Reality-based candidate
by Molly Ivins
July 24, 2006
AUSTIN, Texas -- Dear desperate Democrats,
Here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as
a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will
move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country.
Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion
and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.
The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point
of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as
taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress
toward democracy.
Bill Moyers has been grappling with how to fit moral issues to
political issues ever since he left Southwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary and went to work for Lyndon Johnson in the teeth of the
Vietnam War. Moyers worked for years in television, seriously
addressing the most difficult issues of our day. He has studied all
different kinds of religions and different approaches to
spirituality. He's no Holy Joe, but he is a serious man. He opens
minds -- he doesn't scare people. He includes people in, not out. And
he sees through the dark search for a temporary political advantage
to the clear ground of the Founders. He listens and he respects
others.
Do I think Bill Moyers can win the presidency? No, that seems like a
very long shot to me. The nomination? No, that seems like a very long
shot to me.
Then why run him? Think, imagine, if seven or eight other Democratic
candidates, all beautifully coiffed and triangulated and carefully
coached to say nothing that will offend anyone, stand on stage with
Bill Moyers in front of cameras for a national debate . what would
happen? Bill Moyers would win, would walk away with it, just because
he doesn't triangulate or calculate or trim or try to straddle the
issues. Bill Moyers doesn't have to endorse a constitutional
amendment against flag burning or whatever wedge issue du jour
Republicans have come up with. He is not afraid of being called
"unpatriotic." And besides, he is a wise and a kind man who knows how
to talk on TV.
It won't take much money -- file for him in a couple of early
primaries and just get him into the debates. Think about the
potential Democratic candidates. Every single one of them needs
SPINE, needs political courage. What Moyers can do is not only show
them what it looks like and indeed what it is, but also how people
respond to it. I'm damned if I want to go through another
presidential primary with everyone trying to figure out who has the
best chance to win instead of who's right. I want to vote for
somebody who's good and brave and who should win.
One time in the Johnson years, LBJ called on Moyers to say the
blessing at a dinner. "SPEAK UP, Bill," Lyndon roared. "I can't hear
you." Moyers replied, "I wasn't speaking to you, sir." That's the
point of a run by Moyers: He doesn't change to whom he is speaking
just because some president is yelling at him.
To let Moyers know what you think of this idea, write him at PO Box
309, Bernardsville, NJ, 07924.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2006/1409
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