Presidential Scouting Reports

A libertarian fan's guide to the World Series of politics

Nick Gillespie, Jesse Walker & David Weigel from the June 2007 issue

(Page 3 of 7)

Pros: As the chairman of the Banking Committee, Dodd often sides with entrepreneurs over trial lawyers. Declaring that “people shouldn’t make a business out of ambulance chasing when a stock simply fluctuates on the market,” he sponsored a 1995 securities bill that was so tough on lawyers that Bill Clinton vetoed it. In 2007 he co-sponsored the Restoring the Constitution Act, a response to federal abuses of habeas corpus.

Cons: He’s a diehard Second Amendment foe, voting against a post-Katrina law to stop feds from seizing firearms after a natural disaster.

Bottom Line: No one in Washington is sure why Dodd is running. No one outside Washington is sure who he is.

Dennis Kucinich

Vitals: Elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977, the five foot, seven inch, 135-pound Kucinich led one of the rustiest Rust Belt city governments until the voters ousted him two years later. He made a stunning comeback in 1996, winning Ohio’s 10th District U.S. House seat. In 2004 he ran for president on an anti-war platform. He came in fourth in the Democratic primaries, largely because he didn’t drop out and endorse John Kerry until 72 hours before the Democratic convention.

Pros: Kucinich’s anti–Iraq war credentials are impeccable. He voted against sanctions in the 1990s, voted against the 2002 force resolution, and has offered a plan to fund a troop withdrawal beginning as soon as possible. He also opposes the War on Drugs, saying bluntly that “prohibition simply doesn’t work” and that it “drives up the price, it encourages violence.” He voted against the PATRIOT Act and supports its complete repeal.

Cons: Well, there was that near-implosion of Cleveland under his mayoral tenure. There’s the fact that he wants to reregulate TV networks and newspapers, even expressing an interest in bringing back the speech-squelching Fairness Doctrine. There’s his idea for stirring up an economic boom: “The federal government can give cities and states loans for infrastructure programs to be repaid over a period of 30 years, at zero interest.” Pick a rehabbed New Deal or Great Society program, and Kucinich is for it, plus more.

Bottom Line: It’s a matter of how much you might enjoy peace on earth and legal marijuana while your tax rates rise to pre-Reagan levels.

Al Gore (Undeclared)

Vitals: The son of a senator, Gore served in Vietnam as a military journalist, reported for The Tennessean, and won a House seat at the tender age of 28. He ascended to the Senate in 1984, ran for president in 1988 as the candidate of the Democrats’ right flank, then won the vice presidency four years later on Bill Clinton’s ticket. In 2000 he became the third man to lose the White House despite winning the popular vote; more recently, he has traveled the globe to warn about climate change. A documentary based on one of his PowerPoint presentations won a 2007 Academy Award.

Pros: If the most dangerous presidents are the ones who want it the most, Gore could be harmless; the 2000 election clearly shook him deeply and changed the way he practices politics. He has allied with conservatives like Bob Barr to oppose the Bush administration’s positions on civil liberties. He opposed the Iraq war before it began, arguing for engagement with so-called “terrorist states,” a very different position than the one he held in the Clinton years.

Cons: Gore’s instinctual embrace of central planning inspired former reason Editor Virginia Postrel to dub him “the devil.” In 2000 he called for spending massive amounts of money (using the hypothetical budget surplus) to pay down Social Security and create new assistance programs. Gore is the most famous and devoted backer of the Kyoto Protocols, which if implemented as written could prove economically devastating. As vice-president (and before that) he was one of the most hawkish Democrats, and he was on board with the Clinton administration’s late-’90s calls for regime change in Iraq. There’s no telling if his current Iraq war opposition is a change of heart or merely disagreement with the guy who took the job he wanted.

Bottom Line: Gore today is more liberal than the candidate who almost won in 2000, both for better and for worse.

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REPUBLICANS

Rudy Giuliani

Vitals: Born in Brooklyn, Giuliani earned a law degree (and deferment from Vietnam service) and went to work for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In 1983 he became U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, winning fame that propelled him into the Big Apple’s mayoral mansion. Even his enemies credit him with contributing to New York City’s economic turnaround from 1994 to 2002.