John Edwards, who is, out of all the major Democratic candidates, the one who is most likely to show some backbone against Republicans if he wins.. …the election. Because as sure is eggs are eggs that gutless wonder won’t actually show any backbone before or during the election.

The right-wing whines that he’s too conservative in taxing in order to maintain a budget surplus, and then whines when he spends or has tax cuts because he’s bribing the voters.

A budget balancer and a tax cutter? Someone should give him a green card.

Because he is a Republican.

Edwards’ backbone has terminal cancer, and when she is gone he becomes a jelly fish.

Geez. Who would that be?

That would be Michael Cullen, the NZ Finance Minister.

The right-wing whines that he’s too conservative in taxing in order to maintain a budget surplus, and then whines when he spends or has tax cuts because he’s bribing the voters.

Essentially, they whine on economics because Labour is doing a steady, competent job. And you just know that if the buggers get in, cut taxes, and stuff up the budget, they’ll be whining that it’s somehow Labour’s fault…

Funny. During Reagan’s 8 years in office, he asked Congress for over $16 billion more in spending than it actually signed into law. So really, Congress was restraining him. But anyway…

The scary thing is that now we’re dealing with ’starve the beast’ fanatics like Grover Norquist who want to create such a fiscal train wreck that our government collapses in on itself under the weight of massive debt, and don’t care about the consequences to our nation.

Geez. Who would that be?

You have a good point in that when congress and the presidency are controlled by opposite parties that we tend to spend less. Clinton/Gingrich and now Pelosi/Bush are pretty clear examples.

It’s hard to see how Tom Delay isn’t a villian to pretty much anyone on the left or right.

His upside was his willingness to work across the aisle. Think of the Social Security reform in the early ’80s, or the Tax Reform Act of 1986. He knew a quagmire when he saw one, and knew to cut our losses. Think Lebanon in 1982. Despite neoconservative revisionism, he also was more than willing to negotiate with the adversaries of the United States. Cutting taxes did in fact raise revenues, the problem was the government just spent faster.

The downside is, of course, the deficit, the merging of the Republican Party with social reactionaries, and the escalation of the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs to “nuclear”.