baddog

I have always stated he should have waited 8 years. Now I wonder if his jumping the gun will have a negative effect 8 years from now.

BusterBunny

not even close

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Mutt

wtf? Bush had experience? he was the friggin' governor of Texas, a state where the governor doesn't wield much power, if George Bush Sr. literally had a retarded son not one who's just a little slow he'd still have been able to get him the governorship of Texas.

comparing Dubya's achievements and Obama's prior to running for the presidency is a joke - Dubya bailed on the National Guard his daddy got him into to avoid the Vietnam War, was a cokehead overaged frat boy until he was 40, then handed an oil company that went bust under him, a baseball team that was a disaster on and off the field, then became governor of Texas.

haha - can you imagine Dubya being the editor of the Harvard Law Review?

with the economy teetering on the abyss though I'd be very concerned to elect a Democrat - the Republicans aren't much better fiscally now but a Democrat really could crash the country into a devastating long Depression.

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ninavain

so will another 10 years in Iraq and possibly another war with Iran...sorry I'll take my chances with the Dems this time around

Drake

Agreed.

I'd love for Obama to say that he'd have a ticket with Edwards. It may be premature, but I really think that would help. I think they would make an admirable team at least as far as knocking off the McCain/Bush machine. Edwards got shafted by all the 'change' hoopla but that may bite the Dems in the ass if they don't pick somebody like him back up and put him in the game with them.

Heck, even Hillary could do the same - say she'll have Edwards as VP.

Drake

Obama and Clinton won't take out troops for awhile even once elected. They haven't put a timetable up and said they'll stick to it because they can't and won't.

Libertine

Looking at the last 20 years, I'd say the Democrats are actually looking better economically than the Republicans.

Investing in important institutions like health care and education tends to benefit the economy as a whole, while tax cuts for the richest of the rich tend to benefit mainly the richest of the rich.

The Democrats aren't the crazy, irresponsible, far-left socialists that Fox News makes them out to be. Both Clinton and Obama support moderate economic policies that seem likely to be a significant economic improvement over the policies of the Bush administration.

Economics, meanwhile, has never exactly been McCain's biggest strength.

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Mutt

nobody can complain unless the election is rigged - if you want Obama to win get involved and get out every last young voter and black voter to the polls. i'm sure this election will have a record voter turnout but still a good 40% won't even cast a vote.

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baddog

60% turnout? When was the last time that ever happened?

Tempest

The sad thing is that Obama's supporters honestly think he can change the US all by himself... They seem to forget that he needs the support of the congress and the senate to actually get anything done... How much support do they really think he's going to get from them?

pocketkangaroo

I thought that too. But I think the longer you're in Congress, the more dirt they can dig up. The more votes they can bury you with. In a general election, Obama can target McCain on the Keating 5, the Iraq War, and a slew of other votes over his tenure. McCain can only call him inexperienced. Hillary had to resort to trying to bash him on his Illinois Senate record, but it didn't really work.

Plus it's hard to tell if the buzz around him will remain. Will he still garner the same passion from voters after they've heard the same speeches for another 8 years? Seen him become entrenched with lobbyists and other schemes all Congressman do. I think as a political advisor, I'd rather run the campaign of someone who is popular and unexperienced vs someone with a lot of experience but a lot of baggage too. Over the month before the election, I can tear about that baggage, but I can only say he's inexperienced so many times.

pocketkangaroo

The way the races are shaping up, the Democrats will probably pick up 5 Senate seats and another 20-25 House seats. That would give them a fairly solid majority in Congress and a lot more power to change things than McCain would have with a Democratic congress.

Tempest

That's not going to matter that much.. In order to truly change things, you need to go against all the power in washington which is big business and the lobbies... and those guys have their claws deep in congress and the senate... So you can promise change all you want but the reality is that it will be minimal even IF you're able to sway both houses. Right now, the vast majority of the voters are buying into his promise of change... But they're not looking beyond that to how he's actually going to get it done with the congress and senate.. That's what is really going to matter...

Snake Doctor

Alot more than Clinton would. She couldn't get health care passed in '93 with significant democratic majorities in both the house and the senate.

On another note, it would be nice if you could speak for what you think and believe and not presume to know what Obama supporters "think he can do all by himself"

Any president will have to work with congress to get things done, who do you think has the better chance of doing that, the candidate who wants to stop playing gotcha politics and stop demonizing people who don't share his views, or the one who constantly talks about the "republican attack machine" and "vast right wing conspiracies"?

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KnightMare

He may be a good speaker, but he's still black.

Libertine

While you make good points, what you are saying also indicates the big danger of voting for Obama. Had Obama been a senator for longer, what mistakes would he have made? What kind of track record would he have set?

It appears to me as if many people are willfully ignoring the very real risk that Obama will not turn out the way they are expecting. After all, there is no good indication right now of how he will function, beyond mere words.

Think of choosing a president as choosing a marriage partner. What would be the better choice, someone whom you've known for a long time, and of whom you know both the qualities and the flaws? Or someone you've only been on a single date with, and about whom you only know that they are attractive and a good conversationalist?

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Snake Doctor

So what you're saying is that we should vote for the Washington hacks because the optimist who wants to clean up government won't be able to do it anyways?

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Libertine

What about the candidate who has actually been spending significant time working *in* congress over the past years?

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Snake Doctor

Nobody is saying he would have made a mistake....they're saying that there would be votes that could be used against him.

The nature of legislative politics is that sometimes you have to vote for a bad bill....there are so many things attached to bills that have nothing to do with the original bill, that you're never voting for "everything" that is in a bill.

At some point someone would do something like attach a ban on partial birth abortion to a bill that funded veterans benefits.....now you either have to vote against veteran's benefits, or vote to ban partial birth abortion....what do you do?

With a long enough senate career you'll have dozens of situations like this that make great fodder for negative attack ads......there is a very good reason we haven't had a Senator get elected President since Kennedy.....and this is the reason.

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Snake Doctor

I think it's quite ridiculous that you're trying to say that Obama went to the Senate just to set up a run for President and hasn't done anything other than run for President since he's been there.

Hillary is a carpet bagger who moved to New York specifically to run for Moynihan's seat so that she could set up her run for President.

She had absolutely no ties to the State of New York before this and had she not been married to the President while running, her candidacy would have been an absolute joke.

Had she run for the Senate in her home state of Illinois or her adopted state of Arkansas that would have made sense, but to run in New York just because there was a seat open there that would inevitably go to a democrat is nothing short of cold, calculated political ambition.

Obama on the other hand lived in Illinois for two decades....was a community organizer and civil rights attorney, then served as a state legislator for several years before running for the U.S. Senate, and has accomplished plenty in the years he's spent as a public servant TYVM.

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Libertine

It could just be me, but wouldn't it be a good thing to know exactly what someone would have done given two unappealing choices, and hearing the reasons for that person doing so?

A president faces all sorts of tough choices. I'd say that it's a good thing for voters to know what someone actually chose to do when confronted with the need to make such tough choices.

Oh, and of course he would have made mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. The interesting thing is to see which mistakes people make, and what causes them to make those mistakes. That way, you have a decent indication of what will happen when they are put in a position of such immense responsibility as the presidency.

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Tempest

Got any facts to back up your rose colored beliefs that Obama will be able to do what Clinton wasn't able to?

The fact is, she'll have a much better chance than Obama given she's been thru it once before and so knows exactly what she's going to face the next time around. If you fail to grasp that concept than you deserve another 8 years of fucked up government with a president that wastes a lot of time spinning his wheels.
You really come accross as a whiny little bitch sometimes...
That president will be 1 person... The funny thing is that he's doing eaxctly what everyone else does but he does it "better".. He's demonizing all the politicians he will have to work with.. he's speaking against all those politicians that play gotcha politics... So vote him in.. and then he'll have to work with all those politicians that do all those things he speaks against. We all know how well that works out... i.e. It's politics as usual in Washington...

Libertine

You are right, Clinton was probably planning on a presidential run from the start. And she took her time, making sure to polish up her knowledge of things like the armed services. Yes, she's a calculating, ambitious person. Is there anything wrong with calculating? Would you rather have a president who is fond of taking large risks?

As for Obama, yes, he was quite successful before running for senator, remarkable even. In the Senate, on the other hand, his record is rather unremarkable, showing very little of the change he's so fond of speaking about. He worked on his image, there, but delivered very little substance outside of the mainstream party line.

There are plenty of people who have accomplished plenty as public servants. That does not mean they are all suitable for the presidency. The only really remarkable thing about Obama, politically, is his charisma. Charisma alone, however, is not enough to bring about change, nor is it enough to fix the economy.

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Tempest

I'm saying that at the end of the day, no side is going to change the government as much as their supporters wish... So pick the one that will be able to get as many things done as possible.. And that IMO would be Hillary... Obama is running on changing washington.. but what the US needs is someone to fix the country... The US is in some serious trouble.. So now is not the time to be working on "nice to haves"...

Tempest

Like pork barrel spending??? He seemed to feed at the trough like everyone else... And is it true that he hasn't discosed what all of that spending was for and who it went to? Did he only disclose some info once it became a requirement but didn't disclose his previous earmarks? And yet he bashes Hillary for not disclosing her taxes? Seriously.. He's no different than any other politician except he gives really good speeches.. At least McCain walks the walk...

Scootermuze

It was a speech about the current blowup.. not a campaign speech...

Jon Clark - BANNED FOR LIFE

Snake Doctor

I should have stuck with my idea a week or so ago about leaving these threads alone completely.

The only people who post in these threads are people who already have their minds made up (me included) and most of them aren't interested in an honest intellectual debate....but rather trying to convince you that the candidate you support sucks, rather than explaining why their candidate is a good choice.

I'm going to revert back to my previous plan of not discussing this anymore......I'll start a thread on Jan 20, 2009 when Obama is being inagurated, until then, have fun.

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baddog

It is only honest if we are siding with you. You are in for a rude awakening come November.

pocketkangaroo

I agree. But McCain's past is a bit sketchy. I mean we are in a bit of a financial crisis at the moment and expecting to go into a recession. Do you want to elect the guy who was involved in one of the largest banking scandals in our nation's history during that time?

Libertine

Has it occurred to you that the reason many people are supporting certain candidates is simply that they believe the others to suck even more?

Clinton isn't exactly the perfect candidate. The mere fact that she's the wife of a former president would be enough for me not to support her, were there any good alternatives.

In my view, however, there aren't. Clinton appears, to me, to be the most likely among the three remaining options of being at least somewhat competent, especially with regards to handling the economy.

Obama is an unknown factor and thus a huge gamble, McCain is a republican not known for his astuteness with regards to the economy, and Clinton is an uninspiring but experienced bureaucrat.

Perhaps Obama would lessen the divisiveness in American politics, perhaps not. Either way, it's not the most important issue right now. The way the economy is going, full-blown hardcore catastrophic recession is a real and immediate threat.

If such a recession hits, there will be precious few people who worry about political divisions. They'll be too busy trying to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.

You want change? It's on its way, and it's not at all what you'd like it to be.

Right now, magnificent speeches aren't what's needed. A president capable of maintaining at least a certain degree of stability is what's needed.

Is Clinton the right man for the job? Most likely not. But out of the three bad options left right now, she's probably the best one.

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ADL Colin

A lot of good points in here on both sides. :-)

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Mutt

what's the record turnout for a presidential election? i just took a guess that it might be 60%.

if it's lower than it just proves my point stronger - if you want your candidate to win that badly then get out there working to get those who are likely to support him into a voting booth whatever it takes.

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ajrocks

Who ever wins the election is screwed. The country is in the shitter and there is no way someone can clean up the mess in a term.

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