Dear Editor:

I agree with Paul Hogarth that running a viable progressive candidate might be a hollow effort that would ultimately strengthen Mayor Newsom, but by silently allowing the Burton/Brown/Pelosi machine to groom Newsom for the next ring on the machine ladder might be worse. Newsom has proven himself almost totally vacuous and ineffective as a political leader which is almost unheard of in this politically dynamic city, but this is likely the strategy the democratic machinery has borrowed from the neo con movement of the far right to damn near dismantle the US constitution and bankrupt America in self righteous imperilalism.

The threat we face is from unprincipled and ill advised men and women who carry the baggage of corporate greed meisters who buy their services for pennies on the dollar and erode the values that once made this country the most important in the world. Politicians are little more than aristocratic go betweens who connect power and greed with unlimited opportunity to plunder the world and its people of natural and made made resources in their insatiable demand to control and manage the wealth of the world and concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who can be the most brazen crimminals.

If Newsom runs unopposed, it is another endorsement of everything the democratic machine has come to stand for, and little of that is good for the American people and almost all other citizens of this planet. Newsom has almost no grasp of the concept of delegation of power and even less capability in picking effective delagates to entrust with implementing his many failed strategies, so what is the moral and ethical cost of endorsing this man by not opposing him?

Stu Smith



Editor,

read your article "Reassessing Barack Obama", and while I empathise with your apparent desire for radical change, I think that your article is at root advocating divisive politics.

I think, after Bush, many Americans decidedly do not want another extremely partisan politician. What your advocating reminds me of John McCain's sudden shift from a famous centrist to a right wing republican. People don't buy that shift, and I don't think that they would buy a similar shift from Barack Obama. In fact, I when Barack starts speaking more like a Hillary or and Edwards he severely disappoints the base that he has built up.

Stephanie Hale


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