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Best Presidential Candidate, Democrats
This story is to discuss the remaining democratic candidates for president. Please keep discussions limited to talk about Hillary and Obama. Keep discussions of the other party in the other story.
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One of these two will win the Democratic Party Nomination! Continue to read at your own peril.
It seems the choice is pretty obvious, from a tech/gamer standpoint, there's no way Hillary has my favor in the primary. Also, could it be...first?
I for one, would like to welcome our Hillary-bashing overlords.
Hillary would galvanize the Republicans against her.
If Hillary wins the nomination, I'm voting for Nader.
Obama is the only one who can unite the country.
I don't trust any of them. They all want the job, which should be enough in itself to disqualify them. Obama talks a good game, but why should I trust his intentions? Why should I believe that he won't be warped and corrupted by the power of the President's office? Clinton has no principles, she panders to any voting bloc she thinks can help her, and not only did she not divorce her adulterous asshole of a husband, but she can't keep his mouth shut during her campaign.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Mike Gravel is still running. It would be unfair of Slashdot to exclude him too.
And this has what to do with tech? Surely the politics category is for politics relating to tech not sundry ramblings about the next election (and not one in my country either so I'm less than interested given that the important bit i.e. Bush is going is a given).
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
My political friends from both camps assure me that super Tuesday is NOT going to seal the democratic nomination one way or another. Unlike the general election, delegates are not assigned all to one candidate based on the state total (for the democrats, anyway. Republican rules are different). The exact formula varies by state, but the delegate assignment is roughly proportional to the number of votes.
Personally, I'm leaning towards Obama myself. He seems principled and energetic, and I like his principles. Clinton seems a bit more cynical. I think he'd have a better chance against McCain. McCain won't bring out the republican base; Hillary Clinton will.
Policy wise, though, I think they're similar enough that I wouldn't mind either of them in the white house.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
I've not decided which of the two to vote for, but I do agree with something I heard John Grisham say last week: That having them pair up for a "super ticket" would probably be more negative than positive. Any voters who would not have voted for a woman AND any voters who would not vote for a black would BOTH be turned away and McCain would slide into the presidency.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
The Fight for Student Power on Campus: www.forstudentpower.org.
Just thought I'd throw that in there before this gets messy.
Who can win against a white male - a black man or a white woman?
I personally don't like even Obama OR Hillary...but, if forced between the two, I would choose Obama first. Hillary is a slight bit psycho, and her husband (in my opinion) isn't quite the sharpshooter he once was...Obama may have some "appease the masses" opinions, but at least he has a solid head on his shoulder.
Hillary is just plain frightening. It's a shame that the first woman to really have a chance at the white house is a total lunatic.
Living With a Nerd
Someone posted part of this clip last time, where Obama talks at google about the future of technology. This is the full 64 minute clip, complete with Obama's joke about sorting algorithms :-)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo
As modern-day Presidential Candidates go.... voters are stuck with choosing the greater of two evils, none of which can be called "Best". No sane and educated person would subject themselves to the rabid and vicious environment that is the USA Presidential Election process. Candidates certainly aren't doing it for the $$, so why are they running?
Let's be consistent: you meant Clinton and Barack.
"She is highly intelligent, has real experience and is an attractive candidate. But she is terrified to act on her beliefs. In fact, she seems so conditioned by what she sees as political constraints that one can barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end."
Policy differences between Clinton and Obama? Minor.
Leadership?
I worry about provenance with Clinton. Why was she the head of the Healthcare task force? A recognized health expert? A well-known elected official? Wife of a guy who got 43% of the vote? That 'mandate', plus too much secrecy, doomed a not-so-bad health care plan and has cost us a lot of jobs and bankrupt Americans in the last 14 years.
Then again, why was she on the board of Wal-Mart? We mention that (well, she doesn't mention on her website that she was the first female board member of America's #1 retailer). But, why? Was she a business expert? Run a corner store? Worked her way up from the mailroom? Was she the wife of the governor of Wal-Mart's home state?
Obama has taken every step. He's sprinted to the top, no doubt. But, he's gone from knocking on doors in the projects to fighting a political machine in his district to convincing both rural and urban Illinois to inspiring a generation. No shortcut.
Not to say she's been a bad senator. But, the Iraq vote is very troubling. Only six Senators are on record as checking in to the locked room to read the full (96 page) intelligence report. Yes, it was full of lies. But, John Edwards *did*. Clinton? McCain? Neither. They believed.
And thinking of Iraq. The *only* way out of Iraq is to offer a new deal to the Iraqis. Clinton? The wife of a man whose crippling sanctions and annual bombing runs caused a whole lot of misery and entrenched the regime? Sure, from here we can say the sanctions were a good thing. But, for the man on the street who lost a child to deprivation? We need a president who is not connected to that legacy.
I like Obama, only because we need a President with a new last name. There's no scientific way to determine who would be the best president, but we need someone with new perspectives. Or at least not jaded enough to try new things. They're all politicians so everything they do will come under my inspection but so far the only two candidates that fit closest is Obama and McCain, IMHO. Still haven't made up my mind how to vote tho. Anyway, on to the flamebait stuff, the democratic logo is horrible, looks like a mutated dog.
...but that might be because I'm not American and not in America.
I'm not sure that I'd vote anyway, both parties seem as bad as each other.
I'll vote for him if McCain or Huckabee gets the nomination on the GOP side. I will never vote for Hillary.
A. The United States.
The good news: You wake up and find that everything was a dream - Bush not only never won the election - the votes were properly counted.
The bad news: You slept a LONG TIME, Rumplestiltskin - Richard Nixon is president.
Alternate bad news: Miss Carolina just won the dem nomination - for the children.
Obama is not a Muslim. Just thought I'd clear that up for you.
I dont' get this. Are you trying to be funny? Black != muslim.
I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware that there were any Muslims in the race. Are you referring to Mike Gravel? I haven't really done any research on him.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Obama, hillary may as well drop out. Those two states are her states, and if she losses them, that should serve as a wake-up call that even her own people don't want her as president.
In Soviet Halo, the game kills you (socially anyway)
The U.S. needs some dramatic change. The current administration has created a steady decline in foreign relations, economic stability, and domestic freedom. To facilitate this change the U.S. needs someone who has a different political background. Barack Obama is young and inspirational. He is different from the typical politician. Although either candidate would be a breath of fresh air, Obama seems to be the most committed to change. Clinton has similar attitudes to the majority of top politicians. The agent of necessary change is Obama, who will represent a new image for the U.S.
One of the consistent objections to the Bush candidacy was that, but for the last name, he'd be a failed oilman and a mediocre ball team owner.
Apply that same logic to Hillary: But for the last name, she'd be a name partner at the Rose law firm, teaching Womens Studies on the side.
Somehow, Hillary wants us to believe that cohabitating with someone, having sex with them (at least once that we can be sure of), and accompanying them on overseas trips has allowed her to absorb Bill's experience by observation and osmosis. Riiiight.
I actually want to see a Constitutional amendment barring anyone of any blood or marital relation to a Federal office holder from holding a Federal office. I'm tired of seeing Dodds, Clintons, Bushes, and Bonos in the system. These people are poisoned by their proximity to the political system, and should not be allowed to participate at that level.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Obama earned my vote based on his Internet/Technology policies. All the other canidates (especially the other party) want to destroy freedom online to protect us from the evils of the Internet. Obamas plan is the only one that isn't lip service, and provides a basis for progress, not the regress we've been seeing in the latest series of bills for control of the internet.
Geek the Vote
Hey everybody, I'm from Italy, and I'm following with great interest your vote. Well, situation here isn't very good, we're approaching elections for the second time in 2 years. The last competition was between the 69-years old Romano Prodi and the 72-years old Silvio Berlusconi. Now Berlusconi is going to be candidated for the 5th time since 1994. Here things doesn't change. I like Obama because he's young and can be a change in the biggest and most important country in the world...
I don't think either of them would make a good president. Hillary's a name and nothing else. She's done nothing to convince me she'd be a competent leader, even compared to the likes of GWB. I still never regained any trust for her after she magically became a new yorker. Obama seems to have a better head on his shoulders and actually have some principles, but he's got dreams of disarming the populace, and doesn't even have the balls to come right out and say it.
Obama and Clinton are both competent and capable leaders. But thanks to the buffoon currently holding the office of President, the first and biggest job of the new occupant will be to unite the citizens and repair the fractures created and damage done by Bozo W. Bush. And there is so much anti-Hillary rhetoric going on (mostly by anal-retentive conservatives who think its bad that Bill lied about getting some pussy but its okay that GWB lied to start a war), that I don't think she can be that peacemaker.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I'm amazed at the amount of contradictory comments from Hilary. I can't believe that the news media isn't picking up more on this...One example is from the Florida primaries...It is wholly unfair that their delegates don't count, and she continually commented on the fact that she'd do everything she could to get their delegates counted!! (Which I don't disagree with at all, by the way)...The problem with this kind of comment is that it flies in the face of her earlier comment about the Iowa primaries, and that their delegates should be removed from the count. Kind of weird that she only wants to count the delegates in states that she wins!!
Can someone explain to me the real differences in these candidates? I've been following the primaries and I still can't find one issue where they actually differ.
Chances are, despite growing up Republican, I will vote democrat this election no matter who it is. Bush ran the republican party into the ground. But not all candidates are created equal.
Hillary is a strong traditional candidate. She is carrying out a textbook campaign. She appears to me to be very power hungry and is willing to do whatever it takes to win, but sometimes you want that in a president. I think she would make a decent/good president. I really didn't like Bill Clinton as president, but compared to Bush, the 90s look like the golden years.
Barack, though, is something different. He looks like he is honestly and thoughtfully trying to do what is best for the country. He tries to understand the issues, think through the issues, and come up with the best answer to the issue. That is something very rare. I noticed in the California debates that Hillary would say "this is my answer, it's the best! Your idea is dumb!" Barack would say "I have considered your idea and think that this would be the result of your idea, so I have another idea that doesn't have the disadvantage your idea has." He is the only candidate I have seen that actually thinks an idea through. Everybody else (Republican and Democrat) seem to just throw ideas out that sound good, without thinking about it. Obama has the potential to be one of the top presidents ever. (He may fail of course, you never know...)
I have been voting since 1992, and this is the first time I ever had a candidate that I wanted to win, as opposed to picking the lesser of two evils. (of course, I haven't voted for the winning candidate yet...)
There is nothing in the constitution that says the government must be the provider for all. We're all turning from citizens of the state, to wards of the state. It's total government control, fascism or socialism, it's all the same...we have no freedom.
Well, right now I'm leaning toward Obama but that's just a vote against Clinton (Bill, that is :))
Too bad so sad. The country may want Obama but it needs Edwards. Just look at these quotes: Sounds like part of an Obama stump speech, doesn't it? Except Bill Clinton spoke these words in 1992. And we all know what happened to him: his bold health care plan was shot down by Republicans and conservative Democrats, and he spent the rest of his presidency being hounded by the right wing.
So Mr. Hope gets elected, tries to pass something bold, only to run into the same wall of opposition. What's his follow up plan when he finds out that "brining people together" makes for a nice speech but does little to bring special interests in line? Or put it this way: if insurance companies will let people die to save money, I doubt they'd suddenly have qualms when dealing with a newly elected president. Edwards probably wouldn't have any more luck going in on the first round, but he knows it would be a fight, and it's better to lose a fight than lose a negotiation.
And I hope Obama has sent his thank you cards to the media companies for awarding him lavish coverage while ignoring John Edwards. Coming into this race, it was a given that Hillary would have a ton of press, given her background and name recognition. But the press awarded Obama, a one term Senator who made a big speech at the 2004 convention, coverage equal to Clinton while ignoring the man who finished #2 in the 2004 primary and was the VP nominee that year.
Okay, rant over. The Dems best bet is Obama, because the demoralized GOP base will turn out to vote against Hillary and hurt the Dems downticket as those voters also vote for Republican senators and representatives. The worst scenario for the Dems is Hillary v McCain. Her whole campaign is based on her "35 years of experience", which McCain blows out of the water. And the press LOVES McCain but HATES the Clintons. Oh, one last thing: the Dem that consistently polled the best against the Republican candidates was John Edwards.
The Americans have a choice between:
1) A black male president - D
2) A white female president - D
3) A white male president - R
Somehow I don't think that the Democrats are going to win this one...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupid_White_Men/Read it!
They are virtually the same candidates when it comes down to issues and policies. I know Obama runs on the "I am the guy who will bring change." and "I am so much different than any other candidate." ticket. But if you do the reading, Hillary and Obama are virtually the same candidate with differences that are so tiny, they are hardly worth mentioning. Neither of them are really progressive when it comes down to it either. Kucinich, Nader, people like that, are the real change and progressive candidates.
For Democratic voters, the question is really which one has the more viable chance at this point of defeating the Republican nominee. Personally I feel Hillary will stand a much better chance mainly because Obama hardly has a resume to begin with. He has a lot of great rhetoric but no resume to back any of it up. I think the Republicans will pounce on that and add that to all the other shady stuff they do, it'll be a huge mess.
If Obama wins, I'll still be voting for him come the election. If Hillary wins, I'll be voting for her come the election. But as they said on the Daily Show a few days back, the Democrats have the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
It still amazes me though that candidates who openly do not believe in evolution are contenders for the presidency of the United States. Wow.
I am disappointed that neither candidate has come out in favor of accelerated particle beam weapon research.
Screw the flying car - I want my death ray, the way this race is going.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Obviously you haven't heard about the viral internet smear campaign about Barack Obama "being a muslim". The facts are he had non-practicing Muslims for a father and stepfather, and attended local schools instead of expatriate schools in Indonesia. Those facts, combined the fact that he's the N-word, and enough hearsay and outright lies, are enough for most people to jump on this "Obama Is A Muslim Terrorist Trying To Dismantle The USA Or At Least It's Plausible Enough To Me That I'm Scared To Vote For Him" wagon.
Guess who's behind the smear campaign? That's right, Mike Huc^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMitt Ro^H^H^H^H^H^H^HJohn McCai^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HGeorge W. Bu^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HHillary effing Clinton. This move will all but ensure that if he is nominated, he will not be elected.
If she makes it (which she almost certainly will) I am voting green. At least the Republican that will be taking office next January is a bit more moderate than the incumbent.... I hope....
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
If I was American, I'd vote for which ever candidate has ACTUALLY read the Patriot Act. Anyone? Anyone? No? Oh right... only the person who typed it actually knows what it says.
Ok, then who is the strongest candidate AGAINST it?
Cause he's super serial about manbearpig!
Any of the Democrats (including those who've dropped out) is far better than any of the Republicans (including those who've dropped out).
I'm just pissed that we'll have to live through all this bickering for another ten months before it's over.
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
Clinton comes from a legacy of cheating and very shady politics. Whitewater... any viable witness against the Clinton regime has either committed suicide or "been in a plane crash" ... (how often do Air Force C-130's crash into the side of mountains? -- about as often as a key witness in a huge political/criminal case fly on one). Hillary and Wal-Mart, "mandatory" healthcare - are they going to force me to get it? FORCE? She sought and won a senate seat from the only state in which she knew she had a chance, even if she had never lived there. I'm drawing a bit of a conclusion here... but when a major ore mining company uses Bill Clintons contacts to land billions of dollars in contracts, THEN Bill's charity gets a donation... I call shenanigans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22926743 . She lives in the same house as him, and he would live in the same house as her. The entire Clinton regime scares me. Old, rehashed ideas. No clear guidance to our future. Old Washington bad habits simply renewed. We need something different.
...but there are a lot more young people who are tired of being made to feel as if they're political nonpersons, a worthless demographic that never actually gets out the vote.
Have you seen the number of young voters Obama's brought out to the primaries? I'm not worried about the bigots... not at all.
I don't think it's exactly a conspiracy, I think it has more to do with the recognition the second candidate gets from the first. Similar to advertising, people find themselves asking "<insert name of no-name candidate> who?"
Hillary is the last candidate I would ever vote for because of this. The founding fathers decided against a system of Kings and queens, princes and other royalty.. Not to get too idealistic, but I think that there are other people out there, with new ideas that deserve a shot at running the country.
I was watching this on youtube this morning. And I was thinking that the only thing stopping us from being a great country again is fear and pessimism.
We Democrats have picked safe losers too many times. Kerry and Gore, Mondale, Dukakis, and on and on. I've got a lot of respect for them, and think many of them would have done much better than the Republicans they lost to. But we picked them because they seemed inevitable. Because they weren't too extreme. Because they won a couple of small states early in the campaign and the other guys ran out of steam.
Tomorrow, for the first time in decades, most of the country will actually get to vote on our nominee. And we will have the same choice: do we dare to nominate a real Democrat? Do we have enough hope to nominate the candidate that inspires us, that could lead our country back to greatness?
Obama got my vote a week ago. I'm still a little afraid of the dirty tricks I know are coming from the other side. But I'm hopeful that Obama will be able to rise above the muck, and inspire the country the way he's inspired me.
-Esme
Once we get a candidate that can honestly answer "yes" to "Do you use Emacs or vi?", I'll vote for him without any further questions.
I'm an old guy who likes Obama's inspiration but who remembers when a very young John F. Kennedy went to Vienna and was bullied by Nikita Kruschev. The result was the Cuban Missle Crisis and a near nuclear war. I wonder how Obama would respond if, for example, the Chinese Communists decide to invade Taiwan a year after the Beijing Olympics, and threaten the US with bankruptcy if the US defends Taiwan militarily, as the US must by treaty. The Chinese could do that by dumping the bonds on the market that they have been buying that George W. has been selling to finance the war in Iraq. Hillary and McCain would both probably finagle their way and not be bullied. How green is Obama?
I can't remember the source, but I once heard the presidential lineup has already been foreseen.
George Bush
Bill Clinton
George W Bush
Hillary Clinton
Jeb Bush
Chelsea Clinton
Followed by another Bush.
America, Please, NO!
I believe that Hillary Clinton has the most experience and a deeper understanding of the issues we are faced with, but more that this I believe that she is motivated to be president by and sincere and intelligent desire to improve the condition of this country and the average American Worker. She has not spent her life in the pursuit of power and wealth. I believe she is motivated to return the United States again the most forward thinking and creative nation on the earth. I feel that she will bring us towards energy independence and improve the economy of this country. I also know that she has the best understanding of the health care issues confronting us.
...Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton is (a) depressing and (b) bad for the country.
Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton is the ultimate in political lameness and national bankruptcy. It's ridiculous. I'll vote for Obama, McCain, or even Romney rather than have the same two families in power for 30 years.
Otherwise, we might as well start printing the Jenna 2032! bumper stickers...
Advice: on VPS providers
Clinton's stance of censoring video games particularly irritates me.
Of course they're just games, but only nuts or polititians who want to believe they did a good job think games are at fault for real life violence.
it makes my phsycially ill to think of a another Clinton in the White House. What the devil in going here? Are these people the goddamned Stuarts and the Burgundys?
the next step from Hillary in the White House is Chelsea marrying one of Jeb's boys to reconcile the bloodlines. I may need to go throw up now.
help keep America free of hereditary rulers- vote against Clinton.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Don't worry about a combined ticket -- Sens. Obama and Clinton clearly do not like each other, and I absolutely do not see them on one ticket together.
No matter who the nominee is, my current best bet for the VP candidate for the Democrats is Mark Warner, the former governor of Virginia. He's a governor, he's a Southerner, and he's a white guy. (He's running for Senate himself, so I don't know if he would consider withdrawing from that race or what, but I guarantee you he's on some short lists.)
I'm a registered Democrat, and find myself having trouble being excited about any candidate. The primary reason I am a Democrat is because I believe a strong public education system is vital to our future success. Personally, I really like a few things that have been done here in MN recently, like mandating online grades and showing parents how to get on and get a real-time report on how their kids are doing. I'd also like to see some progress on fossil fuel reduction. I think nuclear power would go a long way on that in the short term, yet both candidates avoid the topic out of fear from environmentalists.
I guess I'm left with Obama as my choice simply because he hasn't been a strong supporter of media censorship like Clinton has. But I am not terribly impressed with his experience and don't hear a lot of substance in his speeches, mostly abstract ideas like "change" and "moving forward".
Given that Republicans gave us George Bush for 8 years, it will be a long time before I look to them for an inspiring candidate.
Either one would do a great job. Hillary has an encyclopedia like knowledge of the issues. She's a political genius, and could probably be a great, though not very inspiring president. Competence and energy are her strong points. I don't see her screwing things up. Very pragmatic.
Obama, now he's something else. He is a leader. He can inspire us to live up to expectations, not like bush who expected us to live down to expectations. He has a good heart, he knows how to use the bully pulpit. He has brought into the political arena, the youth. What he may lack in experience, he makes up for with intelligence and heart. I fully support an Obama/Hillary ticket. It can change order to a Hillary/Obama ticket, as long as Obama is the front man on selling ideas.
Edwards belongs in the cabinet. AG? Health and Human Services? HUD? Labor Department? OSHA? Put him where he can help the most.
photosMy Photostream
I admit I haven't spent a lot of time dissecting Clinton and Obama's respective differences. This is partly because I live in Michigan and didn't get a vote that counted this year anyway. And my vote would have gone to Edwards, but he wasn't on my ballot and then he dropped out.
That said, I think the big stuff is what matters. The two big issues are the war and health care.
I'd favor Obama because I think he is the most likely of the two to start pulling troops out of Iraq immediately upon taking office. I know Clinton has said she will end the war but -- I admit this is merely a gut feeling -- I could see her compromising on this.
And I'd favor Clinton because her health care plan is more progressive. I support single-payer health care and her plan comes closest. Obama is attacking her from the right on this, which (as Paul Krugman points out) is something progressive Obama supporters don't seem to understand.
So my two big issues are split 50/50. Which would I vote for if I actually got to choose? I don't actually know. Tough call.
"I don't trust any of them. They all want the job, which should be enough in itself to disqualify them."
Funny you should say that. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan tells people he'd like to propose a Constitutional Amendment, stating that "anyone willing to do the ridiculous things necessary to become President is hereby banned from that office".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
What i want to know is what he is actually going to change and how.
Visiting his website includes mindless droll like he will promote civil liberties, which i didn't realize was a nationwide issue.
I have yet to have a fanatical obama supporter tell me what he is in fact going to change ...please please prove me wrong.
In the political theater that America is, do you think either candidate can possibly win? The U.S. is extremely conservative and neither colored person nor a woman has any chance. Democrats are doomed.
"His chances are so slim because of logic like this."
His chances are nill, and its all because of Mike Gravel, no one else. There is no conspiracy here. He's addressed the public, and been found wanting as a candidate. Same thing with Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter. All have small, rabid followings, and none have topped 5 percent nationally. The onus is on them to convince people they're viable. Nothing annoys me in a campaign more than Candidate X's followers pointing their finger at me and saying "well, he'd have more support if you'd just get behind him!". Well, he didn't convince me, and it's not my job to carry him. Its his job to gain a following, no one else's.
No matter how you might be attracted to their ideas, not enough other people are supporting them to give them a viable campaign. While I personally think the MSM has their favorites, they can't completely control the election process. Two months ago, they'd written John McCain and Barack Obama off completely. Funny how real voters (and not polls) have a way of deciding things for themselves.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I actually agree with your conclusion (given the false dichotomy you've given) to prefer Bob to have to pay for insurance. That said...
What kind of heartless asshole thinks only people who have money should get treated at a hospital? Money is far from the best measure of the worth of a person. Yes, there is a disproportionate number of worthless people who have no money. HOWEVER, there are also a disproportionate number of worthless people who are stinking rich. And there are a disproportionate number of wonderful people who are a great boon to humanity who have almost no money. People much better than I: all of the people out there teaching Head Start, all the people out there volunteering in the Peace Corps, working at rehab centers, and just plenty of normal people working the job within their abilities that helps the most, while raising decent children. If I don't have the fortitude to take the loss of income to go do the right thing, at least I can work towards a society that supports those who do.
we're being ruled by a communist dictator (supreme leader Broon) over here, stop blowing up Iraqistan and help us here!
"Neo, follow the white rabbit"
"Can i eat the white rabbit?"
"No, there is no spoon to eat it with"
That is quite clearly within the intent of natural born citizen, being that its purpose is to prevent foreign influence. As for obama...i have no clue
Given that you have limited yourself to the candidates discussed by the FCC-censored media (either one of which could have authored "Mein Kampf") it's a toss-up.
Let me explain: Given the option, I'd toss them both out the 6th floor window of the old Book Depository building.
Andy
This story is to discuss the remaining democratic candidates for president. Please keep discussions limited to talk about Hillary and Obama. Keep discussions of the other party in the other story.
In the other posting about the Republican candidates, not a single candidate is referred to by first name:
This is the Republican half- please only discuss the republican candidates in this story. Huckabee, McCain, and Romney only.
Why single out Sen. Clinton by first name? Because, like it or not, the reaction most people have to her is highly personal and somewhat visceral -- and most always partly negative. I don't claim to know why that is, but it probably relates to the old "talk radio" chestnut of demeaning a President by refusing to make him "presidential". President Clinton was consistently referred to as "Bill" or "Willy" by those who had an ax to grind with him in order to remind people that he was just a... I don't know -- a person, I guess... whose presence in the office of President was somehow an insult. The same goes for those people who refer to President Bush as "George" or spit the mononom "Bush" as if it were an insult.
Sen. Clinton absolutely has been tarnished by her association with her husband, and the resulting way that she gained a reputation as a "first-name-only" figure as part of the "Bill and Hillary" couplet -- or, God help us, the "Billary" conglomeration. And regardless of whether she is capable of the office (she certainly is), she's gained her status over time as someone who -- strangely -- can be demeaned by the use of her first name. She's got a huge uphill battle.
I had a conversation with my fervently Republican father the other day where I mentioned the Democratic field and talk about comparing both Sens. Clinton and Obama's positions on key issues. His response? "Well, I'd vote for either of those guys (sic) just to keep Hillary out of there." He's lost the ability to connect her last name with her first name. And, strangely, so have our Slashdot editors. How can Sen. Clinton get past that?
You do remember Billary right? Hillary was really the one in charge the last time around :D And I for one would like to see her in charge once again. But come to think of it anyone upon this planet could do a better job then whats currently in DC at the moment!
Wine-Reviews Windows Applications and Games on Linux and Mac
I was going to come over and say "Vote for Ron Paul!!!!!1one!, because that's what's going on over in the Republican discussion (over and over and over again).
But it looks like you all have your own Ron Paul, so never mind...
Hill-dog cried again, this time in Connecticut. I guess since it worked so well last time, her advisers told her to shed another tear. How lame is it that this kind of crap makes the news?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
At this point, either one is so vastly superior to anything on the other side, or to anything we've seen in the last 7+ yaers, that it'd be a privilege to have either one of them in the Oval Office. Last week's debates really put a fine point on this fact.
:-)
Having them both in the White house (Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton) would be even better
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Clinton's campaign, when asked about supporting free/open debates, said:
"Calling for free debates might be seen as opposing copyright."
Also note that B.Clinton signed DMCA, URAA, and the Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act.
Comparing that to Obama, who met with Lessig, and signed a letter saying the the debates should be in a Creative Commons license.
Who Disney would vote for?
What about parties you ignorant anus-smelling-like fuckface? There are a lot of other political parties, not just the republi-crats. Howzabout a forum dedicated to Libertarians, so maybe people can learn about and discuss what a political party's goals should be.
Oh, yeah, right - go ahead and mod me a troll for pointing out someone else's ignorance.
Politicians love to talk about reform, especially when they dont particularly plan to implement it. Bush runs his mouth about engineering and science in america, yet where is the money? There is no doubt that unless we begin to boost funding for education in science and tech in america, we will continue to fall lower in the ranks of # of graduates per capita compared to asia and europe. It is time for a democratic president, and Obama is the proscience-est candidate. Fellow Nerds, lets put him in office.
Generally I find that Obama is closer to my principles of the major Democratic candidates.
Specifically, I find that he seems younger and more in touch with the tech issues. He also has less of a censor "bad" videogames stance. I also prefer his stronger "get out of Iraq" stance, though this might make it harder in the general election. Finally, his position on more involvement by interested individuals, and more info on the internet re government spending is exciting to me as well.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
Hillary Clinton is definitely anti-American-tech-worker, so I will never vote for her. I don't know enough about Barack Obama, yet, but I am hopeful.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I thought you meant Jenna Jameson for president! Victory ! But then i saw 2032, and I knew something was wrong. But you must admit a slogan like "White House, here i come", would be cool on so many levels. :)
I take my children to see Madonna(..), but I never for once ever thought I was in the same business.Chris Rea.
These two shirts say it all:
Barack Obama: Half Honkey, All Donkey
Bros Before Hoes
In response to both you and the grandparent, don't forget that people without medical insurance do not get regular checkups or see doctors when they are still cheap to treat, but instead go to the ER when it's green and about to fall off.
With topics like this, will Slashdot become Slashdotted?
:-D)
Passions, and not intellect, will run high, and we will get mucho-useless posts. (not unlike this one
Sure he is! The e-mail says so, it must be true! Just like the other e-mail says I'll be getting 15% of $500,000,000 from the Nigerian Lottery if I just help this nice young man move the funds out of that country....... all he needs are my ACH numbers, what could possibly go wrong?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I know this goes against the prevailing wisdom that they are all crooks, and they probably are, but one of these idiots will be the president. I'm voting for Obama, here's why:
I liked president Clinton. I thought he was a "good" president. He did a good job in the office. 8 years of relative peace is a good thing. Did he have scandals? Yes, but nothing like Nixon or the shrub. Was he perfectly squeeky clean? No, of course not. He had his crap. But I honestly felt like he took the job seriously. I know that may sound naive, but everyone is corrupt at some level, we have to expect that, but we should also expect that people will do the job, otherwise, what's the point at all?
Hillary, I used to like her, but over the years, I think we've seen an idealistic liberal being corrupted to a power hungry cynical power broker. I think the same goes for Bill as well. I'm kind of sad that The clintons have really diminished themselves in this race.
I liked Biden and Dodd, but neither of them has an ounce of Charisma. Edwards, I liked despite the used-car-salesmen presentation. I Liked what he was saying. If only he didn't sound like he was trying to sell me an old Buick.
So, that leaves Obama. I don't think he can do any worse than the shrub or any of the other candidates, so, via con dios!
So show some respect.
:)
Personally, I think her campaign motto ought to consist of the old WWII recruiting poster of Uncle Sam saying "I want you!". Only the words should be changed to "I want to offshore you!".
Emacs in vi-mode. Obviously.
And there's nothing to the rumor that he learned pico in an Indonesian madrassa.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I hate Hillary because when deregulation in Ohio caused the Great Blackout of 2003, she was really quick to blame Canada (blame Canada, with their beady little eyes and flapping heads so full of lies).
You can't take the sky from me...
I don't think we could stand another 4 years of anyone as stubborn as bush. One of the things his supporters loved was how he could not be swayed and his sticktoedness. I think it is difficult to judge how much flip-flopping is good, but bush has demonstrated some is absolutely necessary.
This is why DC, Puerto Rico, & the other territories will not get full voting delegates in Congress. DC & Puerto Rico are certain to vote Democratic, and the Republicans don't want that.
The other territories, like Guam & Samoa, are so small that a Senate seat would be easy to manipulate. Any Earmarks to them would be too expensive, just to ship the goods to them!
If you want DC residents to be heard, then go campaign in Maryland or Virginia. You can influence *their* votes! Better yet, you can get MD & VA Congressional delegates to listen to you in exchange.
"Willy Wonka for President! The Oompa Loompas will rule!"
Elections like this have turned from voting for your favorite candidate to voting for who you dislike the least...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
I write sci-fi for metalheads
"As president, I will order an immediate review of our overseas deployments - in dozens of countries. The longstanding commitments we have made to our allies are the strong foundation of our current peace. I will keep these pledges to defend friends from aggression. The problem comes with open-ended deployments and unclear military missions. In these cases we will ask, "What is our goal, can it be met, and when do we leave?" As I've said before, I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our allies to take a broader role. We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties. This is not our strength or our calling."
- George W. Bush
Thursday, September 23, 1999
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I've been following this pretty closely. My Ex and I have been discussing it and we feel that Hillary Clinton is the best choice. Not because she's the most liberal on technology choices, but that she's the best 'leader' for us at this point.
Obama may be inspiring to some people, but several of the steps he's taken and way he's brought up have really worried us.
He was the one that tried to make it a 'racial issue' and then tried to play nice on that. His wife's demand that he only run this once and the fact that he said that he was letting his advisors run things, not telling them what to do was very worrying.
Then there is his voting record where he has been remarkably wishy-washy in the middle or essentially abstaining from many choice.
So that paints me a picture where he's not fully his own man and is letting his political machine be in charge.
Compare that to Hillary, who not only has her own political carreer, but has experience with the Presidential office as the partner of the Bill and Hillary political team. Who failed to get a national health care plan passed a decade ago... when we needed it. And because I believe we are going to need a fairly tough-minded person to make some hard choices... and that is going to be Hillary Clinton.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Dude, the founders never desired a pure democracy, even if the techonology were available. Why do you think we use the electoral college system? Why are the senate rules designed so that the minority may prevail? For details one what they considered when forming the Constitution, read the Federalist and Anti-federalist Papers. The last thing they wanted was mob-rule (which is what they considered pure democracy to be). I think the French Revolution gave a good example of why a pure democracy is not desirable.
To be fair, most of the people buying into this have a difficult time distinguishing 24 from reality. This is also why they support torture.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
With all the bickering that characterize the last couple of debates, spending an hour on youTube did little to persuade me on way or the other. They candidates seem too focus on telling me what the other candidate said that they neglected to speak to me. I guess that is politics nowadays but it does not help me. So I decided to look at the candidates beyond their campaign to make my decision.
Hillary Clinton is certainly a intelligent and strong woman. Not many First Ladies have decide to move on in politics after their husbands departed the Oval Office. She certainly is no quiet housewife. I would support Hillary except for one problem- her vote on the Iraq War. I am not so much focus on the vote itself by why she made that decision. If she had read the pre-war assessment, she would have obviously concluded that military action was not needed. I wonder if she voted for the war so as not to look too weak (to womanly?) in a post 9/11 Rovian politics. In any rate, when Americans were scared and confused, she failed to provide any leadership or objectivity. I haven't found any other examples where she has provided leadership to get something done for Americans. With a recession looming, I don't believe she can provide leadership when we face uncertainty.
Barack Obama has not done much yet either in his tenure as Senate. But paradoxically, his very lack of season among other things is why I believe he should be President. Barack Obama is an African American in a country that has never came close to electing a black President. Four years ago, I didn't even know his name. Yet, in those years, he has gone from a local phenomenon to a serious contender for the Democratic nomination. He has been able to inspired fellow politicians, donors, and followers to create strong national campaign despite being so new and inexperience. His ability to do that is unique amongst those who had ever vie for the White House and is what sets him above Hillary Clinton. We,as a country, need person that can build great things with very little in a short period of time. His charisma has already given me hope for the future.
I have no faults with Hillary Clinton but I do have concerns with her as President. Her very supposed strength had yielded very little accomplishment in her time in the Senate. I don't know how she is going to get any of her well-planned promises enacted by Congress. Barack Obama has little credit to his name as well but that is not what I expect from him. I expect him to create a broad coalition to help move this country forward. I believe that he can break Rovian politics and unify this country. His lack of experience can be mitigated by a well chosen administration that will develop strong plans to deal with our issues.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
"Some people now think that this was a very clear, open-and-shut case. We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors. We had evidence that they had a lot of bad stuff for a very long time which we discovered after the first Gulf War. Knowing that he was a megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do. So, I think I made a reasoned judgment. Unfortunately, the person who actually got to execute the policy did not."
Hillary either has the experience in her "term" in the white house, or she is ignorant.
There was no reason to invade Iraq. If Hillary has or had the experience, she knew damn well that Iraq wasn't a threat. There was no link to Al-Qaeda. The UN weapon inspections had worked and ascertained a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. We went in there, and guess what? No WMDS... surprise, surprise...
What did she expect was going to happen when giving an administration, who was outright lying about intelligence, authorization to go to war and to preemptively invade? Could she not see the megalomaniac(s) that were in the executive office? After all the inspections and dealings with Iraq during the Clinton administration she could not see though the Bush administration's bullshit? Come on.
Either she made the vote for her own political gain, or she believed in the actual rational behind the invasion, that perhaps US economic hegemony was more important than the lives of our US service men and women and the lives of countless Iraqi civilians.
I for one, will not support Clinton.
Here's a good link on this topic:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/02/6802/
What about Mike Gravel? Is he automatically disqualified for being exactly what the people want? By not including him in this discussion you are allowing the media to choose our candidates for us, as long as you are satisfied with that, then fine.
Reportedly that rumor came from a couple staffers for Clinton's campaign, who were duly fired.
Being a good cynic and student of politics, I wonder if it was just a couple rogue staffers. The rumor damages Obama's reputation among the gullible and bigoted (have to consider Republican voters for the main election), and firing a couple of redshirts makes Clinton look good for ostensibly trying to run a clean campaign. But I could be wrong.
As for me, I'm voting tomorrow and trying to decide if I want to vote Paul or Obama.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
While Hillary Clinton has clearly been able to get more of the white-woman vote and, at least in South Carolina, Obama has been getting more of the African-American vote I wouldn't let that be much of a factor. In other contests both have been able to get a respectable portion of most demographics (I think the main weak point for Obama has been getting the Hispanic vote).
While Hillary Clinton isn't going to get any Republican votes in a national election, I'm not sure how many Obama would get either. The main difference would be Republican turnout and who would be more likely to get the independent vote. I think Hillary would motivate Republicans to turn out in droves, even for McCain (despite what they may say now about not liking McCain, I think they would still prefer him by far over Clinton). Every Republican I've talked to hates Hillary whereas they don't have any feelings towards Obama.
On the other hand, I don't think either Clinton has ever lost an election and they have a good network and tons of experience with political contests. One reason Republicans hate the Clintons is because they're 'political whores' willing to do or say whatever to win. I don't agree with them but conceed that they generally will be more willing to 'get dirty' during an election as opposed to other democrats. I think a swift-boat type of attack on Hillary wouldn't work nearly as well as it did against Kerry because they would respond with their own, more effective swift-boat type of attack (rather than ignore it as Kerry did). I'm not saying that's a good thing, but if you're worried about electability that should be a factor.
Personally, I'm rooting for Obama. I won't be too upset if either of them wins though since in policy they are theoretically pretty similar. While Obama has a clean slate, the Clintons have generally been good at admitting their mistakes (I know, with the one glaring exception of Hillary's vote on Iraq). If you don't believe me, read their books. Bill Clinton admitted almost every mistake I'm aware of during his presidency. That's important to me since the only way you can improve is by admitting your prior mistakes and learning from them. Whereas W. has admitted what mistakes? None as far as I know and certainly not as explicitly as Bill Clinton has.
It's not often that someone comes along and supports just about everything I could want (and actually be sincere, with a track record to prove it!). I could do without the "earned path to immigration" crap and the small push for gun control, but that's about all democrats at this point. Outside of that however, the guy is great. Sadly, the media did a great job of outright ignoring him. And when not ignoring him, they were taking his comments out of context for the express purpose of making him look like a lune. But hey, that's corporations for you... they don't like him because he doesn't want them to have rights far surpassing that of an average citizen as they currently do.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Guess who's behind the smear campaign? That's right, Mike Huc
Why are you blaming the smear campaign on the republicans? any proof? If they were going to do this smear wouldn't they wait till AFTER he was nominated. All this does is push Hillary out in front and make the smear pointless from a republican point of view. This is obviously Clinton camp.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
Those few rare Americans who don't always vote for the home team, ur, party will generally vote for the candidate that they dislike the least. That's why I vote for Cthulu - I'm tired of voting for the LESSER of two evils.
Yea, ok, old joke, but it just had to be said.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Speaking as a Scot I'm no doubt both biased and ignorant. But as a regular visitor to the US and an admirer of what used to be US principles (love that Constitution of yours; I"m ever so pleased Scots were involved in writing) here's some thoughts you'll probably find echoed around the world:
Vote. Don't stoop to bullshit about how it makes no difference. There are thousands dead who wouldn't have been with only a few more votes for Gore.
Whatever you do, get out and vote Democrat for the sake of the world. There simply cannot be any excuse for sending more of your own people to a needless death than died in the original terrorist attack. The Republicans can only be punished for this by losing the election. If they win, there will be an incredible disbelieving groan of despair heard around the world as America. The death of your own requires accountability. No-one should consider voting Republican in November - leave that until 2012.
Everyone wishing Ron Paul will miraculously win the Republican nomination - see above even if he does. But also, your belief system doesn't make sense to many of us. A society that has little obligation to its children, and religious groups should fill in the gaps rather than the state - this doesn't make sense to any Western country except the US. Please stop putting religion at the heart of economic politics.
Don't get hung up on minor policy differences. Whether is Hillary or Barack, there will be no significant difference in policy over the next 4 - 8 years whichever one you pick.
The *success* of those policies will depend on the next President being a leader that can inspire the parties and the people to work together. All evidence suggests that the Republicans will not let Hillary be that leader. They certainly have had any problems destroying their own country over the past few years. No matter your views on Hillary - she's a dangerous choice for reasons she can't control.
I believe on that logic that Barack Obama is your no-brainer choice.
I may just be rationalising a personal instinct. I've watched a lot of his speeches and even some of his wife's since he won in Iowa. He's a great speaker. He seems an honest, intelligent, principled person. He makes you think the US might once again become the leader of the free world because it stands for something, rather than just courtesy of being a superpower. He connects with the idea of how Lincoln and JFK were young, principled leaders that helped define America. He gets past the cynicism and is intelligent, hard working and not afraid of being called "naive". He has no track record of failure or cronyism. All that is powerful stuff. Any experienced person knows that getting things done is difficult, takes compromise, picking your battles and having to let some goals drop off the priority list. But when things are basically really shitty, the competence to do at that isn't enough. You need a leader that appeals on an emotional level too. Barack has got that appeal far in excess of any other candidate.
I work for an American company, I've studied at Columbia, I'm a regular visitor and was in Texas for New Year visiting friends. I'm not anti-American. But seriously, people, your country is just such a failure right now on so many levels. I wouldn't want to live there, because the cynicism is depressing. The US is a failure not in comparison to other countries, but compared to what you can be. It's going to take more than policy to change that. I think a lot of people around the world see Barack as the best hope for you to become a champion once again.
This is obviously Clinton camp.
And if you read my entire post, you'll find that's exactly what I said.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
As a matter of fact, I am. First off, it wouldn't be fifty bucks a month in the US. Second, what part of "it's my money" don't you understand? I worked for it, I earned it, therefore it is my property. What gives you or anybody else the right to dispose of my property in my name?
Guess what: you don't have the right. You might outvote me, and the government might outgun me, but that doesn't give you the right to take my property and throw it away chasing after some illusory "common good". If you want to claim that the government has the right because most of the people want it to do so, then take your "might makes right" approach to ethics and go back to kindergarten.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Awhile back I was leaning toward Clinton, but she said a few things that lost me pretty quickly. First, at one of the debates the candidates were asked why people should vote for them. Each candidate responded in turn, talking about the things they would do for the country and why they were the ones for the job. Then they got to Clinton, who said "because I'm the one with the experience to win." I'm paraphrasing, of course, but there was really not much more to her response than that (in either content or word count). Voting for the candidate who can win for the sole reason that he or she can win is monumentally stupid, and when I heard Clinton urging voters to do just that I had to put my hands over my ears to keep IQ points from falling out of my head.
That made me wary, but I chalked it up to the inevitable campaign trail gaffe. But then she started picking fights with Obama over nothing in an effort to get him off-message. Not only did he stay on-message, for the most part, but he did it with poise. When Clinton not only wasn't wise enough to stop, but got her husband involved, her whole campaign began to look like a group of playground bullies picking on the smart kid. Had Obama gone negative along with her then I might still be a Clinton supporter, but as it was he came off looking like a guy who genuinely cares about the country and wants to do the right thing while Clinton and her camp now look to me like a pack of trolls who see the White House as their birthright.
So in a pretty short span I've gone from leaning toward Clinton and hoping for a Clinton/Obama ticket to being a strong Obama supporter hoping for an Obama/Anybody But Clinton ticket. I know a handful of other voters that Clinton lost over the course of the last month, so I'm hopeful and cautiously optimistic that Obama will wrap it up tomorrow. Then maybe Clinton will stop shredding the few tatters that remain of Democratic party unity.
See his blog: 4Barack.
This is a very good!
Yes We Can!
Yes We Can!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Leave it to a libertarian to screw up and not follow simple directions about posting. You can't POSSIBLY be older than 30, to have such a naive and reductive worldview. I know the "Rage Against the Machine" lyrics you're probably cribbing from might tell you otherwise, but other people making money besides you isn't a bad thing. Want to argue against corporate welfare, or against biased election laws? That's absolutely fine, but you didn't really do that, did you? You lack the eloquence and you most certainly lack the political clout to make us care what you think, if you're really a Ron Paul booster.
Hillary claiming to be a force of change makes me laugh. After more then a year on the campaign trail, she still can't bring herself to say her vote to authorize military action in Iraq was a mistake. Now she wants to force everyone to buy health insurance? Isn't home owner's and car insurance enough of a burden? The insurance companies are the problem, they should be non-profits where people are forced to buy insurance. Her 1994 health insurance plan did get implemented: ask any military person about TriCare.
Obama on the other hand hasn't been part of the national political establishment for the past 15 years, so when he speaks of change it's at least somewhat believable.
Edwards went the popularist route, which never flies with the parties, sadly.
Kucinich is the most correct candidate, but he also threatens the status quo the most.
When the delegates are counted tomorrow, I predict Obama will end up with a slight edge over Billary, which will be a huge boost for him. Hillary will continue to falter in the later states and Obama will get the nomination, because by the convention, the Dem party will have realized just how unelectable she is (and at least some of the superdelegates switch to him).
I don't believe it's in Hillary's nature to accept a VP position, so so Edwards is Obama's likely choice. Those two can bring the Democrats out of their dementia.
I'm also pulling for some combination of Al Gore, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd as cabinet members.
Clinton and Obama are both viable candidates for the presidency. Unfortunately, I foresee the Democratic party running the winner and runner up in their primary as running mates. This will frighten away voters. The American people are afraid of too much change. A woman and a black man on the same ticket will ruffle enough bits of the populace that we will have 4 years of President McCain.
...I would strongly adice some healty parliamentarism instead of the two party system.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
Probably for the same reason there isn't a record of your birth available online -- birth certificates generally aren't public records.
What, the press might have done shoddy research, made mistakes, or printed articles with an agenda?! The horror! Who else knows about this?!
Have you checked with the Federal Election Commission, or are you just spreading FUD because you're too cheap to spend $25 on public records and/or a FOIA request?
16th century - 1501 to 1600.
The English haven't even built their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, so I think the US was far from "being conceptualized" in the 16th century.
The American War of Independence was fought in the late 18th century.
He's still running, don't forget.
I think a woman ambitious enough to not have divorced her husband after what he did just to obtain power is a very VERY dangerous person. Plus, Obama looks like a smart, down to earth guy, at least from South America.
I'm voting for Hillary, because she's got the biggest tits.
They didn't really ignore Kucinich. They did everything they could to marginalize his campaign. While other candidates were asked about political issues in debates, he was asked about UFO's. MSNBC UN-Invited him to a debate in Nevada and pushed a decision of the Nevada Supreme Court (in less than 24 hours), and pulled the televised debate from the broadcast airwaves to make certain that he wouldn't have a valid complaint through the FCC. They aren't ignoring him. They're just making sure that we do.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
It's Obama, silly. Obama has dark skin, and all dark-skinned people are muslims! Did you not know that? Plus, his name sounds like Osama, and Osama is a muslim. QED.
:P
(Disclaimer: The above is sarcasm. Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ, which is, very surprisingly, Christian.)
To complete the +5 Informative karma-whoring: Mike Gravel is a Unitarian Universalist and Hillary Clinton a United Methodist. Great Uniters, all three of them.
Obama Is A Muslim Terrorist Trying To Dismantle The USA
My dad is one of those people. But according to various web forms asking me how I feel about issues, Obama is my best pick since Kucinich stepped out of the race. And even if Hillary was listed above Obama I'd most likely stil pick him because I want to see someone other than Bush/Clinton in office. Maybe it's silly, but I don't want our country under a two-family government for such a long time. I was certainly happier with Bill Clinton than I am with Dubya, but still...
It is true that we live in a world where perception carries more weight than reality, but Obama is simply not the uniter he frames himself to be. His Pollyanna approach to reaching across the aisle and dealing with entrenched Republican leaders is unrealistic and, worse, has already proven an abject failure during his few years in the Senate.
Consider Obama's letters to John McCain on bipartisan lobbying reform. Be sure to read McCain's absolutely withering reply to the junior Senator.
This demonstrates two things: First of all, it says that John McCain is probably not a very pleasant or reasonable man on the job; he is an aged Republican with tenure who is unafraid to play the "Don't you know who I am?" card when approached by someone who is relatively new to the political game. But that's practically to be expected. The real indictment is of Obama, who clearly does not know the first thing about how to deal with people like McCain, which is critical to his actually being able to pass the legislation he has promised the American people.
Hillary Clinton, in contrast, has the political clout and the experience on the hill to work with an often intractable Congress to get the Democratic agenda passed and to usher in a new era. I say "Democratic" agenda, because--as both candidates will readily admit, there are very few differences between what Hillary and Obama propose. Really, their stated goals about health care reform, equitable tax rates, and so on are a callback to what real Democrats have been trying to get passed for at least the last 12 years. (Just as an aside, in this day and age, there is NO credible reason why U.S. citizens should not have access to universal health care, just like literally every other leading nation. But we can thank a Republican congress and a complicit President for that.)
Because of the similarity of their proposals, Obama supporters who dislike Hillary tend to dislike her personally and never argue compellingly against her views. That's fine, Obama supporters--you're allowed to like or dislike any candidate for any reason at all. But just understand that when you're not engaging the issues, you've done little more than turn the presidential race into an inane popularity contest. ("I don't like her, and he can talk in public places to groups of people...just like every other politician!")
Many Obama supporters tend to skew so young that they barely even remember the Bill Clinton era, and have instead latched onto the potential idea of the President being a man of color. Again, that's fine, young voters. First of all--welcome to the political discussion. It is wonderful that you've found a candidate that you feel you can rally behind. Second of all, be on your best behavior, and please try to do more to raise the level of political discourse than just claim that your candidate is good at talking to groups of people while having darker skin.
These are exciting times for the Democratic party. We have not one but two credible candidates ready and willing to hold the office. With cooperation, I'm sure we can work together to ensure that the next President will be from our party.
A pure democracy is a wonderful idea until you, too, are visited by dreams of Ruben Studdard narrowly edging out Clay Aiken for the Democratic nomination. "Who do you think should be the next American President? Text your vote to..."
The education of the United States is broken in nearly every important area, especially those which would be relevant to a national election: economics, foreign policy, military spending, healthcare statistics, basic geography, etc. Let's move for a referendum toward a true democracy AFTER we spend a trillion dollars and twenty years repairing the education system, please.
I'm funny. If you come see me perform, I will make you laugh.
... as long as it's Barack Obama!
You're not getting it. I don't give a damn how small a chunk it is out of my check: if it is taken from me without my consent (in other words, via taxation) then I will object. If I could sign a form to explicitly consent to having a small sum deducted from my pay and donated to ensure that everybody has health care, I would consider it. However, advocates of a European-style health care system don't want to allow the individual that sort of choice. They would rather use the machinery of government and its power to tax, to take from all and give no one a say in the matter.
Frankly, I resent this. I resent being pushed around, I resent being ordered around, and I resent having decisions made for me. I resent not being given a chance to choose to do the right thing. Instead, every tax levied upon me to pay for some social program is a slap in my face that says, "We don't trust you to do right by your neighbors, so we're not going to give you a choice."
I don't think you're heartless, I think you're shortsighted. As as a matter of fact, I am both heartless and nearsighted. Why do you think I wear glasses?I write sci-fi for metalheads
16th century - 1501 to 1600.
The English haven't even built their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, so I think the US was far from "being conceptualized" in the 16th century.
Perhaps you meant 18th century, which was when the American War of Independence was fought.
Careful, making up extreme examples to try to prove a point is the hallmark of bad discourse.
Why has Barack Obama himself readily conceded that Hillary Clinton did heavy lifting on a number of issues when she was first lady? I suspect it's because she actually did. Unless you're trying to imply that Obama is a liar?
Also, most people would absolutely resent your implication that a first lady cannot be an influential and politically active figure.
Gravel hasn't really gotten a lot of those "vote" things that you need to be nominated. I have as many delegates as Gravel does at this point.
Even Micheal Moore admits to that. Last time Hillary made a big fuss over healthcare, she dropped the issue for about $850K. So how much is she holding out for this time? $1.5 million?
How could anybody even consider voting for somebody who takes bribes to vote against her own issues and ideals? Hillary does not care about the USA, she just wants more money in her bank account. Bill and Hillary have been selling influence for the 35 years.
I don't care if other politicians do the same thing, I would never vote for a known sell-out.
For a long time, I was a Hillary Clinton supporter. However, in a recent debate, I heard the following exchange. This is paraphrased, but the message should be clear.
The moderator asked, "How can we support free trade with countries that do not have the same standards for protecting their citizen's rights and environment?"
Hillary Clinton replied with a few long sentences about rights, dignity, being firm, trading fairly, and all that.
Barack Obama replied, "I don't see how we have any leverage on human rights while Guantanamo Bay is still open."
The man has clearly and succinctly replied in a non-politician's manner. He made it clear that he regards Guantanamo Bay as a stain on our national character. And he indicated why simply talking about fair trade won't change things by itself.
I am a single issue voter at this point. I will vote for whomever will restore our national dignity, integrity, and sense of fair justice after years of imprisoning people for years without trial and subjecting them to waterboarding. That person is Barack Obama.
I'd like to know something about Obama. Specifically, can he admit to making mistakes? When Mrs. Clinton was repeatedly asked about her votes on the Iraq war, she refused to say "I made a mistake". She went through all sorts of contorted explanations to avoid saying it. I'm sick to death of the White House being occupied by someone who is incapable of admitting to error, for fear of appearing weak, even when a change in course is warranted.
I think zinc plating of Republicans is a bad idea.
I don't know where you're posting from, but in the US, there's no such thing as "police protection". According to the Supreme Court, the police have no duty to protect a person from harm, even if the person in question has a restraining order against an abusive ex. It's probably the same in other countries as well. Protect yourself; the police don't give a damn about you. Don't expect a law enforcement officer to protect you.
As for roads, I'd have to think about it. As I understand it, road construction and maintenance would be a natural monopoly. It probably isn't practical for two competing companies to maintain the roads in a given geographical area. However, I see no reason to trust road construction to the government, which has no incentive to squeeze as much value as possible from every dollar of revenue.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Quoth the parent:
"Obama is naive, compassionate, charismatic, and idealistic - just the kind of change in leadership this country needs."
I concur on all counts, but you could've said the same thing about Carter and, omitting the "naive" term, JFK. One killed, one led one of the less effective presidencies of the twentieth century. Hmmm.
(Don't get me wrong: Carter's a fantastic EX-president, but if you're picking presidencies to emulate, his isn't one. I happen to think there are a LOT of similarities between this election and 1976, as well. The economy is in a weird spot, we're apparently losing our edge to an Asian superpower-to-be (Japan|China), and the stock market is set to go down or be flat for a while. If only I had a Vietnam analogy...)
ceci n'est pas un sig.
Obama is fully as experienced in governance as Hillary is, and he has the added advantages of being a better speaker and having a more ideologically consistent set of positions -- of course, it may just be that I consistently don't like the ideology that underpins Hillary's positions. Finally, I firmly believe he is better positioned to run successfully against any of the Republican candidates.
Get on over to the other article, it's a Ron Paul love-in over there!
Why do we never hear mention of Obama's middle name in the media? Imagine that a person with "Hussein" in him name could be a president?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Obama
You forgot one very important point: Bob, who doesn't have health insurance (because he can't afford it, because he won't - or maybe because he once had lymphatic cancer and no no one WILL ensure him) he ends up either living essentially hand to mouth or hiding whatever assets he manages to accumulate in trusts or offshore - because the hospital DOES want their money and if he has any assets they will pursue him. Collection agencies will destroy his credit. He won't be able to buy a home, which means he'll be economically marginalized and alienated. Even if he's motivated he'll never be able to contribute the way he would if he hadn't been bankrupted by the health care system.
The notion that people are showing up at emergency rooms for health care simply because they are too cheap to buy health insurance is political propaganda.
My number one and two candidates have both left the race, so I'm already down to the bottom of the barrel. The good news is that the bottom of the Democratic Party's barrel is still an order of magnitude better than any of the Republican candidates out there, so I can vote for either of these candidates with an extremely clear conscience. There's not difference in policy between either and there are too many firsts in either candidate to have any particularly certain model of electability.
My plan is to wait until early May or so, see who seems ahead at that time and vote for that candidate (if neither are ahead, I'll flip a coin while filling out my ballot). And then I'll support and vote for whomever turns out to be the Democratic candidate in the general election. With any luck, I won't even have to decide, because I am really happy about voting for either of these candidates compared to any of their potential Republican rivals.
That is all.
Oh, I've heard about it. I just find that the best way to respond to the lowest racial/religious/etc smears is to pretend not to understand them. And maybe to hint that the smearer needs to do some research.
Though honestly, in this case, while I do understand why it would be potentially useful for various parties to slander Obama's religion, I'm not sure why anyone would believe it. I guess I'm reminded of all those spam offers of Viagra... somebody must bite, after all, or spamming wouldn't be profitable.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I really hate that Billary keeps on claiming experience when her first public office was in 2000 and Obama's was in 1996.
.. cause they actually could make it through the house and senate. Hillary's already failed to make it .. and will fail again.
My wife doesn't get to claim she is a computer programmer in her resume based on the experience of being married to me; and not only that but she thinks of herself as her own person and professes only to match 90% of my opinions, instead of trying to make herself out to be 100% like me.
Also Obama is just what america needs: a minority and who doesn't think nor act as if they beleive they are a minority and proves that if you don't give up on yourself nor let others define you, you can succeed. That whole self defeating culture that the U.S. keeps on feeding to its minority groups is pure B.S. and poisons the mind and should be thrown off.
Never mind that he has something call ethics: like not taking lobby group money, nor running in MI or FL when both states went against the Democratic party's rules.
I also like his plans for health care
In fact all his plans are well thought out and practical.
Lifes a game play to win!
So it's ok to vote for the Libertarian or Green or Whatever Party in the fall election, because that way your vote indicates who you'd actually prefer to have running things, and the Democrats will get the state's electoral votes anyway.
The primary election's a bit different case - at least three of the parties have candidates that are significantly different from each other and it could be worth picking the best of them for your party.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.
Compassion? Fuck that.
I was playing COD4 and I made a comment to my team that it was sad that more people cared about sports then who would be their next president. I got responses like "That's the gayest thing I ever heard" and "I'm too young to vote so why should I care" to "I DO care more about sports". It's all kind of sad really.
Polling data shows that, in any matchup between Republican primary candidates and Democratic Primary Candidates, that Hillary is the least likely to win a general election and that Obama is the most likely to win. this video offers basically the same argument in a more eloquent and authoritative manner. So, if you want a Democratic president next year, vote for Barack Obama. If you want a Republican president, probably the best thing to do is register as a Democrat and vote for Hillary.
[I also posted this under the GOP thread, but since this article covers both parties I'm posting twice. Hopefully you read it and see why. The most surprising thing for me was learning that Brzezinski is an adviser to Obama, since I had been considering Obama if "The Doctor" dropped out.]
Independent journalist Allan Nairn and American Conservative correspondent Kelley Beaucar Vlahos discuss a little-addressed facet of the 2008 campaign: many of the top advisers to leading presidential candidates are ex-U.S. officials involved in atrocities around the world.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/3/vote_for_change_atrocity_linked_us
[Most likely DemocracyNow can handle plenty of hits, but you never know... so here is the full transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: Presidential candidates are scrambling to win last-minute support in Iowa ahead of tonight's caucus. Thousands of reporters have also descended on Iowa this week, covering everything from Mike Huckabee's haircut to John Edwards's rally with singer John Mellencamp.
But little attention has been paid to perhaps one of the most important aspects of the candidates: their advisers, the men and women who likely form the backbone of the candidate's future cabinet if elected president. Many of the names will be familiar.
Advisers to Hillary Rodham Clinton include many former top officials in President Clinton's administration: former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Senator Barack Obama's list includes President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross.
Rudolph Giuliani's advisers include Norman Podhoretz, one of the fathers of the neoconservative movement. John McCain's list of official and formal policy advisers includes former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Colin Powell, William Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and former CIA Director James Woolsey. One of Mitt Romney's top advisers is Cofer Black, the former CIA official who now serves as vice chair of Blackwater Worldwide. Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter Elizabeth is advising Fred Thompson.
As for Mike Huckabee, it's not clear. In December, Huckabee listed former UN Ambassador John Bolton as someone with whom he either has "spoken or will continue to speak," but Bolton then revealed the two had never spoken. Huckabee also named Richard Allen, but the former National Security Adviser also admitted he had never spoken to Huckabee.
To talk more about the advisers behind the presidential campaigns, I'm joined by two guests. Kelley Vlahos is a freelance journalist in Washington. Her article on presidential advisers called "War Whisperers" appeared in The American Conservative in October. Investigative journalist Allan Nairn joins us here in the firehouse studio. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
I want to begin by going to Washington, D.C., to our guest there, to the author of "War Whisperers." Talk about why you focused, Kelley, on the advisers of the presidential candidates.
KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS: Well, it was becoming clear to me and to others here in Washington in certain circles that the advisers that were emerging for the campaigns, whether it be Democratic or Republican, were part of some seriously pro-establishment cliques. And I say "cliques," because there is really no other way to describe it. But these cliques generally can be categorized as not only pro-establishment, but more pro-interventionist, whether it be the so-called liberal interventionists on the Democratic side or your war hawks on the Republican side.
But what became clear is that the candidates weren't reaching outside of these establishment cliques and that they were getting no fresh ideas, no vision outside of these pretty standard parameters. And we th
The one thing I find appalling in the whole discussion (we are all nerds here after all right?) is the lack of feasibility of the private insurer-based solution.
According to this article in the New England Journal of Medicine, we spend 31% of health care expenditures on administrative costs for the insurance based system whereas Canada spends less than 1/3 of that. There's a huge bureaucracy created to decide who gets which health care treatment, to deny ~10% of said treatments, etc. So from a purely economic standpoint, it would cost us less money money per person to go to a European style system where the super-rich can supplement their care through private insurance.
I don't understand why so-called "fiscal conservatives" can't rally behind a policy that saves money AND gives everyone care.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
O'Bama's obviously an Irishman.
More to the point, Romney's not going to be the Republican candidate,
unless we get lucky and the Republicans decide to vote for somebody that either Hillary or O'Bama can beat.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We're due for another assassination. They happen every 50 years or so in our history. I'm not an assassin, and I don't condone assassination, and I pretty much feel bad for every assassinated US President, and I'm certainly not calling upon anyone to assassinate anyone. But I'm not the only one thinking this. Bush and Cheney live in obvious fear of being assassinated, which is why their interactions with the public are very guarded, very mediated. Bush, a lifelong baseball fan, refused to throw the opening pitch at the World Series when invited by Bud Selig. Why? Someone in the crowd would have shot him.
Right wingers of the Limbaugh/Savage variety hate Hillary Clinton. They really hate her. Remember how much people on the Left hated Nixon? Hunter S. Thompson style hate? Today's talk-radio-style right wingers hate Hillary Clinton about five times as much. They hate her a lot worse than they hate sin. Some Minuteman would shoot her within three months of taking office if she were to become president. Being president means that your picture hangs on office walls in every US military base in the world, every classroom in every military academy, every VFW hall. I taught math at a military academy in the Deep South when Bill Clinton was president, and to see some of these old Marines grit their teeth when they looked at Bill Clinton's picture was positively scary. Imagine what armed, angry, reactionary, trained sharpshooters will be looking at the Hillary's picture, multiplying their hate each time they pass the portrait. These guys trained Oswald, and he got at least two hits on a moving target from 220 yards, with one kill shot.
I hope to God that nobody harms any of the Clintons. I'm just saying that if Hillary becomes the President, we should pay careful attention to who the Vice President is.
If she gets nominated, you can be sure that Whitewater gets mentioned a lot, and Vince Foster gets mentioned the way Obama's alleged Muslim status does now.
And besides, smearing the Muslim and the Mormon at the same time is Fair and Balanced.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We SO badly need to break out of this endless shell game, would that this option were a reality, a vote to keep the corporate hand puppets OUT. I saw a tee-shirt on the web that I liked recently, it said 'Don't Vote, REVOLT' that about sums it up, we need to revolt to the extent that we have leaders that actually represent us once more.
If these kinds of political discussions are moderated by mod point lottery winners, then isn't there a strong temptation on their part to mod down any insightful or interesting, comment that is nevertheless critical of their own pet candidate, and to mod up any comment that does the opposite? From what I've seen, that's exactly what has happened.
If Taco et al are in charge of moderating, then wouldn't our ability to easily read the most insightful or interesting comments be exclusively a product of their own partiality or impartiality, as it were?
My wife and I have a couple of friends who, about a year ago, sold all of their worldly possessions and, relying on the income of a small email management company, started traveling the world. Needless to say their treks have made an impression and the change in their views of everything have become quite profound.
We received an email from them today and I found the content of the message fitting for this forum. Please read on...
Molly and I saw the second showing in the world of "Lions for Lambs" while we were in England. We missed the premier (and Tom Cruise) by one day. That movie made a pretty big impact on me, one of those movies that you keep thinking about long after you left the theater. The main thing I kept thinking about was "When did I stop showing up?"
You may not know this but I was very involved in student government during high school, including becoming the ASB President my senior year. I used to be involved, committed to change, and ready to defend against injustice and tyranny (like our school policy against wearing shorts) to the nth degree. Then something happened.
It didn't happen with a big bang, and really I didn't even realized that it happened until Robert Redford poked his finger in my chest with that movie. "When did you stop showing up..." it kept ringing in my head. I got carried away with my own life. I thought that all the problems were bigger than me. I got fat, lazy, greedy and self centered.
As we travel around the globe the number one bonding question that vendors ask you is "Where you from?" When we reply "America", there is usually just dead silence. It's as if you can hear their mother's instructions in their conscious saying if you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all..." When bars post flags out front as if to welcome their different international clientele, our flag is usually missing.
Like many Americans, I am near tears about the state of my country. Our leaders, if you can call them that, are ignorant, arrogant and self serving. I keep telling myself, only 346 more days, only 346 more days. And although that will be a great day in American history, it's not really the problem. I am the problem.
Despite my gifts for action and persuasion, I sit idly by while my country's resources are squandered on war, and pork, and to line the pockets of the already rich via their squadron of lobbyists plying the halls of congress. I allowed us to have a leader that is mocked by the rest of the world by not doing more last election. I allowed our country to lose all of it's moral authority by condoning a government now committed to torture, suspending the privacy rights and the spying of it's citizens without a warrant (for a worthy cause!) and other atrocities.
Well, I'm here to say - I'm done. I'm angry at myself and this email is my first step to correct things.
The Problems are numerous
Energy Policy
My country is deeply committed to funding our enemies by continuing our addiction to foreign oil.
Did you know that you and I subsidize the oil industry (please read this article) to the tune of 14 Billion dollars, while just today Exxon announced the highest yearly profit by any US company ever - over 40.65 Billion Dollars!
40 Billion. And I can promise you that my accounting friends will agree, that Exxon did everything in it's creative bookkeeping grab bag to take ever deferment and write-down even remotely possible before releasing that embarrassing number.
Could you imaging being the CEO of Exxon's neighbor, walking over and taking $40 bucks out of your pocket and saying here Bill, the government thought you should have this. Yet that is exactly what you and I are doing. By the way, have you noticed that gas prices spike an hour after bad oil industry news, yet take weeks to drop after good news? Where do you think that spread goes? It adds up to 40 Billion at Exxon. It adds up to 25 Billion at Shel
I am Jack's smirking revenge.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Popular votes: Obama by 5 points over Hillary over all states. Edwards gets a percent or two.
Delegate count: Obama gets around 62% of the delegates.
Just predictions.
but that video was clearly not posted first, so is off-topic for this thread!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As a conservative Christian, and Republican, I'm a little bit of a minority here but its interesting to see everyone elses conversation about Obama/Hilary. I dont know alot about Obama, but from the little I do know then i guess I could live with him as President. I disagree with him on alot of stuff, but thats comprimise for you. On the other hand, I dispise Hilary. Absolutly dispise. I think the 8 years of her husband in office were the worst of the nation both politicly, morally, and economicly (the economy is a big ship. It takes a few years for leaks to occur from something you do wrong. The fiascos and disasters of Bush's first administration were in gestation alot longer then he was in office.).
You might think we are bad now, but I think alot of the current problems stem from action (or inaction!) from previous administrations.
I have my own candidate picked out, I won't say who. But I will say that I will be happy with anyone winning as long as it is not Hillary. Glad to see some of you agree.
How about some frigging proof before you start flinging crazy accusations? I guess you're following the rule of "Hillary is guilty until proven innocent."
I am thankful that you are not a judge.
I just found the box to change my sig. Um.... [timeless witticism].
Barack would say "I have considered your idea and think that this would be the result of your idea, so I have another idea that doesn't have the disadvantage your idea has." He is the only candidate I have seen that actually thinks an idea through. Everybody else (Republican and Democrat) seem to just throw ideas out that sound good, without thinking about it.
Oh, they think about it -- though other than that, I think your observation is very astute. Most political candidates have learned that engaging the public in genuine policy dialogue is hit-and-miss, and they've taken a lesson from that and abandoned it. Instead, they stake out policy positions, in part based on their leanings, figure out how to telegraph certain hot-button values and issues for the audiences they've targeted, and pound on those. In short, they more or less treat their public interaction primarily as an exercise in marketing/PR.
I wouldn't say Obama abstains from this. The truth is anybody who doesn't do this to some extent will have a very short career. But it seems obvious to me that along with that kind of action, he's decided to actually engage the public with some of the thinking behind the policy positions.
It's more than a little winning. It's always hard to say if the public persona matches the private reality, of course, but I'm willing to vote for him almost alone because if he wins, I think we'll see more of this as other politicians realize it can be winning style.
Tweet, tweet.
>Howzabout a forum dedicated to Libertarians
or the communist party? Maybe we can get some neo nazi's in on the fun too?
Libertarian's are very noisy, but they represent batshit insane economic policies America discarded over a century ago. They have zero chance of winning an American election *ever*. Get over it.
So why did I just spend a rainy afternoon canvassing 170 households in Redwood City?
- The Obama campaign has renewed my sense of patriotism, long buried under the cynical misuse of patriotism as a cudgel to suppress honest debate and dissent. If you haven't seen it yet, this video captures in four minutes much of the feelings his campaign has rekindled for me.
- After the last seven years, I want to feel proud of America again, and help send a message that we as a nation reject torture, fear-based authoritarianism, an unaccountable executive, ideologically-driven anti-science policies, and indefinite war with a constantly changing mission.
- I believe Barack Obama is the strongest candidate, with the best chance of garnering enough support across parties, races, genders, religions (including us atheists!), and regions to actually credibly claim a mandate for change. He has a proven record of bringing diverse interests together to get meaningful legislation passed: when he authored a law that required the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases, prosecutors and police adamantly opposed the bill, as well as the governor and most legislators who wanted to look tough on crime. But Obama led a campaign to get it passed, and a key element of that was to quietly but effectively bring together prosecutors, public defenders, police organizations, and death penalty opponents work out an agreement that all groups could endorse. Eventually, the bill was passed unanimously and became law. (the American Bar Association later unanimously adopted a similar resolution)
- Despite being considered a visionary, Obama is very conservative (in the traditional Burkean sense), with a pragmatic, minimalist, and consensus-based approach to government.
Whoever you support, please vote tomorrow if you live in any of these 20 states!"They've canceled the show but we're still here. What does that make us?" "Big Damn Junkies, Sir!" "Ain't we just"
I lol'd.
+++ATH0
His critics insist that Obama Is Muslim, like evil Osama. Well, they don't know their biz; For if that fellow is, Then so is the damn Dalai Lama.
What I wouldn't do for the ability to mod "-1, Plain Wrong"
your new God-fearin', gun-controllin', gay-emancipatin' overlords!
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
I think Slashdot truncated his joke. He put a bunch of candidate's names (including Clinton) with ^H (backspace) characters between them, as though he kept changing his mind about who was behind it.
I'd vote Clinton any day ahead of Obama. She's come a looong way, baby. They're both twisted, but Obama is a bit too close to Kenyan taliban....and Clinton already was america's first black president http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200110/NAT20011001e.html - and you're fooling yourself if you think either will do anything radical, you just can't get nominated if you're not handle-able.
Do you honestly think this should be a vote about being black or being a woman?
I thought we were looking for a president.
Neither color nor gender should matter in this decision.
So far, the only arguments I've heard for Clinton are:
'You think Obama will be the first black president?' and
'Just think about what women would do'
I'm interested in what Obama and Clinton would do, not what women or black people would do.
I wouldn't consider the mad hatter mad. Just reality impaired. He sure can make a mean cup of tea.
In spite of all the wishful thinking going on here and in the right wing media, the fact is that the Democratic party has two very strong and impressive candidates. The biggest problem for the Democratic voters is to decide which one they like better, knowing that both will make excellent presidents. I feel sorry for the state of the republican party, but what can I say, Bush destroys everything in his path it seems.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
$ curl -I barackobama.com
HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:20:58 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.37
$ curl -I hillaryclinton.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:21:05 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
I did a scan of all the comments and "energy" was only mentioned **once**. This is the greatest issue of our time and of this election whether we recognize it or not. And the word was only mentioned ONCE!!!!!!!! No wonder we got "W" for a President... Ghawar, the world's largest oil reservoir is watering out. 70% of the top 100 oil reservoirs in the world are in decline. The world has to find 5 or 6 new Saudi Arabian size fields over the next 2 decades just to stay even. Oil Shale doesn't count because its "wax" (keratine) is embedded in solidified mud which means that its uneconomical to try to produce it. How many candidates are touting it as a energy savior? Do your homework!!! If I had to list the top 5 issues of this election, they would be: energy - how are these candidates going to address our energy needs? How are they proposing that we transition to a non fossil fuel economy? If we don't have energy, how are we going to make anything? economy - There are over $500 Trillion Dollars in non secured derivatives out there. How are these candidates going to address a problem that threatens to take down the world economies and make the subprime mess look like a tempest in a teapot? voting - Which one of these candidates will put in an Executive Order outlawing any voting method that does not produce a bonified paper trail? education - It's evident it's lacking here!!!! Especially the thought process about what is really important. Candidates or issues. Until you identify the issues, you won't know who the candidates should be. Whatever - There isn't going to be any whatevers if energy scarcity is going to cause hyperinflation. It's about time this country got its act together!!!
It may seem presumptuous for a European to want to have a say in the US presidential election process, but after what you people pulled the last two times, making the incredible mr. Blunderpants president of the world's only superpower and repeating this after four years of his comedy capers, I feel the rest of the world is owed someone halfway suited for the job this time around. After all, when an American president poops his pants, most of the shit lands all over the world.
At least this time people seem more willing to show up and be counted. Democracy works better if you do not leave the voting to the fanatics and idiots.
As far as I can judge from over here, the only candidate with enough decency and intelligence to repair some of the damage to our planet seems to be Obama. The Daily Show will probably be a lot less funny with him in the White House, but that is a price I am willing to pay.
the two suggestions : "this discussion is about the remaining Democrat candidates" and "please limit discussion to Clinton and Obama" are in conflict ... Clinton and Obama are not the only Democrat candidates for President taking part in Super-Tuesday.. at the very least there is Mike Gravel
... plus he and Kucinich where the two candidates offering radical solutions to the hold that big business has on government ... and big business (big advertisers) didn't like his message getting out ...
Gravel got bounced out of the debates because he wasn't buying enough advertising time on the TV channels that run the debates
But Gravel is still in the contest and is, I believe, on the ballot in all the super-tuesday Democrat primaries...
http://roboeco.com/demos
The ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY will FREE US ALL, instead of trying to get excited about the same old game...
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
The parent post is verifiably false on both counts, either horribly misguided or a shill for the corporate stooges they referenced.
Obama's 2004 Senate campaign finance records are easily available and seem to be noticeably not dominated by banking interests with a stake in bankruptcy law or their employees.
This matches up with Obama's vote against the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.
It's also difficult to credit Obama as a 'corporate stooge' given his record of seeking accountability and transparency for lobbyists.
Get your facts right if you're going to contribute to the discussion-- mod parent down.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
This just in - the Clintons latest "No, we can't" campaign slogan, intended to counter Obama's fiery message, is falling flat on its face.
If you drill down far enough into the candidates' web sites, you can read their views on families. Obama thinks more dads ought to be in their homes helping to raise their kids. Hillary thinks children should be raised by social workers. Don't believe me? Read it. If you love the DCFS, you'll love Hillary. She's still a radfem. The only time she's ever uttered the words "Dads" or "Fathers" is immediately following the word "deadbeat."
Check these out for yourself, but I think Obama is the clear winner at both sites:
http://www.techpresident.com/
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4237333.html
Based on these, I feel confident saying this: anyone who claims Hillary has more structured, sound, or reasoned policy is either an idiot, or just willfully ignorant. Being married to a former President doesn't count as experience, or Laura Bush might be on the Republican ticket. And experience has shown Clintons to be the best Republican lackeys, not anything else. Remember that Mr. Clinton sold us out to China first, long before W renewed it! His bad fiscal decisions were masked by the Internet bubble, which broke soon after he left office. Take off your damn rose-colored Clinton history specs people! If Clinton was that great, how the hell did W Bush ever get elected???
Why did you exclude Gravel as a choice? Seems a little unethical. If I had to choose between the two corrupt slimeballs? Obama is a lot better than Hillary but he has scarier endorsements and advisors. Can't decide.
As a fan of Larry Lessig, I was interested to hear that he liked Barack Obama. As I've followed the campaigns, I think it's important to see that the differences in policies, or even compotencies between Hillary and Barack isn't what really separates the two candidates. He's just posted a video which illustrates the main differences quite clearly to me:
http://lessig.org/blog/2008/02/20_minutes_or_so_on_why_i_am_4.html
http://www.talknerdy.org
.... marriage would collapse in a few days.
Honestly folks, in which planet are you living?
And most importantly, how it comes that you like your politicians to live in such a strange place?
Here back in reality, women tolerate, often reluctantly, adulterous husbands for many reasons, from the noble, to the stupid.
Unless you are Hillary Clinton's conscience you can't possibly know why she did not leave Bill.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
> And if you actually think that Obama has mass appeal to the same conservative Republicans who dislike Hillary, well, it's quite possible that a large cross-section of them would never vote for an African American candidate under any circumstances anyway, isn't it?
Hi. I'm a registered Republican and I have been since I first registered to vote. I haven't missed a vote, either. Thanks for proving that you don't understand. Believe it or not, many of us are sick of accusations of racism. I hope the fact that I will vote for Obama for President should put that one to rest. Then again, the last Democrats I discussed it with immediately came up with charges of sexism even though they don't really know me, either. And that was before I mentioned that I did not support Hillary. Suffice it to say, I would still vote for Obama were he a woman, and I still wouldn't vote for Hillary were she a man (though for some reason I suddenly feel like putting an Ann Coulter joke in here now).
> Ooops, you really tipped your hand here. Now I know who I'm dealing with. Believe it or not, it's not really possible to completely disregard the minority party in either legislative body--especially when the split between parties is so close.
Except that, I dunno, Obama seems to like working out reasoned compromises where there's no big loser. Hillary, however, will do anything to win it seems. See that "outburst of emotion"? Convenient that it happens again just before Super Tuesday. And what about not dropping out of Michigan like everyone else? Or her friends suddenly deciding that the rules, long ago decided, might work against them in Nevada. Or the push polls being reported in California? These kinds of dirty tricks are part of the reason I dislike what's going on in the Republican party enough to consider crossing over.
But now you'll probably say that I sound like I came right off of his website, right? Well, why don't I tell you why I like him? I've read through his positions and he strikes me as able to come up with intelligent compromises. I like the thought he's put into his technological platform, and those issues are becoming a LOT more important. We can't let people like Sen. "Tubes" Stevens control this! Obama understands Net Neutrality, he's looking into patent reform. I can't find those on anyone else's map. Yes, Ron Paul boosters claim he "supports" Net Neutrality. But what will he DO about it? He doesn't believe the government should intervene, so I know he'll leave it up to the non-functioning market to "decide" that they prefer access through monopolies created with billions of government dollars to no internet access at all. Besides, they also tell me how much he loves the Constitution, but I can't get a straight answer on the "general welfare" clause, the 14th amendment, and I just watched one try to claim that "Congress shall make no law" was part of the 2nd amendment instead of the first! Not what I'd call inspiring!
But that's material for a different rant. The executive branch has more power than it should have by far. Therefore, we have to be very careful that we elect someone trustworthy, because it will still be at their disposal when Bush leaves office. That means that it's critical that we elect someone everyone can trust. Now, obviously, there's enough mistrust on both sides that that's impossible, but I think Obama is as close as we can get to that.
So that's why I'd vote for him and why I can't vote for Hillary. He's the only candidate I actually hope to see win. With the others, I'm stuck hoping they lose! You have no idea how glad I was when I heard that 9-11 Giuliani 9-11 dropped out...
"What happens now if someone doesn't buy health insurance? They go to the emergency room and get treated anyway. Other people end up paying for it in the form of higher hospital costs.
Obviously, the pure capitalist solution would be for hospitals to just refuse people who don't have money. I'm not necessarily against that idea either, but I doubt it'd ever fly."
I am going to be kind in my response and simply say that it is obvious to me that you are not aware of what the situation actually is. What with the amount of cash being siphoned form the people, the tellers of these lies are, and will continue to be, bold and relentless.
As someone who has had personal experience in these matters I can give you some clues. My experience includes being a health care worker for over twenty years, and as a patient who has had to decide against treatment for serious maladies, even though I have insurance simply due to deductible/copayment cost issues. Worse of all I have had close friends DIE from chronic diseases that had received the legally required minimum but no more.
#1 Remember this!!! People are routinely refused treatment or medication because they cannot pay for it. I guess you are referring to the legally required MINIMUM treatment at CERTAIN qualification level emergency rooms. Such treatment options suck because:
A: If your symptoms do not meet the definition of immediately life threating or subject to causing severe permanent disability you can and most likely will be refused treatment.
B: In the case of conditions that are immediately life threating or subject to causing severe permanent disability the law ONLY requires a MINIMAL level of treatment, mostly focused on stabilization.
C: Emergency rooms are horrendously expensive to us all due to the 24/7/365 staffing requirements and since only the worst cases go through them, cases that often could have been managed at much lower cost in a normal and comparatively cheap clinical setting.
#2 Last but not least, if you are very lucky then you or someone you care very much for will never have to settle for the legally required minimum. Oh and by the way sometimes those you care for do not tell you of their situation, you learn about after they DIE. You see we have all been conditioned to be ashamed of our inability to pay for a horribly and artificially inflated health care and pharmaceutical expenses. Hell of a way to go huh? Instead of trying to find a safe little personal niche in a cruel and unjust world, how about the idea of working to create the world in which you wish to live?
Wabi-Sabi
matthew
Now that you know better, please quit contributing to the spread of these lies and misinformation. These lies are bankrupting or killing good folks every day.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Seems to be the only one with real morals a brain.
watch the MadTV video.
I don't necessarily disagree about HRC,
Please don't abbreviate her like that...I actually *like* the Human Rights Campaign.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Hillary Clinton is poll driven, it worked for Bill. She is the establishment candidate. She will maintain the status quo. She will try for Hillery Care v 1.1.
Barak Obama is the outsider. Democrats typically go for the new (remember they say they are progressive & liberal). While he says he is for change, not one of his proposals are different from the 1960s agenda (civil rights, help the working man, anti-war...)
No real choice here. Vote LP www.lp.org
This has already been addressed earlier in the thread. The post refers to her as Hillary because she refers to herself as Hillary. Take a long look at her website. See that graphic in the upper left corner there? It says "Hillary for President." "Hillary for President."
Or maybe take a peek at her swag. Oh look! It all says Hillary on it, in GIANT LETTERS.
Hey, check the URL above. It doesn't say Clinton Store! It says Hillary store! Hillary.
If she doesn't want anybody to call her Hillary, she has a strange way of showing it, spending all that money to put "Hillary" on everything.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
I can't decide, so I'm just going to vote for both.
Ya'll still have those Diebold machines down there, right?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
There, I said it. Seriously Taco, what gives? Some of us don't care whether the Democrat half of the amorphous blob that is our Republican-Democratic ruling party takes on a vagina or the color brown.
Property is theft.
Unfortunately those are the only salient differences btw. the two ( experience and religion aside). And yes, it's going to be decided on gender & race no matter what you'd rather. That's just the way this system works, because it sure isn't about "issues".
what effect has it had on Obamas candidacy? I mean, the president was a great black role model... right?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
TOP 10 WAYS CLINTON ENDS PROSPERITY
... And then the state or government which attempts to use its means of acquiring tax money, of making decisions to assist us in becoming a better, more equitable society as it defines it." (First Lady Hillary Clinton, Remarks At The University Of Texas, Austin, TX, 4/7/93)
10. Sen. Clinton's Chief Surrogate, Former President Clinton: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren." (Jake Tapper, "What Did Bill Clinton Mean By 'We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy' To Fight Global Warming?" ABC News' "Political Punch" Blog, blogs.abcnews.com, 1/31/08)
9. Sen. Clinton: "I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all." (Marcella Bombardieri, "Clinton Vows To Check Executive Power," The Boston Globe, 10/11/07)
8. Sen. Clinton On Taxes: "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." (Beth Fouhy, "San Francisco Rolls Out The Red Carpet For The Clintons," The Associated Press, 6/29/04)
7. Sen. Clinton: "[S]omething has to be taken away from some people." (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Remarks At The Pentecost 2007 Forum At George Washington University, Washington, DC, 6/4/07)
6. Sen. Clinton On Confiscating Profits: "The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits..." (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Remarks At Democrat National Committee Winter Meeting, Washington, DC, 2/2/07)
5. Sen. Clinton: "I will also work to restore fairness to our tax system. First I will return to the income tax rates for upper-income Americans that we had in the 1990s." (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Remarks On Rebuilding The Middle Class, Cedar Rapids, IA, 10/8/07)
4. Sen. Clinton On Capital Gains Taxes: "You know, capital gains, I think we may have to nudge a little bit..." (CNBC's "Wall Street Journal Report," 12/5/07)
3. Sen. Clinton On Garnishing Wages To Enforce Healthcare Mandate: "[W]e will have an enforcement mechanism. Whether it's that or it's some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments." (ABC's "This Week," 2/3/08)
2. FLASHBACK: Then-First Lady Clinton: "On the one hand we have our economy - the market economy - which knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
1. FLASHBACK: "'I Can't Go Out And Save Every Under-Capitalized Entrepreneur In America,' Hillary Rodham Clinton Snapped During The Course Of Her Failed Attempt To Nationalize Health Care." ("Invoke Taft-Hartley," The Florida Times-Union, 8/12/97)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Not only are you missing the point, but you seem awfully keen on justifying government paternalism. Liberty isn't about efficiency. Liberty is about leaving adults free to make of their lives what they can. The minute you interfere in the name of efficiency, or some illusory "common good", you violate the rights of others to their own lives. What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?
Moreover, in the US you have additional constitutional protections which deliberately limit what can be done collectively.Really? I bet that would be news to Congress. Last time I checked, the Constitution doesn't authorize the federal government to do most of the shit it does. It sure as hell doesn't authorize social security, or universal health care, or letting the President send troops off to war without a formal declaration of war from Congress.
I'm happy for you that you trust the government. It must be a nice feeling. Some of us, however, know better than to trust an entity that embodies coercion and depends upon coercion for its continued existence.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The most likely Republican candidate is McCain. Polls show that Clinton would lose to McCain in the general election, while Obama would win. Since I do not want four more years of Bush policies, I would rather see Obama be the Democratic candidate. Also, if Clinton did win, I think it could have such a galvinizing effect on the Republicans taht they woudl take back COngress in 2010.
Oh, you mean as opposed to the constitutional right of a family that saw fit to have four babies but didn't see fit to think through the costs of keeping them healthy to get the government to take the required money from someone else in order to pay for it?
You can be as "responsible" as humanly possible and still get fucked. Pay $800 a month in premiums? You'll still get hit with high deductibles, coverage caps and have treatments denied even if they are decades old.
"Why the hell should we provide them with mandated customers that have no choice but to buy from them?"
Indeed. Most of the states have been requiring mandatory (universal) liability insurance for automobiles for ages. Look how well that's turned out. The insurance companies have done pretty well. Prices have gone up considerably. And we still don't have universal coverage.
If they were actually serious about getting universal coverage for auto liability, they could just calculate (total payout/total fuels costs), attach insurance to the cost of fuel and solve it overnight. If you have fuel to drive, you're insured, the more you drive the more you pay, and there's yet another incentive to drive more fuel efficient cars. But this would not help the insurance companies at all.
Mandatory auto liability insurance was never about universal coverage. Mandatory health insurance is not the same as universal health care. It's about creating a mandatory customer base for the insurance companies.
I think what you're looking for is instant runoff voting.
-GiH
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Record of my birth is available online, as is Obama's grandparents, his kids, his wife. While I would think that someone would actually verify, I don't think I've ever heard of any process currently in place for any politician to verify accuracy of citizenship. It's bound to be an issue eventually.
"You must be the change you wish to see in others.: -Ghandi
Our video sums up this whole Clinton vs. Obama debate, in satire form: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic5f6HyygHA
Anyone out there read "Armed Madhouse" by Greg Palast? The next president is either going to continue down the neo-con path or have to undo all the damage done by Cheney, James Baker III, et. al. It'll take a hugely persuasive person to convince the people that there really is no shortage of oil in the world, and that all we've accomplished over the last 5 years has been mostly what Osama bin Laden wanted (get the price of oil up, get our troops out of Saudi Arabia). I don't know that any one person is up to the task. Choose whomever you think can surround themselves with the right people to turn this nation around.
...Envy.