent.

A poll of GOP insiders, recently completed by The National Journal, found that Richardson has the highest support of any Democrat among Republicans in Washington. This is not surprising to Richardson supporters; he got 70 percent of the vote in his bid to get re-elected governor in 2006 (including 32 percent of the Republican vote and 62 percent of the Independent vote). New Mexico went Republican in the 2004 presidential election, however.

What many Americans don’t realize -- but these GOP insiders do -- is that Richardson has more experience than any other Democratic candidate. He was elected to Congress as a U.S. representative in 1982 and spent 14 years in the House.

Richardson also has a great wealth of foreign policy experience. He has negotiated successfully with some of the most notorious leaders in the world, including Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il. After being elected to his second term in the White House in 1996, Bill Clinton made Richardson the U.S. Ambassador to the UN. Richardson’s final position in Washington was on Clinton’s cabinet as the Secretary of Energy.

He and Mike Gravel are the only Democrats with experience in the executive branch of government. Richardson served over a Republican-controlled legislature during his time as governor and, unlike his federal counterparts, he's gotten a lot done. New Mexico's economy has grown, schools have improved and taxes have been cut under Richardson’s watch.

Historically, governors have a far better shot at the White House than their legislative counterparts. The last senator to win a presidential election was John F. Kennedy. Senators have gone 0 for 40 since then.

Unlike Clinton and Obama, Richardson sticks to his principles, even when they are not popular. He has supported a complete withdrawal of all troops from Iraq throughout his candidacy. According to several surveys from this fall, only 15 percent of Americans support that policy, a far lower percentage than that most front runners require before they will define their views on an issue.

During times like these, nothing is as important to our country as foreign policy. We are losing our status as a superpower. Our ability to exert our influence without using either war or threats thereof is all but gone. This country has never needed Richardson so badly as it does now.

Foreign policy is not his only strength. Richardson has sweeping reforms planned in many other areas such as education, defense, and energy. If nothing else, at least take a few minutes to read up on Richardson and compare his stance on the issues to the policies du jour of Clinton and Obama.

15 years ago, a governor named Bill came from a Southern state and led this nation back to prosperity. Perhaps we will be able to say the same thing 15 years from now.