US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread - Part Catorce!

[redhotswami]

that comes after 3, m i rite???


continue...


Sucks about Edwards dropping out but now I'm curious to see how Super Tuesday will pan out. I'm guessing much of his supporters will vote for Obama.

 

[U2democrat]

It'll be interesting to see how his voters will split up.

I still say Hillary will take the majority on Super Tuesday but not enough to clinch this race.


(BTW Mia Peter Alexander is on MSNBC )

 

[onebloodonelife]

I'd say for the most part, Edwards' supporters will vote for Obama, but there are others like my dad, who stated that the only person he would vote for in the primaries was Edwards, otherwise he's not going to at all, at least in the primaries.

 

[redhotswami]

(BTW Mia Peter Alexander is on MSNBC )

hollerrrrr!!!

it's amazing how these early primaries really set the stage, you know? the candidates have been significantly reduced prior to Super Tuesday. I remember last time I could still vote for my preferred candidate.

I've missed much of the discussion, so if this is an old topic I apologize. But what do ya'll think if Super Tuesday was Ultimate Tuesday and all states voted at the same time? Would that make it better/worse? Is it better that the less popular candidates are weened out beforehand?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

NY Observer

Certain conservative opinion makers are not pleased.

Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, much of the roster at the National Review and many (but certainly not all) of their more conservative talk radio and blogger colleagues are beside themselves at the prospect that one of the Republican contenders they deemed to be “not conservative” might be nominated. As Mike Huckabee won Iowa, John McCain took South Carolina and Fred Thompson bestirred himself to draft a note withdrawing from the race, the fretting has intensified. How could the voters reject their advice?

There are a few explanations the dismayed conservative punditocracy might use to explain their apparent disconnect with Republican voters.

One is that the electorate has not rejected their advice about what constitutes an unacceptable candidate. Voters are simply rejecting the flawed candidates who were poor standard-bearers for conservatism. This scenario seems eminently reasonable given that the pundits’ favored contenders were in fact so terribly hobbled by their own shortcomings.

Mr. Thompson’s ideas were not a problem. His own indifference and lack of organizational prowess were. He had Social Security and national security plans. He unfortunately lacked the energy and the willingness to put up with the indignities of campaigning.

As for Mr. Romney—who may still win, but who has underperformed in the early going—he certainly was a dutiful spokesman for every possible item on the conservative wish list, but perhaps he was a bit too dutiful. His penchant for pandering grew to ludicrous proportions as he not only reversed himself on a long list of policy positions but cooked up a distinctly unconservative proposal for rescuing Michigan’s auto industry just in time for its primary. When he finally reverted to the “real” Mitt Romney—an optimistic businessman with no compunctions about directing an activist government—it was clear that even his newly minted conservative persona was in a Bain-like turnaround.

Who could blame voters for failing to rally to either of these causes?

Another would be that the conservative punditry actually “won.” Mr. McCain has been getting stronger, they would argue, by embracing conservative positions in order to gain the nomination. Mr. McCain confessed that he had learned the lesson about immigration reform, that border control is essential before pursuing any legalization plan for those already here. He promised to retain the Bush tax cuts. He embraced his support of gun rights and touted his pro-life voting record. This, the conservatariat could contend, and not Mr. McCain’s global-warming ruminations or his role in the Gang of 14, is what helped him win.

There is some truth to this. We saw that starting with his South Carolina victory speech; continuing with his Florida ads, Mr. McCain did stress conservative themes and reach out to the base on many of its favored issues. (This explanation does, however, leave open the question as to why the conservative pundits opposed Mr. McCain so vehemently in the first place.)

But it may simply be that the Republican electorate (or at least enough of it to select a nominee) may not be as ideologically pure as the conservative pundits might prefer. Perhaps many Republican voters really do think global warming should be addressed. It could be that lots of Republican voters like tax cuts but want them accompanied by good old-fashioned budget cuts. It may be that when they’re not in the throes of an impassioned immigration debate, many Republican voters wouldn’t mind eventually legalizing millions of immigrants, so long as the border is sealed first. And frankly, G.O.P. primary voters simply may find Mr. McCain’s heretical support for campaign finance reform a lot less significant than personal character traits like honesty, courage and persistence.

Now, nervous pundits may be spared their embarrassment if Mr. Romney can survive Florida and Super Tuesday. However, if he does not, they will have to mull over the choices to explain why their favored sons failed. I suspect that rather than confess that Mr. McCain was not so bad to begin with, or that Republican voters as a whole are less ideologically rigorous than their core listeners and readers, they’ll suggest that the outcome was all due to their endorsees’ personal and tactical shortcomings.

A few may even author rebuttals to their own endorsements. After all, pundits always get the last word.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

ABC News

Ralph Nader Flirts with Presidential Bid
With Harsh Words for Current Field, Nader Says Candidacy as Urgent as Ever
By RICK KLEIN

Jan. 30, 2008 —

Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee, and said in an interview Wednesday that he will launch another presidential bid if he's convinced he can raise enough money to appear on the vast majority of state ballots this fall.

Nader, who ran as an independent candidate in each of the past three presidential elections, told ABCNews.com that he will run in 2008 if he is convinced over the next month that he would be able to raise $10 million over the course of the campaign  and attract enough lawyers willing to work free of charge to get his name on state ballots.

Nader said he filed papers with the Federal Election Commission and launched a Web site after Dennis Kucinich, a liberal Ohio congressman, announced his decision to withdraw from the presidential race last week.

He was set to announce that he had formed an exploratory committee Wednesday, even before former Sen. John Edwards made it known that he'd be ending his candidacy. But with Edwards who has made economic populism and ending poverty cornerstones of his campaign leaving the Democratic field, Nader said, he feels his candidacy is more urgent than ever.

"When Kucinich threw in the towel, now you have Edwards gone who's going to carry the torch of democratic populism against the relentless domination of powerful corporations of our government?" Nader said. "You can't just brush these issues to the side because the candidates are ignoring them."

He has harsh words for the leading Democratic candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, chastising them for failing to advance aggressive plans to tax corporations more fairly, and to fight for a vastly higher minimum wage.

Obama, he said, is a particular disappointment, since his background suggests that he knows the importance of progressive issues yet hasn't fought for them in the Senate.

"His record in the Senate is pretty mediocre," Nader said. "His most distinctive characteristic is the extent to which he censors himself. He hasn't performed as a really progressive first-term senator would."

His "self-censorship," Nader said, "is a reflection of character."

He's no kinder to the Republican frontrunner, Sen. John McCain. "Senator McCain is the candidate of perpetual war," he said.

Nader also rejects the "spoiler" label many Democrats have applied to him since 2000, when his candidacy was blamed in some circles for helping defeat Democratic candidate Al Gore.

"That is the sign of political bigotry," he said. "Why aren't the major candidates spoilers? They represent parties that spoil our electoral system and our government."

 

[onebloodonelife]

hollerrrrr!!!

it's amazing how these early primaries really set the stage, you know? the candidates have been significantly reduced prior to Super Tuesday. I remember last time I could still vote for my preferred candidate.

I've missed much of the discussion, so if this is an old topic I apologize. But what do ya'll think if Super Tuesday was Ultimate Tuesday and all states voted at the same time? Would that make it better/worse? Is it better that the less popular candidates are weened out beforehand?

I think it could be better in the sense that people would still get to vote for their favorite candidate. On the other hand, I don't like the idea of the race basically being decided so early.

From the candidate's perspective, having everyone vote on one day could make getting to all the states to campaign much, much harder.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I still say Hillary will take the majority on Super Tuesday but not enough to clinch this race.

ray: to not clinching

 

[Strongbow]

democrats have crushed republicans in overall turn out, even in South Carolina, as sure a Red State as any in the country. 534,747 came out for the Dems and only 444,183 came out for the Republicans. in South Carolina!

Florida wasn't a contested election for the Democrats, no one campaigned there (until Mrs. Clinton at the very end) and she still got nearly 200,000 more votes than McCain.

I'm well aware of the total turnout figures but that was never my point. I simply stated that its inaccurate to be comparing individual candidate vote totals of a 3 way race in a Democratic primary to individual candidate vote totals in a 6 way race in a Republican primary.

Democrats have a natural advantage since the Republicans have had the White House for two full terms now. Since World War II, a party in control of the White House for two full terms has only one a 3rd consecutive term once. The slight downturn in the economy as well as the gloom and doom perceptions about the economy also benefit the Democrats as does bad news from Iraq.

Yet, John McCain, a candidate that nearly everyone in this forum said was DONE months ago, is likely to be the Republican nominee at this point and he is either beating or tied with the two leading Democratic opponents. This probably has to do a lot with peoples improving perceptions about the war in Iraq. 6 in 10 Americans may still be against the war, but gallups more specific polls on the issue show that opposition is softening. If the economy can currently trump a war as the main issue in a country that is at war, then it shows that opposition to the war has indeed softened if not having reversed itself yet.

McCain has worked on US economic issues for decades longer than either Clinton or Obama. Yes, he may know more about foreign policy and security issues, which are more important given that the President of the United States has more impact on those issues than any other, but its absurd to say that McCain does not know anything about the economy, especially compared to a 3 year Senator and a 7 year Senator.

Regardless of who wins the nominations or the elections in December, McCain is far and away the most qualified person the United States has ever had to be President in decades, with 50 continuous years being involved with US National Security and Foreign Policy issues(starting from his education at the US Naval Acadamy, his impressive military career, and work on the issues to this day in Congress) and nearly 30 years in the US House & Senate dealing with economic issues as well as multiple other key issues facing the country. McCain has more years of experience on all these issues than all of the top contenders for the nomination combined.

The last thing in the world that John McCain is, is a John Kerry. He did not spit on his country and its veterans when he came back from the Vietnam War, and he did not vote against brand new conventional weapon systems vital to US security in the early 1980s and up to today, and he did not vote against removing Saddam from Kuwait with military force in 1991 like John Kerry did. John McCain and John Kerry actually have very little in common including how popular and respected each one is in the opposing party.

 

[joyfulgirl]

More from Nader...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Nader said he finds Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both unacceptable candidates, and he said whichever wins the party's presidential nomination will not have an impact on his decision to run.

"They are both enthralled to the corporate powers," Nader said of the two leading Democrats. "They've completely ignored the presidential pattern of illegality and accountability, they've ignored the out of control waste-fruad military expenditures, they hardly ever mention the diversion of hundreds of billions of dollars to corporate subsidies, handouts, and giveaways, and they don't talk about a living wage."

He expressed particular disappointment with Obama, whose senate record he called "mediocre, and quite cautious."

"It's not that he doesn't know what the score is, of course he does — look at his background, he knows plenty," Nader said. "But he's censoring himself."

He's quite right. But he shouldn't run.

 

[U2democrat]

Does he not get that if he were to run and spoil it for the dems then that guarantees the GOP in the WH? The man baffles me sometimes.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Yeah, he's just gonna piss everyone off, including this long-time Nader supporter.

 

[Irvine511]

John McCain is John Kerry. no question. the Republicans looked around at the rest of the freak show running for president, and decided he was the *only* electable candidate.

McCain's success has less to do with his own heretofore disastrous campaign and more to do with the imploding of Giuliani, the rise of Huckabee, and the shocking plasticity of Romney. much like Kerry benefited from the weirdness of Dean, the lack of emotion from Gephardt, and the relative newness of Edwards. his campaign was over and done with last summer. he had no money. everyone on his staff was quitting. he was saved by the shockingly weak Republican field.

he won Florida by appealing to anti-Bush GOP moderates. hardly a victory for the Republican party itself, as the infrastructure -- from Limbaugh to Malkin to Coulter to Hannity -- all despise the man.

the war in Iraq has helped McCain only insofar as he has distanced himself from the obvious disaster of pretty much everything, pre-"surge." he's spent countless speeches bashing Rumsfeld and Cheney, stopping just short of bashing Bush. he's had to do this. it was the only way to have any sort of credibility with anybody beyond the Republican base.

but, ironically, the "success" of the "surge" -- insofar as it creates the perception of progress for the next few months -- will put Iraq out of everyone's mind, especially as the US economy continues to crumble. and, thus, McCain will find it most difficult to speak to the base of either party.

it will be a battle for the middle, and watch for McCain to swing back to the middle after pandering for the next few weeks.

 

[Irvine511]

some good insight here ...

[q]For the first six months of this presidential campaign, everything went wrong for John McCain, putting him in a position where to win the nomination, he needed just about everything else to go his way. And with the exception of the Michigan primary, that’s exactly what's happened. McCain can claim credit for some of it: He staked his campaign on the surge, for instance, and if Petraeus and Co. hadn’t succeeded in reducing the violence in Iraq, I can’t imagine that the press would have beat the drum for a McCain comeback as shamelessly as they did, or that moderate Republicans who dislike George W. Bush, the key McCain constituency, would have turned out for him in the numbers that they did. (In the counterfactual where the surge failed and the civil war spiraled out of control, it's easy to imagine the campaign turning into a two-man race between Romney and Rudy, with both emphasizing their Mr. Fix-It skills and promising to clean up the mess – Romney with managerial competence and Rudy with brute force – while Huck’s lack of foreign-policy experience and McCain’s association with the disaster left them both out of the money.)

But much of what's happened to make McCain the presumptive nominee has been luck, pure and simple. He was lucky, to begin with, that George W. Bush lacked an heir apparent – no Jeb, no Condi, no Dick Cheney – who could unite the movement establishment against him. He was lucky that Mitt Romney was a Mormon. He was lucky that Fred Thompson, a candidate who might have succeeded in rallying both social and economic conservatives against his various heresies, was out-campaigned by Mike Huckabee, whose appeal was ultimately too sectarian to make him a threat. He was lucky that Rudy Giuliani ran an inutterably lousy campaign. (More on this anon.) He was lucky that Mike Huckabee won Iowa; lucky that the media basically treated that win as a McCain victory (though obviously his skill in cultivating the press made a big difference, in that case and many others); lucky, as David Freddoso suggests, that Huckabee decided to campaign in New Hampshire and (taking my foolish advice) Michigan instead of going straight to South Carolina; lucky that Giuliani decided not to campaign in New Hampshire after Christmas; and lucky, finally, that Fred Thompson decided to go all in against Huckabee in South Carolina, thus delivering McCain the Palmetto State and with it Florida. And he was lucky, above all, that his strongest challenger was a guy that almost nobody liked – not the media, not his fellow candidates, and not enough of the voters, in the end.

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/fortunes_favorite.php

[/q]



but, hey, if luck had to strike one of the Republicans, i'm glad it was McCain.

 

[martha]

Does he not get that if he were to run and spoil it for the dems then that guarantees the GOP in the WH? The man baffles me sometimes.

He must have an ego the size of Texas.

 

[U2isthebest]

John McCain is John Kerry. no question. the Republicans looked around at the rest of the freak show running for president, and decided he was the *only* electable candidate.

McCain's success has less to do with his own heretofore disastrous campaign and more to do with the imploding of Giuliani, the rise of Huckabee, and the shocking plasticity of Romney. much like Kerry benefited from the weirdness of Dean, the lack of emotion from Gephardt, and the relative newness of Edwards. his campaign was over and done with last summer. he had no money. everyone on his staff was quitting. he was saved by the shockingly weak Republican field.

he won Florida by appealing to anti-Bush GOP moderates. hardly a victory for the Republican party itself, as the infrastructure -- from Limbaugh to Malkin to Coulter to Hannity -- all despise the man.

the war in Iraq has helped McCain only insofar as he has distanced himself from the obvious disaster of pretty much everything, pre-"surge." he's spent countless speeches bashing Rumsfeld and Cheney, stopping just short of bashing Bush. he's had to do this. it was the only way to have any sort of credibility with anybody beyond the Republican base.

but, ironically, the "success" of the "surge" -- insofar as it creates the perception of progress for the next few months -- will put Iraq out of everyone's mind, especially as the US economy continues to crumble. and, thus, McCain will find it most difficult to speak to the base of either party.

it will be a battle for the middle, and watch for McCain to swing back to the middle after pandering for the next few weeks.

That sums everthing up so well. I really like the Kerry analogy. I'd never thought of it like that before, but it's good. For me, McCain is the only Republican candiate (who actually has a chance at getting the nomination) that I would be halfway ok with being president. However, his support of the war makes that feeling go away pretty quickly.

 

[deep]

Does he not get that if he were to run and spoil it for the dems then that guarantees the GOP in the WH? The man baffles me sometimes.

sometimes I think, that is his goal.

- to crash and kill the Democrats

when they choose candidates that are not liberal enough

for the true liberals.


Nader sees Hillary as being pro business, NAFTA, free trade and the like

Obama the same, he even campaigns talking like a Republican-lite


so with these two,

Nader would rather crash and kill -
and let the GOP win


So the Dems can be reborn as the true liberal party he believes it should be.

 

[Irvine511]

and as Nader fules his egomanical fantasies and tries to remake the world in his own image, we are approaching 4,000 dead Americans in Iraq.

way to fucking go, Ralph. you helped elect a guy who's killed far, far more people than you saved making cars safer.

 

[ntalwar]

McCain Warns: "There Will Be Other Wars"

The presidential candidate who sang "Bomb bomb Iran" is already looking towards the war after the war in Iraq.

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, "It's a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars." Offering more of his increasingly bleak "straight talk," he repeated the claim: "I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars."

McCain did not elaborate who the United States would be fighting. But he did warn the crowd to be ready for the ramifications of current and future battles.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/27/mccain-warns-there-will_n_83459.html

It's great to see he's already planned out the next wars for us.

 

[2861U2]

It's great to see he's already planned out the next wars for us.

I don't think he was

You disagree with him? You think there will be zero more wars in the history of the United States? He's stating a fact. There will be more wars.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Yeah, just accept war as a fact of life. It's quite a jumping off point.

 

[Canadiens1131]

What a great day! The fear-monger and the ambulance chaser have been thrown under the wheels and we're down to McCain, Mitt (lol), Barack and HillHill.

 

[martha]

sometimes I think, that is his goal.

- to crash and kill the Democrats

when they choose candidates that are not liberal enough

for the true liberals.


Nader sees Hillary as being pro business, NAFTA, free trade and the like

Obama the same, he even campaigns talking like a Republican-lite


so with these two,

Nader would rather crash and kill -
and let the GOP win


So the Dems can be reborn as the true liberal party he believes it should be.

Nader can still go fuck himself.

 

[phillyfan26]

What a great day! The fear-monger and the ambulance chaser have been thrown under the wheels and we're down to McCain, Mitt (lol), Barack and HillHill.

Heads up, Canadiens.

You don't want to be accused of bias. Include Ron Paul.

 

[Irvine511]

Yeah, just accept war as a fact of life. It's quite a jumping off point.

bomb bomb bomb // bomb bomb Iran

 

[ntalwar]

I don't think he was

You disagree with him? You think there will be zero more wars in the history of the United States? He's stating a fact. There will be more wars.

Yes, I believe he has the next oil wars planned or thought out. And it will probably involve a draft.

 

[martha]

And it will probably involve a draft.

Which may finally shut people up about how wonderful all these wars are.

Including all the draft-age young men who post in here.

 

[Irvine511]

Which may finally shut people up about how wonderful all these wars are.

Including all the draft-age young men who post in here.

but if we don't kill them there, THEY'LL KILL US HERE!!!!!!!

it's very simple.

 

[phillyfan26]

Which may finally shut people up about how wonderful all these wars are.

Including all the draft-age young men who post in here.

I'd break my leg to avoid it.

 

[martha]

but if we don't kill them there, THEY'LL KILL US HERE!!!!!!!

it's very simple.

:smackshead: I keep forgetting that.