Anyone been watchin the early debates?

[DaSmerg]

Anyone?  Any fave's?  Any dark horses?  Any change of heart?

Wathced bits and pieces + the usual sound bytes so far from both sides.

Freddy T. definately is an interesting late addition.  Gotta say of the massive field from both sides, I like Guilliani.  I think he's the kind of git 'er done type that our southern cousins could use after nearly a decade of...well...kinda meandering around.  Too much wedge and not enough substance for the last almost decade + 9/11 and it's fall out so far.  Guy knows his way around big beauracracies.

I like McCain cuz of his pretty steady convictions.  But is that what is needed...another prez who's gonna stick to a course no matter who/what/where/when/why?

Both sides shore do have their used car sales types.  H.C. would be the leader of this pack...the big R t'ain't too far behind IHMO.

What's his name, Arizona guv guy there is also a hmmm.  While the sex appeal of Obama is definately interesting, I agree that it's still too early on in federal level politcs for him yet.

Anyways, that's my ramblings for now

[Ronin]

This early in the "race" (more like a train wreck so far) I don't bother to pay attention.  It's all just noise at this point.  The party machines will pick the candidates and the nominees (as always).  And we'll be left with the choices of "bad" and "worse" again.

The whole process of elections here sucks.  All 50 states should have their caucus, or primary or whatever they want to call it on the same day.  And those primaries should be 90 days before the election.  No more.  90 days is PLENTY of time for a candidate to say what his platform is and what his beliefs are.

Why do we need an election that lasts a year and a half?  Why do we need to have the chattering classes yapping incessantly about a Presidential election for that long.  What good can possibly come from billions of words of speculation about a single election?

Personally, I wish all the commentators would just shut up.  Report what the candidates say as campaign speech then shut up.  We don't need these idiots to analyze what was said.  Just check the facts and tell us if what was said was a lie.  Why can't they do that?  That's the JOB of the press.  And they fail at it miserably.

Sorry for the rant.  I just get too easily worked up about the press and politicians.  They fiddle while Rome burns...

[110]

With both the Democrat and Republican parties continually moving to the left.   I dont really have a choice.  Fred Thompson and Duncun Hunter are the closest to my views, but Fred seems weak in the debates and Duncun Hunter recieves scarse mention.


No matter who wins the popularity contest.  Some statist turd will be our next POTUS.  Alot of them talk of change and what not, but their solutions are almost always the same.  More taxes, More Govt. -even the Republicans.

Rudy Guliani is what Democrats think all Republicans are a Facist!

"Freedom is about authority.  Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it."
  -Rudy Giuliani,  April 20, 1998  New York Newday Pg A3

John Mcain.  Uh..no.  I think the First Amendment is important...even right before an election.


Barack Obama.  Pretty speeches.  His solutions are of course Statist in nature.

Hillary Clinton.  Paul Alinsky fan.  I view America as a land of Opportunity because of the free market and property rights.

"We're goint to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
 -Hillary Clinton, June 2004


Mike Huckabee.  A tax increasing RINO.  A good choice if you actually think Bush was an excellent president.  Maybe this is why the Ministry of Truth talks about him more then DH and FDT.

John Edwards.  A money gubbing Lawyer. 

Mitt Romney.  Another Anti-gun Bigot RINO.

Ron Paul.  Should have his forehead stamped "For Domestic use Only".   His foreign policy would include MASSIVE cuts to military spending and size.  I know some may agree with that.  Even i do when it comes to wasted tax dollars.  Ron Paul takes it to an extreme level.


Ronald Reagen once said he never left the Democrat party, the Democrat party left him.  what he means is that his world view remained the same and the party morphed into something that could not give him a voice.  This is how i feel about the majority of candidates.  Anyone who give a voice to my worldview of independance is ignored and unelectable.

[SilentEdge]

Fred Thompson doesn't have a chance but is still the best representative of my values from what I have seen.

[achilles118]

McCain-Guilliani in 2008

prolly not gonna happen either way this election has a special interest for me. My father as an E7 in the Army (at the time) almost went bankrupt under the other Clinton, Im up for reenlistment during the next presidency and I wont do it under Hilary.

I really like McCain, he's a verry thoughtful man (or so it seems) and I've always loved Guilliani (but I dont always agree with him). I think they are the best that I can see.

screw John Edwards, no more blood sucking defence attornies.

screw it Im voting for Elizabeth Dole.

[Mutt_Dog]

screw it Im voting for Elizabeth Dole.

Right there with you man!

[achilles118]

I honestly believe that elizabeth dole would probably be the best cinc since reagon.

[MindlessOath]

smacks hand on face.  the problem lies in the hands of voters who dont vote based on what they should be voting for as a whole.  this would solve problems like crappy canidits.

[achilles118]

not true it would just bring more candidates

[Aramis]

smacks hand on face.  the problem lies in the hands of voters who dont vote based on what they should be voting for as a whole.  this would solve problems like crappy canidits.

You mean like a certain previous election where the popular vote isn't what elected our next President?

I'm extremely bitter and jaded about the entire political process. We may be able to vote, but it doesn't matter. If you're in a Democratic state and you vote Republican, it doesn't matter. Only on the local side of things can your vote make a difference.

[SilentEdge]

I'm extremely bitter and jaded about the entire political process. We may be able to vote, but it doesn't matter. If you're in a Democratic state and you vote Republican, it doesn't matter. Only on the local side of things can your vote make a difference.

What would you recommend as a solution?

On a creepy note, I've been seeing a lot of these Obama posters pop up around my campus where he looks like a communist revolutionary.



I went to take a picture of the other one, and someone had torn them all down as it didn't have University approval.

[BajaBravo]

What would you recommend as a solution?

We had a big referendum in Ontario recently about that very same issue. It's "first past the pole" now, meaning the candidate with the most votes in a riding wins the seat... i.e. one party could have a massive majority with only a fraction of the popular vote if the numbers work out for them. The proposal was to go with Mixed Member Proportional representation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation). Interestingly, the "experts" were overwhelmingly singing the praises of the new approach but the referendum failed spectacularly.

Personally, I saw quite of bit of merit to it initially but in the end I had to vote against. I couldn't get past the idea that people would be sitting in parliament as representatives that weren't actually elected. That and while I concede letting the lunatic fringe have there say is more democratic, it isn't necessarily a good thing.

[Aramis]

I'm extremely bitter and jaded about the entire political process. We may be able to vote, but it doesn't matter. If you're in a Democratic state and you vote Republican, it doesn't matter. Only on the local side of things can your vote make a difference.

What would you recommend as a solution?

On a creepy note, I've been seeing a lot of these Obama posters pop up around my campus where he looks like a communist revolutionary.



I went to take a picture of the other one, and someone had torn them all down as it didn't have University approval.

I'd have this crazy system of elections, where each person gets a vote and whoever has the most votes wins. Nuts, I know. But that way people who say... live in a Republican state could vote Democratic and have their vote mean something (and vice versa). I'm sure there's lots of evidence supporting why this isn't terribly feasible and is possibly more prone to ballot box stuffing, but the system as it is now is broken when it comes to big government.

[Da Fish]

I'd have this crazy system of elections, where each person gets a vote and whoever has the most votes wins. Nuts, I know. But that way people who say... live in a Republican state could vote Democratic and have their vote mean something (and vice versa). I'm sure there's lots of evidence supporting why this isn't terribly feasible and is possibly more prone to ballot box stuffing, but the system as it is now is broken when it comes to big government.

There is a lot of evidence to support the system you propose, but ultimately it leads to weak governments who cant make decisions (good or bad) and weak governments therefore do not get anything done. A good example of this would be the Italian Parliament. corrupt at many levels, prime minister has his sticky fingers in all sorts of media, and the political parties don't get anything done due to the amount of petty bitching and backstabbing.

It may seem daft to say.... but in the long term it is better to have a bad national leader for one term than to have a indecisive one for several.

[DaSmerg]

\Me waves at Edge.

Nifty find on the poster Edge.  Agreed a bit creepy...both the poster and the fact that they were ripped down.

[Zazoo]

Not the most flattering portryal either... he looks kind of like a zombie with lazy eye.

~Mike

[SilentEdge]

\Me waves at Edge.

Nifty find on the poster Edge.  Agreed a bit creepy...both the poster and the fact that they were ripped down.

Hey Bud. I've sure been gone awhile, but this accounting degree is a real pain in the ass.

Anyway, the university only tore down the poster because it wasn't approved prior to the posting. All sorts of stuff goes up around campus, and you just have to take a copy of what you intend to post down to one of the offices. They'll make as many copies as you like with a little stamp on the top saying it was approved. This is done since a lot of job and housing fliers go up, and they try to cut down on fraud by checking numbers, addresses etc. They don't block anything based on political biases, fortunately.

Not the most flattering portryal either... he looks kind of like a zombie with lazy eye.

Glad to see nothing has changed around here. Leave it to Mike to make a zombie analogy

We had a big referendum in Ontario recently about that very same issue. It's "first past the pole" now, meaning the candidate with the most votes in a riding wins the seat... i.e. one party could have a massive majority with only a fraction of the popular vote if the numbers work out for them.

Interesting. Here in the US, most of our elections require 50%+1. If we split the vote, we do a runoff election. I'm pretty sure it's determined by each states constitution and each city's charter however. Down in San Diego we had a runoff election for a congressional seat where a third party took the majority away from the Republican and most of the votes from the Dem. Ended up being like a 42 Republican, 30 Independent, 27 Dem split with the 1% left over for the write-ins. The whole process was a big and contentious nightmare, the Republican ended up winning over the Independent with like 65% of the vote.

I'd have this crazy system of elections, where each person gets a vote and whoever has the most votes wins...

I know you're being sarcastic, but there are a lot of drawbacks to a pure democracy.

The whole point of the electoral college system is to give smaller states a bigger voice. Just like the two houses of Congress, the electoral college was a designed compromise between big and little states. It would be just as difficult today to change the system as it would have been to arrange it differently in the first place.

Now, in principle the one vote = one vote idea sounds great, but think about the amount of campaigning that would be done in less than a half a dozen states. California, New York, Texas, Florida, etc. would get all the attention. Maybe I'm a Constitutional romantic, but I think our founders had an idea that something like the 2000 election might happen, and went ahead with the system anyway. So far they've done pretty well though, so I'm not terribly concerned.

[SilentEdge]

So I found the other one buried behind some stuff on another board, so here it is.

[farmboy]

Ah!  frightening!
Seriously, i like Obama as a candidate (or rather, don't completely loathe him), but I am getting really sick of his supporters.  On super tuesday, a huge group of them marched around campus like some freaking protest rally, yelling chants and getting people to honk their car horns and it all made concentrating in class rather difficult.  I think i got asked 5 times if I was going to vote that day, 4 of them by Obama supporters (twice in 2 minutes by the same blonde idiot).
And, if i'm honest, though I like him, I don't believe his economic policies will work, and I'm really concerned by (of all things) his promotion of corn-based ethanol as a viable fuel source.  But don't get me started on that tangent....

[achilles118]

I think it was on this forum someone brought up grass and it seemed to be a better alternative fuel, speaking of which I love my gas hog truck but I completely agree with alt. fuels, I think its a great idea, why would I not want something that is cheaper, more efficient, better for the environment and more abundant.

as for economic policies I am a firm believer that every president rides the economy of his predocessor simply because economic change take years to have any real effect (with the exception of tragedy aka 9/11) and I think the next presidency will really tell us if Bushes policies worked.

I am verry conservative as far as economics goes. I like my/military pay raises, I like our tax breaks, I dont like giving my money away I work hard for it.