The Observation Deck

All of the Democratic candidates have signed the American Freedom Pledge but Hillary Clinton. Is it important? What do you think?

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=239574

Not to me. Pledges are fairly unrealistic and generally unfollowed.

Pledges in my political view are almost as worthless as endorsements...but I won't get into that one again.

I would prefer a candidate not sign any pledge. They can have opinions and stances on issues, but to sign something that promises you'll do something shows lack of foresight on that issue since no one knows what the future will hold or how you'll need to react to it.

It's the same way I felt about the "eminent domain pledge" some were talking about for council or mayoral candidates. I don't think eminent domain is the right way to go, but for someone to promise to never use it given the uncertainty of the future, is poor judgement and illogical.

Hi,
I completely disagree with you, Mr. Schwegler. We vote for candidates based on their stance on many issues. Some key factors can be clarified. For example, where the person stands on the War or taxes or abortion. We are not talking about a Judge here. We are talking about the person that will be working to move our Country in one direction or another.

And with this pledge, we are not talking about some fringe view.

The pledge is anything but radical. It simply asks candidates to affirm a statement that reads: "We are Americans, and in our America we do not torture, we do not imprison people without charge or legal remedy, we do not tap people's phones and emails without a court order, and above all we do not give any President unchecked power. I pledge to fight to protect and defend the Constitution from attack by any President."

Anyone elected to the Office of President is swore in with an Oath to uphold our Constitution. The President of America is not above the law or our Constitution. Why anyone wanting to be President of America would have an issue taking this pledge is beyond me. After what we have seen occur over the last 7 years, why someone would even consider voting for someone running for the Office of President that would not agree with this pledge is beyond my comprehension.

But then again, it could help me understand how we as a nation have gotten to where we are.

Don,
So are you saying that by not signing the pledge someone is against it?

I disagree. I think someone can very well agree with all the principles without needing to sign their name to some artificial construct.

Hi,
Why? If you agree, why would not say so?
I believe you only have trouble signing something like this, if you are in disagreement on some part of it. Perhaps, Hillary Clinton feels she want to torture people. Perhaps, she doesn't want to cede all those "claimed" powers of President that Bush has declared. I don't know what part she objects to. Hopefully, someone will ask her. But. if she agreed fully with the statement, it makes no sense not to sign this oath. JMHO.

I tend to agree with Bryan, I don't see that it makes much difference. Isn't your point, Don, that the president pretty much takes that oath when they're sworn in anyway?

BTW, who wrote that pledge and who is trying to get all the candidates to sign it?

Brad,

I would agree with you that our president has sworn to uphold the Constitution and to obey the laws.

But our current president hasn't or he has redefined the laws to suit his purposes.

All this pledge is asking is ""We are Americans, and in our America we do not torture, we do not imprison people without charge or legal remedy, we do not tap people's phones and emails without a court order, and above all we do not give any President unchecked power. I pledge to fight to protect and defend the Constitution from attack by any President."


Torture isn't allowed under the Geneva conventions. But we engage in it even though it doesn't work. Even Senator McCain believes that waterboarding is torture. Habeus Corpus is and has been a significant right which we lost during this administration - all they have to do is say that they think you are a terrorist (they don't have to prove it) and they can hold you without charging you.

It is pretty easy to get a court order to tap phones and e-mails from anyone that the government thinks is a terrorist - but now we are doing it wholesale and the government wants us to give immunity to companies that helped them with this violation of the right of privacy.

I think the war, the loss of our world wide reputation by laughing at the Geneva Conventions and the loss of civil liberties are the two most important issues in this campaign.

I think Hillary is not signing them - because she wants to look tough in the general election. But maybe as Naomi Wolf points out it is hard for even good people to give up power - she may just need to torture someone or use a warrantless wiretap. These pesky laws to protect the citizens just get in the way.

I guess I don't know why the media hasn't asked her about this. Seems more important to me than the stupid questions about Bill or diamonds vs. pearls that they ask her in the debates. Is there something here that she disagrees with? Is she for torture? Is she for warrantless wiretaps? Is she for the loss of habeus corpus? These are important questions. If she isn't - why won't she sign? We can all surmise and it may be a good reason - but I'd love to see the media focus as much on these issues as Hillary tearing up. JMHO

Lynn, I agree with you on all of your points. My argument is that this pledge is no more binding than the oath of office. It's not as if all of this unpleasantness wouldn't have happened if only someone had asked Bush to sign the American Freedom Pledge when he was campaigning in 2000. I just don't really think it's that big a deal. Maybe that's because I'm not supporting Clinton anyway. It's possible that if I was a supporter, this would cause me to pause for a moment, but probably not shift my position.

This idea worked pretty darn well for the Republicans in the 90's with the Contract with America, which was essentially a list of things you were signing on to support and "pledging" to do by signing off on it. It essentially ushered in the new Republican era, for good or ill.

I am not saying this pledge is good or bad, but to have a statement that all candidates would have an opportunity to get behind would be interesting and potentially helpful.

Maybe Primary elections have always been this divisive and I was just too distracted to notice but this 2008 cycle has been horrible. Thankfully both parties are doing it in equal amounts so it might not play a big factor in who is elected but instead will likely effect lower voter turnout. I just don't remember parties chewing on each other to such a degree to the point where after this is over they will have to turn around and suddenly be buddy-buddy with the winner and endorse them. How believable will that be?

With a pledge like this, the Parties could take a stance that would be, at the very least, a common set of ideas that no matter who wins we the people could expect this of our elected candidate. Then the primary elections can be about figuring out the finer points, what will be priorities or who might be best to represent these ideas to the rest of the world. Instead we get bickering, dirty pool and backroom dealings. Lovely.

I would be curious to know more about the pledge. It would hold more water to me if it were developed by Democrats with input and agreement from all who signed it (ala the Contract with America, which was developed by Congressional members of the Republican party).

We will have to see how it progresses.

Brad, I agree with you about if you are going to break the oath of office, you will break the pledge too.

But these are more important questions to me than many they are asking in the debates. Romney and McCain the other night spent I bet 20 minutes arguing about timetables and what was actually said. And who was for the surge first.

They asked Obama about if Bill was the first black president and if Hillary could control Bill.

Actually I think these would be good questions for the Republicans as well. I know they have addressed torture - but I don't think the other issues.

BTW, I do like the idea of a contract with America Phil. One should be to get us out of Iraq. They need to show that they can get things done quickly like they did with Newt. People distrust the Democratic congress now as much as they do Bush. They were sent there to get us out of the war and they haven't.