Official Campaign 2008 Hot Stove Thread

[Irvine511]

I'd like to see Obama and Edwards working together, but after 2004 I don't think Edwards would go for the VP spot.

i think he would, and it's why i can't consider myself an Edwards fan.

 

[deep]

I don't think any of the 3 (Hillary, Obama, Edwards) would be on the same ticket.

Hillary would choose a blue-dog? Democratic Governor or Senator. Could very well be some one out of office. Are there any good prospects from Virginia?

Obama would need some gravitas to balance his ticket. Much like Edwards would,
in the foreign policy / defence department area.

 

[LyricalDrug]

^ I'm sure Mark Warner of VA is a top-tier VP candidate.

A Clinton/Obama ticket (or vice versa) would be pretty electrifying.

 

[deep]

On the GOP side

Giuliani or Romney could do well to add Condi Rice as their VP. She seems to be trying to rehabilitate her image with calling for the closing of GITMO and stepping up efforts in the Mid-East.

McCain would choose someone that would appeal to the so-called "values voters".

 

[deep]

A Clinton/Obama ticket (or vice versa) would be pretty electrifying.

I think it would be more "electrocuting"

as in dead.

perceived as way too left.

I realize this may have stong appeal to you.

and what might be my "dream ticket" may not translate that well in compiling those swing states to get that magic 271 electoral votes.

 

[verte76]

I think it would be more "electrocuting"

as in dead.

perceived as way too left.

I realize this may have stong appeal to you.

and what might be my "dream ticket" may not translate that well in compiling those swing states to get that magic 271 electoral votes.

After eight years of George Bush, that might be what the doctor ordered.

 

[Irvine511]

[q]Giuliani stands by support of publicly-funded abortions

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.

"Ultimately, it's a constitutional right, and therefore if it's a constitutional right, ultimately, even if you do it on a state by state basis, you have to make sure people are protected," Giuliani said in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Florida's capital city.

A video clip of the then-mayoral candidate issuing a similar declaration in 1989 in a speech to the "Women's Coalition" appeared recently on the Internet.

"There must be public funding for abortions for poor women," Giuliani says in the speech that is posted on the video sharing site YouTube. "We cannot deny any woman the right to make her own decisions about abortion."

When asked directly Wednesday if he still supported the use of public funding for abortions, Giuliani said "Yes."

"If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right," he explained, "If that's the status of the law, yes."

But the presidential candidate reiterated his personal opposition to the practice.

"I'm in the same position now that I was 12 years ago when I ran for mayor -- which is, personally opposed to abortion, don't like it, hate it, would advise that woman to have an adoption rather than abortion, hope to find the money for it," he said. "But it is your choice, an individual right. You get to make that choice, and I don't think society should be putting you in jail."

And the Giuliani campaign noted later in the day that the former mayor would not seek to make any changes to current law, which restricts federal funding to cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.

Giuliani also vowed to appoint conservative judges to the bench, though denied such a promise was a "wink and a nod" to conservatives in support of overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion.
[/q]

 

[deep]

A Clinton/Obama ticket
would be pretty electrifying.

Hello LD



Here is a link that poses an interesting question about a female president

 

[LyricalDrug]

^ Hehehe... that's a great clip.

I don't support Hillary because she's a woman, but I admit that there's a seductive pull to the prospect of being a member of the generation that elected the first female President.

 

[STING2]

I thought King McCain had this thing in the bag????

Isn't that what you've been telling us over and over and over again? That there was no point in even having an election? Did we all dream that up?

The clear shift in the public mood about the war has obviously changed McCain's chances. If not for that, McCain would have an easy time in the national election. He should win the nomination though, but it will be up to events in Iraq over the next 18 months which will determine who wins the national election.

 

[STING2]

poor, delusional old fool. yet, when you debase yourself at the foot of the Bushies for 7 years, what do you expect? [/B]

Who's delusional? Those that advocate immediately withdrawing all US combat forces from the area of greatest Al Quada activity on the planet, or those that want to increase the number US combat forces in that area?

 

[Irvine511]

Who's delusional? Those that advocate immediately withdrawing all US combat forces from the area of greatest Al Quada activity on the planet, or those that want to increase the number US combat forces in that area?

well, you, firstly, but as Dread has pointed out, it's gone from delusional to downright offensive to the men and women in uniform. and, please, stop blaming DEMOCRATS when it's REPUBLICANS who've botched this war from the very beginning, and it's REPUBLICANS who are in favor of pulling out as well as THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

but, also, a doddering old fool with no money who thinks a casual stroll in Indianapolis warrents 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead as well as a bulletproof vest.

 

[LyricalDrug]

As long as Republicans insist on dragging out this war, activists are going to continue to put them out of work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2TfCk2XWhg&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/

 

[STING2]

well, you, firstly, but as Dread has pointed out, it's gone from delusional to downright offensive to the men and women in uniform. and, please, stop blaming DEMOCRATS when it's REPUBLICANS who've botched this war from the very beginning, and it's REPUBLICANS who are in favor of pulling out as well as THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

but, also, a doddering old fool with no money who thinks a casual stroll in Indianapolis warrents 100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead as well as a bulletproof vest.

Tell me the logic in pulling out all US combat forces from the area of greatest Al Quada activity and deploying them to area's that are devoid of Al Quada activity.

In the long run, developing a non-hostile and stable government in Iraq is a higher priority than the same task under way in Afghanistan because of Iraq's location, resources, current development and demographics vs. that of Afghanistan.

What are the potential consequences of the rapid withdrawal the Democrats are proposing? Who will replace the vital task being performed by coalition combat troops on a daily basis in Iraq? How does giving Al Quada a virtual safe haven in Al Anbar province through the withdrawal of US combat Forces from that province improve the coalitions ability to fight Al Quada and prevent current Al Quada terrorist activity in Iraq from spreading outside Iraq?

 

[trevster2k]

http://demballs.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

 

[Irvine511]

Tell me the logic in pulling out all US combat forces from the area of greatest Al Quada activity and deploying them to area's that are devoid of Al Quada activity.

In the long run, developing a non-hostile and stable government in Iraq is a higher priority than the same task under way in Afghanistan because of Iraq's location, resources, current development and demographics vs. that of Afghanistan.

What are the potential consequences of the rapid withdrawal the Democrats are proposing? Who will replace the vital task being performed by coalition combat troops on a daily basis in Iraq? How does giving Al Quada a virtual safe haven in Al Anbar province through the withdrawal of US combat Forces from that province improve the coalitions ability to fight Al Quada and prevent current Al Quada terrorist activity in Iraq from spreading outside Iraq?

you've done such a good job running this war from the beginning, with one smashing success after the other. you've been right about everything! the credibility the Republicans have amassed on Iraq is staggering!

so let's continue to listen to you.

because it's hilarious when you continue to think that Iraq's problem is Al-Qaeda that there's some sort of military solution to this debacle your incompetency has gotten us into.

 

[A_Wanderer]

In context though the shift from baathist elements and outside jihadists towards sectarian militia and deathsquads was a change. The "insurgency" today is not the same creature that it was in 2004.

 

[trevster2k]

Shia militia are fighting Sunnis. Sunni militia are fighting Shia. Both are fighting amongst themselves and both are fighting U.S forces.

Good luck with that mess.

 

[Irvine511]

In context though the shift from baathist elements and outside jihadists towards sectarian militia and deathsquads was a change. The "insurgency" today is not the same creature that it was in 2004.

but let's continue to pretend that we have an inspirationa, fledgling, democratic, legitimate government bravely defending the people from invading Al-Qaeda zombies, and that all we need is more guns 'n bombs to defeat the undead masses.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Because the Iraqi government is riddled with corrupt Shiite theocrats doesn't make the Sunni Islamist insurgents any less nihilistic and dangerous.

Which goes back to the problem with Bush - spouts about Democracy and Liberty while helping to stifle it in neighbouring countries, not taking the non-military means to guarantee the gains made, not courting progressives in the region - and after this presidency America is just going to swing back to the same old stability doctrine and nothing will have changed except half a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.

 

[Irvine511]

Because the Iraqi government is riddled with corrupt Shiite theocrats doesn't make the Sunni Islamist insurgents any less nihilistic and dangerous.

true, but that also doesn't mean that the Sunni Islamist insurgents are the only problem, or even the biggest problem.

Which goes back to the problem with Bush - spouts about Democracy and Liberty while helping to stifle it in neighbouring countries, not taking the non-military means to guarantee the gains made, not courting progressives in the region - and after this presidency America is just going to swing back to the same old stability doctrine and nothing will have changed except half a trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.

or we could just say that the problem with Bush is that he's an incompetent buffoon.

 

[A_Wanderer]

And they say that Democrats are mindless partisan Bush bashers

 

[Irvine511]

[q]5 Stages of Neocon Grief

1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in Iraq.”

2. Anger: “The treasonous far-left-liberals and their media lapdogs are making us lose in Iraq.”

3. Bargaining: “If we send x-thousand more troops to Iraq, victory will be ours.”

4. Depression: “Did you catch 300 yet? [munch-munch-burp] God, it made me hate liberals even more. [channels flipping] They wouldn’t last a day in ancient Sparta.”

5. Advanced Literary Theory: “The hegemonic binary of ’success’ and ‘failure’ traumatizes the (re)interpretive possibilities of an ethos of jouissance regarding the War in Iraq.”[/q]

 

[STING2]

you've done such a good job running this war from the beginning, with one smashing success after the other. you've been right about everything! the credibility the Republicans have amassed on Iraq is staggering!

so let's continue to listen to you.

because it's hilarious when you continue to think that Iraq's problem is Al-Qaeda that there's some sort of military solution to this debacle your incompetency has gotten us into.

No one has ever claimed that there is a purely military solution to the problem of nation building and counter insurgency in either Afghanistan or Iraq. But there is no solution that will succeed without a military element to help implement it.

I never said that Iraq's problem is Al Quada. Al Quada is a huge problem for the United States and Al Quada will be in an even better position if the United States withdraws all of its combat forces immediately as Democrats are proposing. Even without an Al Quada element in Iraq, its still important to US security that Iraq develop a stable non-hostile government that can provide its own internal security. Much more important than the same operation going on in Afghanistan.


What are the potential consequences of the rapid withdrawal the Democrats are proposing? Who will replace the vital task being performed by coalition combat troops on a daily basis in Iraq? How does giving Al Quada a virtual safe haven in Al Anbar province through the withdrawal of US combat Forces from that province improve the coalitions ability to fight Al Quada and prevent current Al Quada terrorist activity in Iraq from spreading outside Iraq?


If withdrawal were the answer, why are the Democrats not proposing withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan? Afghanistan has virtually no Al Quada activity unlike Iraq, and its stability or lack there of is not as great a threat to US security as a lack of stability in Iraq.

 

[Irvine511]

you're right, STING, your incompetence has left us with no good options and thousands of wasted lives.

maybe you should have thought of this?

 

[yolland]

I think it's time to get back to discussing the Presidential campaign...

 

[A_Wanderer]

Dissolve the standing army and bring back Letters of Marque

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I meant to tape it and I forgot

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed the notion he might consider accepting the No. 2 spot on the 2008 ballot -- with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top.

"You don't run for second. I don't believe in that," the Illinois senator said on "Late Night with David Letterman."

"That would be a powerful ticket," Letterman prodded.

"Which order are we talking?" Obama replied, drawing laughter and applause from the studio audience.

"Let's say you're the presidential candidate and Hillary is the vice presidential candidate. Now if she were sitting here, it would be different from that," Letterman joked.

Obama, a fresh face on the national stage who has served just two years in the Senate, said last week he had raised $25 million this year, almost matching Clinton and solidifying his bid for the Democratic nomination to seek the presidency in November 2008.

Obama fell only $1 million short of the higher-profile New York senator, despite the huge fund-raising network she developed through her Senate campaigns and the White House races of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Asked by Letterman whether there were private discussions of the situation going the other way, with Clinton in the No. 2 spot, Obama said the contenders were all in the race to win the party nomination but were on the same team.

"Really, what we're doing is we're trying out for quarterback," Obama said.

Letterman persisted, asking whether the senator might reconsider if it came to a point where the campaigns of the two front-runners were ripping their party apart.

Obama replied: "I think it is possible that in that kind of situation, we might have to have a brokered convention and, Dave, we might turn to you."

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I like the anecdote at the end of this. Can he be for real? I hope so. I think so. I hope running for President doesn't change him.

April 8, 2007
2 Years After Big Speech, a Lower Key for Obama
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

COLO, Iowa, April 6 — Senator Barack Obama is not big on what he calls
red-meat applause lines when he campaigns in small communities like
this one, 45 miles northeast of Des Moines. He does not tell many
jokes. He talks in even, measured tones, and at times is so low-key
that he lulls his audiences into long, if respectful, silences.

Mr. Obama likes to recount the chapters of his unusual life: growing
up in Hawaii, living overseas, community organizing in Chicago,
working in the Illinois legislature, though not his years as a United
States senator. He talks — more often than not in broad, general
strokes — about an Obama White House that would provide health care to
all, attack global warming, improve education, fix Social Security and
end the war in Iraq. His campaign events end almost as an
afterthought, surprising voters used to the big finishes typically
served up by the presidential candidates seeking their support.

"Thank you very much, everybody. Have a nice day," Mr. Obama said
pleasantly in Dakota City one afternoon, with a leisurely wave of a
hand. He headed over to a table where copies of his books, brought by
audience members, had been neatly laid out, awaiting the slash of his
left-handed autograph.

For most Democrats, Mr. Obama is the Illinois senator who riveted the
Democratic National Convention with a keynote speech that marked him
as one of the most powerful speakers his party had produced in 50
years. But as Mr. Obama methodically worked his way across swaths of
rural northern Iowa — his tall figure and skin color making him stand
out at diners and veterans' homes, at high schools and community
colleges — it was clear that he is not presenting himself,
stylistically at least, the way he did two years ago when he gripped
Democrats at the Fleet Center in Boston.

He is cerebral and easy-going, often talking over any applause that
might rise up from his audience, and perhaps consciously trying to
present a political style that contrasts with the more charged
presences of John Edwards, the former trial lawyer and senator from
North Carolina, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

He rarely mentions President Bush, as he disparages the partisan
quarrels of Washington, and is, at most, elliptically critical of Mr.
Edwards and Mrs. Clinton when he notes that he had opposed the war in
Iraq from the start; the two of them voted to authorize the war in
2002.

His audiences are rapt, if sometimes a tad restless; long periods can
go by when there is not a rustle in the crowd. Yet Iowa is not the
Fleet Center, and this appeal — "letting people see how I think," as
Mr. Obama put it in an interview — could clearly go a long way in
drawing the support of Iowans who are turning out in huge numbers to
see him in the state where the presidential voting process will start.

"He's low-key; he speaks like a professor," said Jim Sayer, 51, a
farmer from Humboldt. "Maybe I expected more emotion. But the lower
key impresses me: He seems to be at the level that we are."

Mary Margaret Gran, a middle-school teacher who met him when he spoke
to 25 Iowans eating breakfast at a tiny diner in Colo on Friday
morning, summed up her view the moment Mr. Obama had moved on to the
next table.

"Rock star?" Ms. Gran said, offering the description herself. "That's
the national moniker. But dazzle is not what he is about at all. He's
peaceful."

Mr. Obama, wearing sunglasses as he sat in the back of a car that was
taking him to a charter plane and then on to his home in Chicago for
the Easter weekend, nodded when told what Mr. Sayer and Ms. Gran had
said about him.

"I use a different style if I'm speaking to a big crowd; I can gin up
folks pretty well," he said. "But when I'm in these town hall
settings, my job is not to throw them a lot of red meat. I want to
give them a sense of my thought process."

Still, the emerging style of Mr. Obama as a candidate for president,
at least in a state like this with its emphasis on smaller settings,
might startle those who knew him only from the speech that made him
famous — a speech that is included prominently in the video sometimes
used to introduce him.

Yes, there are strains of the populist call of Ross Perot. "Thousands
of people across the country feel we are in this moment of time where
we might be able to take our country back," Mr. Obama said at the
Algona High School cafeteria, packed with young students and their
parents.

His language about community and shared sacrifice can be evocative of
Mario M. Cuomo's 1984 speech to the Democratic convention. "We have
responsibilities to ourselves, but we also have mutual
responsibilities, so if a child can't read so well, that matters to us
even if they are not our child," he said at V.F.W. Post 5240 in Dakota
City. Heads nodded among the people surrounding him in the
theater-in-the-round layout that he prefers.

But there is also, in a historical comparison that his supporters have
tended to resist, the cool intellectualism of Adlai Stevenson who, for
all the loyalty he inspired among many Democrats in the 1950s — some
of whom still remember him fondly — lost two presidential elections.
If Mr. Obama enters the room to the sounds of "Think" by Aretha
Franklin and the roar of people coming to their feet, clapping and
jostling for photographs, it is only moments before the atmosphere
turns from campaign rally to college seminar, when he talks, for
example, about the need for a "common sense, nonideological,
practical-minded, generous agenda for change in this country."

This evolution, or more precisely this attention to Mr. Obama's
credentials as a campaigner in communities like this, comes in a week
in which he has, with the report that he had nearly matched Mrs.
Clinton by raising $25 million in the first quarter of presidential
fund-raising, left no doubt that he had the resources and, presumably
the popular support, to potentially deny her the nomination.

For Mr. Obama, his reception in Iowa has certainly changed since he
came here after announcing his presidential bid in February, trailing
enough reporters, press aides, advisers, family members and friends to
fill a Boeing 767. Then, he was nearly suffocated at every campaign
event with people craning for a look or a handshake or an autograph,
or television crews shouting out a question.

This week, mostly far from the bigger cities of Iowa, there was much
less press and staff, and the crowds, while still big, were
manageable. Mr. Obama has developed a system for handling all the
people who brought copies of his books to sign. "If you can put your
name in the book and hand it to my staff after we're done, I'll sign
them all at once," he said.

Things have cooled off enough to permit Mr. Obama, dressed in his
signature open-collared white shirt and loose-hanging black sports
coat, to linger until almost the last person is gone. This more casual
setting has revealed Mr. Obama to be a tactile campaigner; his bony
hand grabbing elbows and hands, his long arms thrown over shoulders,
drawing voters close in conversation.

And it allowed for moments like one that took place at the V.F.W. Hall
in Dakota City, after almost everyone had gone. Mr. Obama was
approached by a woman, her eyes wet. She spoke into his ear and began
to weep, collapsing into his embrace. They stood like that for a full
minute, Mr. Obama looking ashen, before she pulled away. She began
crying again, Mr. Obama pulled her in for another embrace.

The woman left declining to give her name or recount their
conversation. Mr. Obama said she told him what had happened to her
20-year-old son, who was serving in Iraq.

"Her son died," he said. He paused. "What can you say? This happens to
me every single place I go."

The next day, at the rally here, Mr. Obama described the encounter for
the crowd. The woman, he said, had asked if her son's death was the
result of a mistake by the government. "And I told her the service of
our young men and women — the duty they show this country — that's
never a mistake," he said.

He paused carefully as he reflected on that encounter. "It reminds you
why you get into politics," he said. "It reminds you that this isn't a
game."

 

[U2democrat]

I really don't understand why all the talking heads in the media believe that Hillary is the presumed front runner. They've obviously never been south of the Mason-Dixon line, and they haven't talked to any of the people I know. To me the media's presumption of Hillary as the nominee shows what a bubble they live in. Her poll numbers are name recognition, and her fundraising is the work of her husband more than herself.


Or maybe I'm the one in the bubble