US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread - Part III

[2861U2]

Maybe deserving of it's own thread, but...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317491,00.html

Very sad.

 

[U2democrat]

Oh that is very sad

 

[redhotswami]

that's just awful. how heartbreaking.

 

[2861U2]

Apparently Tancredo is dropping out tomorrow.

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2007/12/19/tom-tancredo-to-drop-out-of-presidential-race/

 

[Dreadsox]

u
r
so
off


topic..it's almost gay.

dbs

Speaking of there is a rumor you are coming to visit the area and you did not tell me........

What the hell man, one night together and you never call!!!!

 

[deep]

Apparently Tancredo is dropping out tomorrow.

http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2007/12/19/tom-tancredo-to-drop-out-of-presidential-race/

shit!

Well at least Allan Keyes is still in.

 

[diamond]

Speaking of there is a rumor you are coming to visit the area and you did not tell me........

What the hell man, one night together and you never call!!!!

write me-

davidbschroeder@gmail.com

dbs

 

[diamond]

Giuliani Plummets, Tied with Romney

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 10:14 PM

WASHINGTON -- Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has fallen 13 points since November and is now tied with Mitt Romney nationally in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.


According to the poll, Giuliani and the former Massachusetts governor are tied with 20 percent support among Republican primary voters.


Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee was in third place with 17 percent support, followed by Arizona Sen. John McCain at 14 percent and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at 11 percent, the poll found.


Giuliani had been the clear leader in all previous NBC/Journal polls and led the field with 33 percent support in the survey last month.


In the past month, Giuliani's campaign faced more media scrutiny. The campaign also did not put much emphasis on Iowa and New Hampshire, where candidates next month face the first contests in the state-by-state process of determining who will be the Republican and Democratic candidates in the November 2008 presidential election.


According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, just 37 percent view Giuliani favorably, compared with an equal 37 percent who have a negative impression of him.


In March, 58 percent viewed Giuliani favorably versus only 14 percent who saw him in a negative light, NBC reported.


Among Democrats, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton held her national lead in the NBC/Journal poll.


According to the survey, 45 percent of Democratic primary voters support Clinton, compared with 23 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and 13 percent for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. No other Democratic candidate receives more than 4 percent, NBC reported.


The NBC/Journal poll of 1,008 adults was conducted December 14 to 17 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error for the Democratic race is 4.4 percentage points and for the Republican contest, 5.2 percentage points.



© 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.


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[verte76]

That's so sad about Kucinich's brother.

 

[verte76]

McCain's in all sorts of trouble, but he's probably the most electable Republican when it comes to facing a Democrat. At least the guy's honest. If we're going to have another Republican president I'd prefer it to be him. Hillary? She does have high negatives. Obama? The whole racial thing might do him in. Edwards is the most electable Democrat. He's white, Southern, and Protestant. I like Kucinich but he's too liberal for the general electorate.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Oh that is very sad

Yes it is

Tancredo is dropping out, and no one cares

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo plans to drop out of the race during an announcement Thursday afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa, GOP sources close to the campaign have told FOX News.

Tancredo, who has aggressively pushed his anti-illegal immigration message throughout the GOP primary race, has not been able to break through in the polls against his better known competitors. He and California Rep. Duncan Hunter typically poll in the single digits behind Texas Rep. Ron Paul in national surveys.

Tancredo would not personally confirm whether he will pull out of the race.

“I will neither confirm nor deny that report,” Tancredo told FOX News. But he added, “I wouldn’t have a press conference if I didn’t have anything to say.”



ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) — Former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who was ousted from office last year after a headline-grabbing scuffle with a Capitol Hill police officer, has decided to seek the presidency — as a Green Party candidate.

In a video posted on the Internet on Tuesday, McKinney criticized the war in Iraq and complained about Democrats and Republicans, saying both parties are beholden to corrupt corporate interests. She called the Green Party "my new political home."

McKinney, 52, registered to vote in California after a group called Run! Cynthia! Run! began drafting her as the Green Party's candidate there. Since then, she had made campaign appearances in Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

 

[BonosSaint]

Vete con viento fresco, Senor Tancredo!!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

thephoenix.com

In the most-watched speech of his political career, speaking on “Faith in America” at College Station, Texas, earlier this month, Mitt Romney evoked the strongest of all symbolic claims to civil-rights credentials: “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

He has repeated the claim several times recently, most prominently to Tim Russert on Meet the Press . But, while the late George W. Romney, a four-term governor of Michigan, can lay claim to a strong record on civil rights, the Phoenix can find no evidence that the senior Romney actually marched with King, nor anything in the public record suggesting that he ever claimed to do so.

Nor did Mitt Romney ever previously claim that this took place, until long after his father passed away in 1995 — not even when defending accusations of the Mormon church’s discriminatory past during his 1994 Senate campaign.

Asked about the specifics of George Romney’s march with MLK, Mitt Romney’s campaign told the Phoenix that it took place in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. That jibes with the description proffered by David S. Broder in a Washington Post column written days after Mitt’s College Station speech.

Broder, in that column, references a 1967 book he co-authored on the Republican Party, which included a chapter on George Romney. It includes a one-line statement that the senior Romney “has marched with Martin Luther King through the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit.”

But that account is incorrect. King never marched in Grosse Pointe, according to the Grosse Pointe Historical Society, and had not appeared in the town at all at the time the Broder book was published. “I’m quite certain of that,” says Suzy Berschback, curator of the Grosse Pointe Historical Society. (Border was not immediately available for comment.)

Berschback also believes that George Romney never appeared at a protest, march, or rally in Grosse Pointe. “We’re a small town,” she says. “Governors don’t come here very often, except for fundraisers.”

In fact, King’s only appearance in Grosse Pointe, according to Berschback, took place after Broder’s book was published.

That was for a March 14 speech he delivered at Grosse Pointe High School, just three weeks before King was assassinated. But there was no march, and George Romney was not there.

Security concerns would have made a march impossible, even had one been planned. King was personally driven directly to the high school by the sheriff, as described by accounts at the time.

This 1968 Grosse Pointe appearance is the one that Romney spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom initially insisted, in email exchanges with the Phoenix, was the event in question. Fehrnstrom cited the Broder column and “the Romney family recollection.”

Of the many contemporaneous and historical records of the Grosse Pointe speech, none make any mention of George Romney’s attendance. It is unlikely, if not implausible, that his presence would have gone unnoticed: not only was he governor of the state, he had just, weeks before, dropped out of the race for President.

And, Mitt Romney would not have known about the event, let alone had a chance to “see” it. He was at that time in the middle of his two-year mission for the Mormon church in Le Havre, France. By his own description and others’, he was cut off from virtually all contact with his family; and at the time, King’s Grosse Pointe appearance was no more than local news.

The original mention, in Broder’s 1967 book, of a Romney-King Grosse Pointe march might have resulted from an accidental conflation of several different events.

In June 1963, King marched in Detroit, and delivered an early version of his “I Have a Dream” speech; Governor George Romney did not participate, according to news accounts of the time.

Later that month, a local organization of roughly 50 members, called the Grosse Pointe Human Rights Council, held a walk through their town in support of open housing.

King had already left the state, and Romney did not participate in the Grosse Pointe walk, according to records from the time.

George Romney would later lead a 10,000-person march through Detroit, but not with King.

Although Broder’s book contained the brief mention, there is nothing in the public record to suggest that George Romney himself ever claimed to have marched with King.

Had George Romney ever marched with Martin Luther King Jr., it almost certainly would have been documented. From the mid-’50s through 1962, Romney was one of the country’s most prominent business leaders — for him to travel South for a civil-rights march would have been remarkable. From January 1963 on, as governor of Michigan and a presumed Presidential candidate, Romney was one of the most visible political figures in the country.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

December 19, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Rush to Judgment
By MAUREEN DOWD

One of my male colleagues was explaining why men age better than women.

“It’s evolutionary,” he said. “As we wear out our wives, who are running around taking care of the kids, we know we’re going to have to get another younger wife, so we stay good-looking.”

He was kidding. (I think.) We were discussing Hillary’s latest hurdle: the Old Hag routine.

When men want to put down a powerful woman in a sexist way, they will say she’s a hag or a nag or a witch or angry or hysterical.

First, the Republicans tried to paint Hillary as angry, but that didn’t work because she has shown a steady composure and laughed a lot (even if the laughter isn’t always connected to people saying anything funny). She has kept her sense of humor — which has a tart side — mostly under wraps, so she won’t be accused of being witchy.

But some conservative pundits who disagree with a woman on matters of policy jump straight into an attack on the woman’s looks or personal life.

And so the inevitable came to pass this week when Rush Limbaugh began riffing about an unflattering picture of Hillary in New Hampshire that Matt Drudge put up on his Web site with the caption, “The Toll of a Campaign.”

“So the question is this,” the radio personality said. “Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?”

Observing that Hillary is stuck with a looks-obsessed culture and that the presidency ages its occupants, including W., Limbaugh observed that “men aging makes them look more authoritative, accomplished, distinguished. Sadly, it’s not that way for women, and they will tell you.”

And Hillary, he noted, “is not going to want to look like she’s getting older, because it will impact poll numbers, it will impact perceptions.” So, he added, “there will have to be steps taken to avoid the appearance of aging.”

He said that voters lean toward attractive men, too, and that since TV, it’s less likely that a bloated “fat-guy” president would get elected — recalling that some were gauging whether Al Gore would run by checking his weight.

Limbaugh finished up with this: “Let me give you a picture, just to think about. ... The campaign is Mitt Romney vs. Hillary Clinton in our quest in this country for visual perfection, hmm?”

Paul Costello, who was an aide to Rosalynn Carter and Kitty Dukakis, calls this “the snake belly of the campaign,” and notes drily: “We’ve been staring at aging white men from the beginning of the democracy.”

Yet it’s true that looks matter in politics, even though Abe Lincoln still ranks as our favorite president. J.F.K.’s tan and Nixon’s 5-o’clock shadow helped turn that 1960 debate in Kennedy’s favor, just as Gore’s waxy orange makeup and condescending mien hurt him in a debate with W.

It is also true that perfecting the outer shell has become an obsession in this country. We’re a nation of Frankensteins and the monster is us. Jennifer Love Hewitt was on the cover of People last week and ended up defending her less svelte pictures with her new fiancé in Hawaii, writing on her Web site: “A size 2 is not fat!”

Women are still scrutinized more critically on their looks, which seem to fluctuate more on camera, depending on lighting, bloating and wardrobe.

Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and John Edwards almost always look good, and pretty much the same, in dark suits or casual wear. Fred Thompson always looks crepuscular and droopy. Often Hillary looks great, and sometimes she looks tired, heavier or puffier. Jim Cole, The Associated Press photographer who took the offending shot, said that there were several other pictures that day where she looked “radiant.”

An older Iowa man, who saw her this week in Le Mars, was impressed. “Hillary is much more handsome — or beautiful — live,” he told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny. “She doesn’t photograph very well.”

Since this is the first time we’ve had a woman who was a serious contender for president, it’s been an adjustment to watch her more changeable looks, and to see the lengths she goes to get the right lighting and to make the right wardrobe choices. She has a much more consistent look than she did as first lady, when she made a dizzying — and disconcerting — array of changes in her hair and style.

Hillary doesn’t have to worry about her face. She has to worry about her mask. Back in the ’92 race, Clinton pollsters devised strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal. Fifteen years later, her campaign is devising strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal.

The public still has no idea of what part of her is stage-managed and focus-grouped, and what part is legit. It’s pretty pathetic, at this stage of her career, that she has to wage a major offensive, by helicopter and Web testimonials, to make herself appear warm-blooded.

 

[anitram]

Rudy is taking a complete nosedive, not that it isn't well-deserved. From the MSNBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

Rudy Giuliani’s national standing has plummeted in the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, providing more evidence that the contest for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination is wide open.

According to the poll, Giuliani — who has been the clear leader in all previous NBC/Journal surveys this year — is now tied nationally with Mitt Romney at 20 percent among Republican primary voters. They are followed by Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, at 17 percent; Arizona Sen. John McCain at 14 percent; and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at 11 percent.

For Giuliani, it's a decline of 13 points since last month, when the former New York City mayor led the GOP field at 33 percent — followed by McCain at 16 percent, Thompson at 15 percent, Romney at 11 percent and Huckabee at 8 percent.

 

[2861U2]

Is anybody ever going to answer my question?




Maybe nobody can. That's very telling.

 

[BVS]

What question? Your Clinton question was answered pretty straight forward.

 

[2861U2]

What? No it wasn't. That was your response?



Anyone?

 

[BVS]

What? No it wasn't. That was your response?

My point, which I think many can agree, is that the same questions can be asked of every canidate. Yet you seem to think Clinton supporters are somehow acting in a vacuum. I turned your question around. If Clinton was any different, you would have been able to answer those of Romney, Thompson, or anyone else. But you didn't. To me, that's telling.

You can't ask this very pointed question. And make assumptions that the only reason people who are voting for her are different from other canidates, and then not be able to explain why those questions don't apply to the Republican canidates.

You don't seem to understand that.

 

[Irvine511]

Is anybody ever going to answer my question?




Maybe nobody can. That's very telling.

in an article about Obama vs. Hillary, David Brooks takes a shot at your question:

[q]The Obama-Clinton Issue
By DAVID BROOKS

Hillary Clinton has been a much better senator than Barack Obama. She has been a serious, substantive lawmaker who has worked effectively across party lines. Obama has some accomplishments under his belt, but many of his colleagues believe that he has not bothered to master the intricacies of legislation or the maze of Senate rules. He talks about independence, but he has never quite bucked liberal orthodoxy or party discipline.

If Clinton were running against Obama for Senate, it would be easy to choose between them. [/q]

 

[2861U2]

My point, which I think many can agree, is that the same questions can be asked of every canidate. Yet you seem to think Clinton supporters are somehow acting in a vacuum. I turned your question around. If Clinton was any different, you would have been able to answer those of Romney, Thompson, or anyone else. But you didn't. To me, that's telling.

You can't ask this very pointed question. And make assumptions that the only reason people who are voting for her are different from other canidates, and then not be able to explain why those questions don't apply to the Republican canidates.

You don't seem to understand that.

But you see, to me, that shows that you cannot just answer the question. You feel you have to somehow, for whatever reason, turn it around and point to another candidate. I'm more than willing to back up why Romney and others are experienced and qualified, but I asked about Mrs. Clinton first, and would like a real answer from you or anybody else here on why you look at her and feel she is totally experienced, qualified and competent to be president, despite the little that she has done. Until then, I will assume that no one here can justify their support of her. Once my question is satisfied, I'm happy to discuss the qualifications of others.

 

[BVS]

But you see, to me, that shows that you cannot just answer the question. You feel you have to somehow, for whatever reason, turn it around and point to another candidate. I'm more than willing to back up why Romney and others are experienced and qualified, but I asked about Mrs. Clinton first, and would like a real answer from you or anybody else here on why you look at her and feel she is totally experienced, qualified and competent to be president, despite the little that she has done. Until then, I will assume that no one here can justify their support of her. Once my question is satisfied, I'm happy to discuss the qualifications of others.

That's the most backasswards logic I've ever seen.

You assume far too much. You made this ridiculous assumption that a ton are just voting because she's a woman and a Clinton. I showed you how that was ridiculous given the circumstances of other canidates.

You also assumed that her experience in the senate and living in the whitehouse and being part of the process for 8 years was somehow far in the shadows of your other canidates.

You mentioned Thompson, which is a laugh, for not one of these canidates on either side are living in this guys shadow. He's pretty much regarded as being a lazy politician on both sides.

You mentioned Romney, and I asked you why he wasn't worthy of your questions as well. You couldn't answer.

Your whole premise was full of assumptions. That's why no one took it seriously.

Clinton has a strong background, she's done a lot in a short time in her district. She was also not a lazy first lady by any means either.

 

[Vincent Vega]

But you see, to me, that shows that you cannot just answer the question. You feel you have to somehow, for whatever reason, turn it around and point to another candidate. I'm more than willing to back up why Romney and others are experienced and qualified, but I asked about Mrs. Clinton first, and would like a real answer from you or anybody else here on why you look at her and feel she is totally experienced, qualified and competent to be president, despite the little that she has done. Until then, I will assume that no one here can justify their support of her. Once my question is satisfied, I'm happy to discuss the qualifications of others.

People are focusing on issues, voting record and their proposed program. You sound as if experience was the only factor in determining one's support.

 

[2861U2]

You sound as if experience was the only factor in determining one's support.

It isn't, but it should be important. Hopefully people acknowledge that amongst all the candidates, Hillary is towards the bottom in terms of experience, and the notion that it's "her turn" is outrageous.

 

[2861U2]

You mentioned Romney, and I asked you why he wasn't worthy of your questions as well.

No you didn't. You said the following, and I quote: "Romney?"

I knew that if I had decided to explain Romney's qualifications, the discussion would turn to him and my original question would never be addressed. That is why I did not answer it.

 

[BVS]

It isn't, but it should be important. Hopefully people acknowledge that amongst all the candidates, Hillary is towards the bottom in terms of experience, and the notion that it's "her turn" is outrageous.

Ok, please show me Mitt's political background experience. In detail, because I must be missing something.

 

[BVS]

No you didn't. You said the following, and I quote: "Romney?"

I knew that if I had decided to explain Romney's qualifications, the discussion would turn to him and my original question would never be addressed. That is why I did not answer it.

Because you know that it would have NEGATED your original question, that's why you didn't answer it. And that's exactly why I asked it.

Here's your paintbrush, there's the corner.

 

[Irvine511]

But you see, to me, that shows that you cannot just answer the question. You feel you have to somehow, for whatever reason, turn it around and point to another candidate. I'm more than willing to back up why Romney and others are experienced and qualified, but I asked about Mrs. Clinton first, and would like a real answer from you or anybody else here on why you look at her and feel she is totally experienced, qualified and competent to be president, despite the little that she has done. Until then, I will assume that no one here can justify their support of her. Once my question is satisfied, I'm happy to discuss the qualifications of others.

Hillary has been in the White House before, and she was a very unusual first lady. she was actively engaged in policy discussions and legislation at very high levels, and she has been an ambassador of sorts for the United States. she also has an illustrious educational background and was a high powered lawyer in Arkansas where she won acclaim for her work advocating for children's rights. she was consistently named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America in the late 80s.

it's been well known that the Clintons work as a team, and she must be given credit (and blame) for her husbands considerable successes as a president and as a governor. no one since Eleanor Roosevelt had as much influence. she's also a best selling author and Grammy winner.

as a Senator, Clinton won re-election in a landslide, even winning over traditionally republican districts in upstate New York. she has a reputation for being a very serious, very focused lawmaker, and is well known for having immense knowledge of the Senate and for reaching across the aisle and working with hard-core GOP senators, including and especially Brownback. she's done a tremendous amount for New York, securing funding for homeland security that's threat-based (so Kansas doesn't get the same amount of $$$ that New York or Boston might get)

in short, she's about as accomplished and influential a senator as one gets in 7 years. and my reasons for voting for Hillary would be that she really does understand Congress and has created many, many networks through which to get legislation passed. while the GOP as a whole might recoil at her, you'll find she has few enemies in the Senate and the House itself. she's disarmed her opponents, and sought and won middle ground. further, the Clintons are beloved the world over. they genuinely are. all it would take to heal the damage Bush has done to our alliances would be to send her husband on something of a listening tour, and things would improve dramatically. she also strikes me as having a full, fluid command of the facts over a huge range of topics, and i admire her debating skills even if i find her actual speech-ifying lackluster compared to master orators like Obama and Edwards.

i think Hillary would make a find president. its the GOP and their unfathomable, rabid hatred of her that might prevent her from getting anything done.

 

[Vincent Vega]

It isn't, but it should be important. Hopefully people acknowledge that amongst all the candidates, Hillary is towards the bottom in terms of experience, and the notion that it's "her turn" is outrageous.

why you look at her and feel she is totally experienced, qualified and competent to be president, despite the little that she has done. Until then, I will assume that no one here can justify their support of her.

Just sounded very exclusive, unless you included all other factors in "qualified and competent".

I would say when it comes to experience they are all pretty similar. Guiliani was mayor of New York, Huckabee and Romney were Gouvernors, Obama was Senator and Clinton was Senator as well as a pretty active First Lady.
So to say they are lacking experience to me is a bit off, but it is a totally different thing to determine who has the most experience.

But then again, experience is not such a great indicator of how great a leader the person will be in the end, and it's almost impossible to determine a causation between experience and their respective outcome as President.
Also, what does experience matter if I don't agree with what they are going to do once in office?

 

[2861U2]

Ok, please show me Mitt's political background experience. In detail, because I must be missing something.

CEO of Bain & Company (and founded Bain Capital)
CEO of 02 Winter Olympics
Governor of Massachusetts

Rudy had it right when he said Hillary has never run a city, never run a state, never run a business, never met a payroll.

Please, show me Mrs. Clinton's.