Campaign 2008

[Special K 0]

I'm moderate-liberal, and Hillary is pretty much anathema to me. She has no concrete political beliefs. She is the very picture of insincerity. She won't make the dem candidate. not by a long shot.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

I'm calling it right now, Hillary is going to win the primary, and probably the election. She's gonna eat Obama for breakfast in the primaries I believe. Her team is better at politics. Remember this post and bump it in November 08, I sure will when Hillary is giving her victory speech.

 

The only way she's losing is if her Republican challenger is a bigger celebrity than she is. That basically means Guliani or bust. Maybe McCain. Otherwise they are going down before Hillary, mark my words

[snuffbox 0]

I think I'll ignore that analysis instead.

[SuperJerk 0]

His ethnicity allows him to stand-out from the rest of the field as someone different, and his campaign can dismiss any claim that he's not "electable" as racist.

I love how "if u dont like me u r racist" is a valued asset.

 

That's not what I meant. A better choice of words would have been that his campaign can dismiss any claim that he's not "electable" as pandering to racists.

 

Unless someone wants to argue that he can't get elected becauses he's overweight.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I think all of you that are considering '08 an easy Democratic win are seriously discounting the star power of McCain, Guiliani, or even someone like Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

[SuperJerk 0]

The only person on that list I'd consider to have star power is Guiliani.

 

Romney and Huckabee have real potential.

 

After this morning's episode of "Meet the Press," I'm not at all worried about McCain.

[snuffbox 0]

McCain should pack it in before he wastes too much cash if there's anymore days like yesterday in Iraq.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

After this morning's episode of "Meet the Press," I'm not at all worried about McCain.

 

Yeah, my girlfriend & I have been joking about that all day. He was absolutely horrible. He seemed like he was on horse tranquilizers or something.

[SuperJerk 0]

McCain on today's "Meet the Press"

What struck me as oddest is this whole song and dance he's doing about the war. McCain's strategy seems to be "suggest something, then disavow it when it actually happens." He's been one of the biggest cheerleaders for this war, but now he's trying to act like he had nothing to do with its failure. He's trying to have it both ways.

 

I think a draft Chuck Hagel movement will gain momentum in the next few months.

 

Article comparing and contrasting John McCain with Chuck Hagel.

[Gary Floyd 0]

A year ago, I would have supported McCain some, and he also would have stood a chance. Now, not so much. He's pretty much dead in the water at this point.

[NoCalMike 0]

McCain seems to want to be able to write a blank check on anything Bush wants to do regarding the War, and then later act as if it was a bad idea, yet when it comes time for Bush to ask for something, here comes McCain as the biggest vocal supporter.

[snuffbox 0]

I will never understand how a man like John McCain could allow himself to become a Bush puppet, especially after what was done to him in 2000. Beyond the disgusting bending-over aspect of it all, McCain has been around politics for a long time and how he couldn't distance himself from a President sinking in popularity & credibility is really bizzare.

 

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he's not even in the race come primary season.

[SuperJerk 0]

Okay, you like him, I like him. He's supremely qualified for the job, he's been a Congressman, UN Ambassador, cabinet secretary, and a governor.

 

But...

 

Do you think people might object because he doesn't "look like" a president?

Bill Richardson is positioned perfectly. He can attack Clinton (and almost the entire rest of the field) for being pro-Iraq War, and can criticize Obama as being "not ready" while still praising everything else about him. His ethnicity allows him to stand-out from the rest of the field as someone different, and his campaign can dismiss any claim that he's not "electable" as racist.

Hopefully now people see where I was going with this.

[SuperJerk 0]

(To Double Post Land, apparently.)

[snuffbox 0]

I still don't think that will matter. In some cases, really 'looking the part' (like with JFK & Reagan, or the old Victorian Roman Emperor look of a McKinley or Harding) could help but I dont think 'not looking the part' is much of a hindrance. In our own present generation the American people have voted in a guy that looks like a shortbus riding chimp.

[SuperJerk 0]

They were talking about Romney on "Hardball" the other day and Chris Matthews kept going on and on about how Romney looked like a president. One of the reasons I like our current primary/caucus system is that candidates are forced to interact with small groups of voters and the hype becomes less important.

[snuffbox 0]

If Mitt can't get a tight hold of his opinions on the big social issues his appearance might be his only positive attribute. And the Brainwash Gene can show itself at any time.

[SuperJerk 0]

Updated:

 

Republicans

John McCain

Rudy Guiliani

Sam Brownback

Tommy Thompson

Mitt Romney

Duncan Hunter

Tom Tancredo

Jim Gilmore

Ron Paul

 

Democrats

Tom Vilsack

Dennis Kucinich

Joe Biden

John Edwards

Hillary Clinton

Bill Richardson

Chris Dodd

Barrack Obama

Mike Gravel

 

Definite Maybe...Or Not

Newt Gingrich

Chuck Hagel

Al Sharpton

Wesley Clark

Mike Huckabee

George Pataki

 

Not Interested in Running

John Kerry

Dick Cheney

Bill Frist

Mark Warner

Evan Bayh

Al Gore

Russ Feingold

Howard Dean

Tom Daschle

Condoleezza Rice

Jeb Bush

Ed Rendell

Frank Keating

George Allen

Edited January 25, 2007 by SuperJerk

[EricMM 0]

If people are upset with Hillary running, and if she wins the nomination, people should seriously consider voting for the Green Party.

 

Look them up.

 

But please, vote in your primaries, do not let Hillary get in!! We all know that she's shit and will lose.

[snuffbox 0]

Or vote Libertarian.

 

Or write in Clyde Frog.

[EricMM 0]

Or Greens >>> Libertarians

 

tho I dunno where Clydefrog fits in all that.

[snuffbox 0]

Stuffed cartoon frogs > Hillary Clinton

[EricMM 0]

Wheres that Civil War: I'm with ClydeFrog banner we all know is coming?

[snuffbox 0]

Wheres Billo Riley to yell at us for saying "Civil War"?

 

Are environmental issues the main difference between the Greens & the LP? I believe, though I could be mistaken, that the Greens have a modern viewpoint on marijauna law reform...and both Parties are right, though with different ideas presumably, on Iraq.

[EricMM 0]

I dunno too much about the Libertarian party's platform, but I know they're against taxes and stuff.

 

Small to tiny govt, basically.

 

Not the Green party stance

[snuffbox 0]

I know all about the Libertarian platform. I wanna know more about the Greenies.

 

I am a libertarian but I dont adhere to every idea of the Party. That seems to be too often a problem for people with both the Democratic & Republican Parties. While I do favor a drastically reduced govt/taxation I still want to see improvements in health care & enivrontmental issues. With the amount that we pay in taxes but somehow cant get medical coverage...that is simply bogus in the Thomas Paine sense. We can have a smaller govt, less taxes, and actually have some of these things that people need if we wouldnt waste so much on mindless things. One glaring example is that the legalization/taxation of marijuana would be a multi-billion dollar swing in positive money. By cutting off the huge funding for policing/holding marijuana users, putting a federal tax on the product, and removing the pharmaceutical hand from congress' ass, we could cut payroll taxes and put more cash where it actually needs to be.

 

Bill Richardson is on the right track with marijuana law reform. He is the only one of the major candidates.

[NoCalMike 0]

The only thing the Greens and Libertarians have in common is pretty much being lax on social issues.

 

I still think the Greens would have a better chance then the Libertarians, because the Greens are mostly a lefter version of Democrats, as far as TRULY being against the war. Wanting to end the War on Drugs....etc....Being SERIOUS about the Enviornment and alternative energy. I kind of identify more closely with the Green Party on everything besides immigration policy, which is why I still kind of don't mind the label "progressive"

 

http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml

 

The Libertarian Party is more of a hybrid party. They are basically Ultra-Right when it comes to economic issues, but at the same time they are pretty pro-civil liberties. The thing is the libertarian party often sounds appealing to people because of their liberal stances on social issues, however once you read the principles on other issues, you run far, far away. One Major point of contention for me is their stance on wanting "personal health funds" basically the idea Bush tried to tout as a replacement for Social Security.

 

http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml

[SuperJerk 0]

The main point of difference between Libertarians and the Green Party is the amount of government regulation they deem necessary. Both parties tend to answer every question with the same answer, either more (Green) or less (Libertarian) government regulation.

[snuffbox 0]

Rischardson on Hardball again in a few minutes.

[SuperJerk 0]

CNN debunks false report about Obama

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.

 

Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.

 

Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and step-father and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school, but an aide said it was not a madrassa.

 

Insight attributed the information in its article to an unnamed source, who said it was discovered by "researchers connected to Senator Clinton." A spokesman for Clinton, who is also weighing a White House bid, denied that the campaign was the source of the Obama claim.

 

He called the story "an obvious right-wing hit job."

 

Insight stood by its story in a response posted on its Web site Monday afternoon.

 

The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and was also referenced by the New York Post, The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News and a number of political blogs.

 

School not a madrassa

But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.

 

He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.

 

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

 

Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.

 

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

 

Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."

 

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

 

The Obama aide described Fox News' broadcasting of the Insight story "appallingly irresponsible."

 

Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN "Reliable Sources" anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network's hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.

 

Obama has noted in his two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," that he spent two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school while living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/oba...assa/index.html

 

Disgusting.