Dr. Laura for President?

By Bruce Walker
web posted June 17, 2002

Dr. Laura Schlessinger has stated that "If Hillary ran, I would have to run against her." That shot across the bow should be enough to send the cowardly, lazy, aging Ms. Rodham back into the safe harbor of the elitist, quasi-Marxist Manhattan salons and out of mainstream American politics, particularly if Dr. Laura intends to challenge Ms. Rodham for the Democrat Party nomination, but even when Ms. Rodham takes a craven and calculating retreat from a real fight, Dr. Laura should still run for the Democrat nomination in 2004.

Liberals would doubtless pounce upon Dr. Laura as utterly out of step with the Democrat Party, and she should face these critics directly and say:

"The Democrat Party suffers from very deep moral problems and serious psychoses. During the 2000 nomination process, no Democrat wanted to talk about the eight hundred pound gorilla in the living room: Bill Clinton's pathological lying, his casual adultery, his pouting that more terrorist attacks did not occur when he had the chance to shed a phony tear at some funeral, and his completely self-indulgent and infantile behavior. The Democrats need to purge themselves of this sickness, and until they do, our nation will never be truly healthy or really safe again.

"I wish that Senator Bradley or some other Democrat would have undertaken the vital task of cleaning out the muck and sewage that is today the Democrat Party. I wish that Bill Clinton and his wife make an unambiguous and unmistakable apology to America for all the moral crimes, ethical cheating, and gross misconduct during their eight-year reign. I wish for some contrition from Democrats, but I have heard none at all.

"So I intend to take the battle right into the Democrat Party. I am willing to let ordinary Americans choose between the current Democrat leadership, who ignore vice and dishonesty, and me, who champions high moral values and personal honor."

Anyone who has seen or heard Dr. Laura knows that she is a tough cookie: articulate, quick witted, and uncompromising. She is comfortable talking to millions of people and facing leftist muckraking. Dr. Laura also has an army of loyal listeners. What a Dr. Laura candidacy do?

Her candidacy would provide Democrats with an instant, serious problem with women voters. Dr. Laura is very popular with many women because she expresses so well the values that they yearn to see in their lives: those missing elements in any discussion of women today that have to do with personal responsibility and ethical duty. Many of these Dr. Laura listeners are nominal Democrats who are politically apathetic.

She could create a legion of suddenly active women voters and activists, and on their behalf she could ask Democrat candidates what he said about Paula Jones, Kathleen Wiley, Juanita Broaddrick, or any of the other Kleenex that Clinton used and discarded. She could even bring these women along with her on the campaign trail and to any debates.

Dr. Laura could also present a true voice of opposition in Democrat presidential debates - those silly and dull performances of empty suits about who feels more the pain of core Democrat constituencies. What if the party leaders tried to keep her out of the debates? She could respond by publicly calling them cowards and backroom power brokers, afraid of the people. She could insist that these "debates" be considered campaign expenditures, and demand equal time.

Keeping her out of the debates would also leave Democrats open to a wide variety of charges: (1) The men of the Democrat Party are afraid of strong women; (2) Democrat leaders do not allow diversity of opinion; (3) Democrats do not like religiously serious Jews; (4) The whole nomination process is a fraud. And it would call even more attention to the uniqueness of her candidacy.

Democrats would have to let her in the debates, and facing the jello of modern liberalism, her coherent and intelligent voice of opposition, utterly uncompromising on any of her principles, could chide those Democrats who use weasel words and dummy distinctions to avoid honest answers. Consider the following possible exchange between Dr. Laura and Senator "Pretty Boy" Edwards of North Carolina on abortion:

Edwards: Well, I support a woman's right to choose.

Schlessinger: Choose murder?

Edwards: Well, I don't consider it murder to terminate a pregnancy.

Schlessinger: What do you believe is growing inside a pregnant woman? Have you ever felt a baby kick his feet inside your body? I have, and I tell you that the kick was from a baby. I can even show you the boy which that baby became, if you need more proof.

Edwards: And certainly that is your right to choose. I mean, I am not questioning your right to make that decision about your own body.

Schlessinger: Does the father have a right to choose as well?

Edwards: Well, no. He is not the one who is pregnant.

Schlessinger: But he is the one who will be obligated for eighteen years to support the child, right? And when the child leaves his mother's womb and becomes a human being, then the father can go into court to do anything he feels necessary to protect that child.

Edwards: You're twisting my words. Some mothers are faced with horrible life choices. Maybe they have made mistakes and gotten pregnant too young - I think that is a mistake and that it is wrong - but children to a poor, single mother are almost certain to have lots of problems in life.

Schlessinger: Especially little black or brown babies in their mother's womb. I mean - let's face it - black and brown people in general don't have much of a life, do they? Why stop with the womb?

Edwards: Now, you're putting words in my mouth and implying things that I have never even suggested. Regardless of race or color, abortion is a tough decision but a decision best left to those who must live with the decision.

Schlessinger: Except for the babies, who are dead. They don't have to live with the decision, because they have been conveniently liquidated. So are you saying that it is the "best interests of the child" sometimes to die? The Nazis, who murdered millions of Jews like me, had a phrase for that philosophy: life unworthy of life.

Edwards: The American people are not Nazis.

Schlessinger: The German people were not Nazis once - they were affluent, educated, brilliant and sophisticated - they became Nazis, and they became Nazis because the rights of individuals were considered "inconvenient." I don't want that to happen to America.

Edwards: The very fact that we are debating here tonight is very clear proof that we have not become Nazis.

Schlessinger: I completely agree, but can we resolve this one tiny little moral question: is abortion wrong?

Edwards: The Supreme Court has determined that it is a constitutional right...

Schlessinger: The Supreme Court said black people were not human beings, while millions of Americans thought that was abominable. Is the Supreme Court your moral compass? That is not my question. My question is this: is abortion wrong?

Edwards: It is not my place, as a candidate for president, to impose my moral values on America.

Schlessinger: So, if Dred Scott was still the law of the land and black people had the same legal status as, say, an unborn child today, you would not "as a candidate for president" feel a duty to speak out against slavery?

Get the drift? Dr. Laura, already vilified as hopelessly politically incorrect, can take on the left with rhetorical aggression and no risks about her reputation with liberal nabobs. Dr. Laura would gut someone like "Pretty Boy" Edwards quicker than an old fisherman can filet a perch.
Dr. Laura could win some early primaries and build momentum. New Hampshire is notoriously fickle and it allows crossover voters. South Carolina has a strong tradition of social conservatism. Michigan also allows crossover voting, and Michigan Republicans (as I noted in my article "It's Miller Time" would like nothing better than to reciprocate Democrat meddling in the Republican 2000 Michigan primary. What if Dr. Laura won these early primaries?

Conservatives running for the Democrat nomination typically face the hardened ideologues and party hacks who dominate caucus states, but Dr. Laura could bring large numbers of housewives, retired grandmothers and working women who would be strong supporters in these caucus selections where intensity matters more than popularity.

Then comes the Democrat Convention, where Dr. Laura could a clear and unwavering voice for Democrats to abandon past practices of political expediency and to accept blame for past mistakes. She could directly condemn the party for supporting liars, adulterers, and creeps like Clinton, Rodham and Gore. That is, if she was allowed to speak. .

And if she is allowed to speak, this could create a national groundswell of support that would make her the most popular Democrat in America, and the Democrat leadership would be forced to pull out every stop to deny her the nomination.

What if she speaks, and Democrats boo? Then the whole Democrat Convention becomes a nasty mess, with her delegates booing other Democrats, and fierce demands for votes on platform language. If the majority of her supporters and delegates were women, then these delegates could assert that "the good old boys" ran the Democrat Party. They could boo or chant while other Democrats tried to speak.

So what if Dr. Laura won the nomination? She could choose a conservative black man, someone like Alan Keyes, or an Hispanic woman like Linda Chavez as her running mate. If that happens, then Dr. Laura could fight, and perhaps win, control of the Democrat National Committee and gain control of the Democrat Party from within. Her campaign against President Bush could be based upon his being too liberal.

The short term impact would be to insure that the conservative message dominated the national political agenda to the extent that public opinion polls show that it should. She would be winning, on behalf of the peasants, those castles of the Democrat nobility.

The long term impacts would be much greater. Women would begin to seriously reexamine their political agenda and their ideology. Democrats would be very wary about ever again tolerating the sort of sleaze that Clinton, Rodham and Gore wallowed in for eight years. And that dull dinosaur - the Democrat Party - might just do what Marx once predicted capitalism would do: wither away to nothing.

Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a contributor to Citizens View, The Common Conservative, Conservative Truth and Port of Call.

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