Individuals at Risk

The 2008 presidential election may be more than a year away, but with many people already already calling Bush a lame duck president, it's not too soon to start thinking about the next step. While a few potential candidates have yet to declare one way or another, the field for the primaries seems to have narrowed itself down to a handful of frontrunners.

So at this point, we've all heard about Obama's flirtation with cocaine and Guiliani's contentious divorce — but what about the things that really matter? It's so early in the race at this point that it's difficult to pin down individual platforms, but I've created a brief and totally incomplete summary of where several of the most promising candidates stand on human rights issues. Things are bound to change, but this is a good time to start to decide which candidate you're going to support.

The 2008 election is going to be a key opportunity to reverse the decline in respect for human rights in this country. Don't waste it!

DEMOCRATS:

Hillary Rodham Clinton — The junior senator from New York (and former First Lady) is very vocal about her concern for international women's human rights, and supports promoting microfinance initiatives for women worldwide. Clinton has gone on the record demanding a more robust response to the situation in Darfur, but her most recent proposal to enforce a no-fly zone in the area has met with some controversy. She voted for the war in Iraq but now says her decision was a mistake, although she is generally considered a foreign policy hawk. During her time in the Senate, Clinton voted yes to the Patriot Act and its 2006 renewal and no to the Military Commissions Act. She supports the death penalty and introduced the Count Every Vote Act to promote fair elections.

John Edwards — Former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate Edwards has spent the last four years focusing on his campaign to end domestic poverty by 2036. He proposes raising the minimum wage, strengthening labor laws and creating more entry-level jobs for people who cannot otherwise find work. Since he has been out of the Senate since the 2004 presidential race, Edwards has not had to take a stand on some of the more recent controversies in foreign policy. He voted yes to the Patriot Act in 2001, and while he did vote for the Iraq War in 2003, he now supports a complete troop pullout in 12-18 months. He is in favor of the death penalty, but acknowledges that there are some problems with its application.

Barack Obama — As the youngest and least experienced of the Democratic frontrunners, Obama has the shortest paper trail, and it is sometimes difficult to gauge his exact position on some of the issues. He spoke out against the Iraq War before it started and wants to bring the conflict to a "responsible" end, although it's not entirely clear what exactly that means. More than any other candidate, Obama has taken a strong stance on ending human rights violations in Africa, both in Darfur and in the Congo. On a domestic front, Obama introduced the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act to promote fair elections and supports stricter gun-control measures. He also promises to work for affordable health care, the creating of more entry-level jobs and the strengthening of unions. While he does not advocate abolishing the death penalty, he has said it does little to deter crime and should only be used in particularly heinous cases.

REPUBLICANS:

John McCain — After a failed but still well-received bid for the Republican nomination in the 2004 presidential race, McCain has floundered in recent months, with conservatives characterizing him as too liberal and liberals criticizing his lean to the right. The former POW and current senator from Arizona was a vocal opponent of torture being used at Guantanamo, and introduced the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 prohibiting inhumane treatment of prisoners. However, he has since come under fire for his compromises on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which suspended habeas rights for unlawful combatants. He has been in support of the Iraq War since its inception, and was a big proponent of the recent surge. At home, McCain emphasizes the importance of intelligence gathering in the war on terror and wants to expand use of the death penalty. He has long been a supporter of campaign finance reform.

Rudy Giuliani — Giuliani became famous for his actions as mayor of New York City in the weeks and months following 9/11, and has since become a staunch supporter of many of the Bush administration's more controversial moves in fighting terrorism. The current Republican front-runner supports suspending habeas corpus for terror suspects, and has endorsed wiretapping and the use of techniques like water-boarding on detainees at Guantanamo. Giuliani is well-known for his harsh policies on crime, and he supports use of the death penalty. As mayor of New York he pushed for stricter gun control, but since announcing his run for the presidential nomination he has backed away from his earlier stance.

Mitt Romney — I'm trying to be balanced in this assesment of potential presidential candidates for the 2008 election, but I don't think it's editorializing too much to say that if elected Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, would be bad news for human rights. He has been quoted as saying that "we ought to double Guantanamo" to deal with terror suspects, and is a vocal supporter of "enhanced interrogation techniques," which is the name the Bush administration used to claim its treatment of Guantanamo detainees complies with the Geneva Conventions on Torture.  He supports the war in Iraq and vows to tighten sanctions on Iran. On the domestic front, Romney is an advocate of the death penalty and supports harsh sentencing under the three-strikes law.

There's still lots of time for candidates to change and refine their positions, and there are a lot of subjects that might be relevant to human rights I didn't cover. Feel free to leave your comments, and to make your own decisions on who you think should be the next President of the United States.

Just make sure they're educated. Your decisions, that is.

Rachel Dempsey