scary for the democrats

[slideman67]

I don't think Hillary would be a good choice. Edwards didn't really help out four years ago but he would be a better choice than Hillary IMO. I'm not sure though. I will say that it'll be interesting to see what the RNC can try and dig up on Obama because Hillary is a master at that kind of stuff and they couldn't really find much against him outside of that preacher dude. Personally I'm considering Obama as it appears that McCain has sold his soul, which I can certainly understand that is what it takes to get where he is, but I'm afraid he has lost himself.

It's not going to be Hillary - her campaign tactics have poisoned that idea.

I think it will be Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She would be an excellent choice.

[Toothy]

President-For-Life Cheney laughs at your petty speculation. Laughs! Laughs! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[wpfox16]

Obama's gonna get slaughtered in November, but I don't think there'll be a coattail effect for the House and Senate. Republicans are in real danger of losing more seats in both houses.

I really disagree with this assertation, Doc...

If the most recent House special elections are any indication (and House Republicans are shaking in their boots about the results), this will prove to be a rough election for the Republicans. When you're losing seats in conservative districts in Mississippi, you're not going to fare too well in the general. The Washington Post was right. The Republican brand name is in serious trouble. Fortunately for them, they're nominating perhaps the only viable candidate they could to put up a fight during an election where "change" is the most highly desired trait. Right or wrong, John McCain has a reputation for being a "Maverick," despite his primary posturing. He will be best equipped to distance himself from the the political train wreck that is the current administration (though he appears to be doing his best to negate this seemingly admirable trait lately...)

As for possible Vice Presidential nominees...

As many of you know, VP's have done little to win states in recent Presidential elections (Lyndon Johnson was probably the last one to really decide an election). On the Democratic side of things, I honestly don't think there is a chance in hell that Hillary ends up on the Ticket... Her latest musings on the election of '68 sealed her fate (though I really don't think she would have ended up there anyway.) A lot of people say that, due to the nature of this primary, Obama would be smart to pick a Veep who had previously supported Hillary , but I'm not sure about that... Here's my guess in order of likelihood:

Jim Webb - Sen. from VA, Former Sec. of the Navy under Reagan. Would really help military cred AND, as a more conservative democrat (served under RR), would play well as a non-partisan (and he's a Southern white male to boot!)... Webb says he's the only member of the senate with a union card, two purple hearts, and three tattoos.... SEXY choice and, I think, the right one if Webb agrees.
Joe Biden - Senate foreign relations committee chair and all around great guy... I'm a fan.
Bill Richardson - Would really help with the Hispanic vote, which might prove to be the most important swing vote not only in this election, but for decades to come. They are the fastest growing ethnicity and, to make it even more interesting, agree with Republicans on many cultural issues/Democrats on economic issues. I wouldn't be surprised to see the republican's stance on immigration come back and bite them in 10 years.... but I digress...
John Edwards - Has been vetted before, and helps with the working class white male vote/people with $400 haircuts. I don't think this is a great selection, as Edwards did little to help Kerry in 2004... I bet we'll see Attorney General Edwards.
Bill Nelson - centrist senator with military cred in a key state... Could do a lot to heal the anger over the "disenfranchisement of FL"
Bob Casey - Senator for PA, a key swing state.... Senate Foreign Relations committee
Chris Dodd - another senator on the SFR commitee... has said he wouldn't consider VP slot, but we'll see
Kathleen Sebelius - Governor of Kansas and reportedly a big favorite of Obama. She's a woman, which would be an interesting way to court former Hillary supporters.
Sam Nunn - Former GA senator and "arms expert." a Militarily inclined white southerner!
Chuck Hagel - A republican and former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee... Also a big Obama supporter. Would be VERY interesting to see that happen...
Evan Bayh - Key Hillary supporter would probably be the most likely choice out of her camp, along with Nelson...
Janet Napolitano - Female governor of Arizona... this would make Arizona more politically important than it should be.

I'm sure I forgot somebody...


for the pubs, a lot has been said about Crist, Jindal, and Romney, but look for Mike Huckabee (to help with McCain's weakness among the southern and/or religious) or even Joe Lieberman. Lieberman is the most frightening possibility to me, as a democrat. McCain and Lieberman are very close friends, he's already been vetted, and his selection would undercut Obama's claim to be the candidate to end partisanship... McCain could simply point to his VP nominee, a former Democratic VP nominee.

[slideman67]

Lieberman is no longer a Democrat. He is a right wing neo-con loving tool. I wish the people of CT could recall his sorry ass.

Good post Fox.

[urapnes]

good post, i would be thrilled with joe biden, jim webb or bill richardson.

from a practical standpoint, senator nelson has little to bring to the table. he's a do-nothing senator and in my opinion, not very good.

hillary clinton would be a poor choice from a practical standpoint. can anyone see her playing the role as th VP instead of the one garnering all the attention and calling the shots?

[texgator]

All McCain has to do is force Obama to talk foreign policy.

Political affiliations aside, I cannot in good faith support any president who wants to pick up and leave Iraq in its current state and who makes noises about sitting down with avowed terror funders without an iron fist around their throats.

I can't do it.

[wpfox16]

All McCain has to do is force Obama to talk foreign policy.

Political affiliations aside, I cannot in good faith support any president who wants to pick up and leave Iraq in its current state and who makes noises about sitting down with avowed terror funders without an iron fist around their throats.

I can't do it.

I would be willing to bet that Obama would run circles around John McCain when it comes to knowledge of foreign policy... Perhaps by "foreign policy " you meant Military/Security issues.

I also take issue with the notion that diplomacy is a sign of weakness. Like President John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, we "must never negotiate out of fear, but also never fear to negotiate." It seems to me that pointing a gun at a nation, enemy or not, and refusing to even attempt to understand where they stand or how to come to some sort of non-violent solution is ridiculous... This is one area where I sincerely believe that McCain has it completely wrong. Was Nixon wrong to talk to China? You'd be hard pressed to find a scholar who would say he was... Even Ronald Reagan was a strong believer diplomacy. After becoming president, he often talked about the desire to engage the leader of the Soviet Union in a one-on-one conversation, to diminish any fear of the United States' intentions and to seek common ground for reducing tensions and promoting peace. He met with Gorbachev in Geneva to discuss Arms reduction... Years before, when he was governor of California, he spoke frequently of his desire to host Soviet leaders on a trip across America. Here's an interesting PBS short on his personal diplomacy: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents ... .html#v150

[slideman67]

All McCain has to do is force Obama to talk foreign policy.

Political affiliations aside, I cannot in good faith support any president who wants to pick up and leave Iraq in its current state and who makes noises about sitting down with avowed terror funders without an iron fist around their throats.

I can't do it.

I agree with Fox. I cannot in good conscience vote for McCain, one of the chief cheerleaders for this war that has caused the deaths and injuries of thousands of American soldiers and has made us weaker by bogging us down in a quagmire. If McCain was such a foreign policy expert, he would have been against this war from the start. Of course, he wouldn't have gotten the nomination if he had, but he would have been correct in opposing the war.

Voting for McCain will continue this was and condemn more American soldiers to death or injury. That assessment may upset some people, but it is a fact since he will continue this war, at least until 2013. Meanwhile bin Laden is still free.......

I have no respect for McCain the politician anymore. While I do think he is a hero for his service, politically he has gone from being a maverick to become a two-faced politician.

[Toothy]

Let us not confuse war in Iraq with fighting terrorism. They are two different operations.

[wpfox16]

Let us not confuse war in Iraq with fighting terrorism. They are two different operations.

Yep.

[TTBHG]

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Mc Cain were
flying to a debate.

Barack looked at Hillary, Chuckled and said, "You know I could throw a $1,000 bill out of the window right now and make somebody very happy."

Hillary shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I could throw ten $100 bills out of the window
and make ten people very happy."

John added, "That being the case, I could throw one hundred $10 bills out of the
window and make a hundred people very happy."

Hearing their exchange, the pilot rolled his eyes and said to his copilot, "Such
big-shots back there. I could throw all three of them out of the
window and make 156 million people very happy."


I'm voting for the Pilot

[a1bion]

Ralph Wiggum's gonna eat all these candidates' lunches!

[MinGator]

haha, wiggum!

[DocZaius]

I would be willing to bet that Obama would run circles around John McCain when it comes to knowledge of foreign policy... Perhaps by "foreign policy " you meant Military/Security issues.

I also take issue with the notion that diplomacy is a sign of weakness. Like President John F. Kennedy said in his 1961 inaugural address, we "must never negotiate out of fear, but also never fear to negotiate." It seems to me that pointing a gun at a nation, enemy or not, and refusing to even attempt to understand where they stand or how to come to some sort of non-violent solution is ridiculous... This is one area where I sincerely believe that McCain has it completely wrong. Was Nixon wrong to talk to China? You'd be hard pressed to find a scholar who would say he was... Even Ronald Reagan was a strong believer diplomacy. After becoming president, he often talked about the desire to engage the leader of the Soviet Union in a one-on-one conversation, to diminish any fear of the United States' intentions and to seek common ground for reducing tensions and promoting peace. He met with Gorbachev in Geneva to discuss Arms reduction... Years before, when he was governor of California, he spoke frequently of his desire to host Soviet leaders on a trip across America. Here's an interesting PBS short on his personal diplomacy: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents ... .html#v150

Let's not confuse "diplomacy" with kowtowing to tin-pot dictators.

Barack Obama, with his 4 years of Senate experience, has met with how many world leaders? There's a special protocol and language when dealing with foreign countries. A wrong word here, a misstep there, and all of a sudden, we're giving Saddam Hussein the greenlight to invade Kuwait. I don't think he can honestly argue that he's got more foreign policy experience than McCain.

When it came to China and the Soviet Union, we were dealing with more or less equal players on the world nuclear scene. The idea of mutually assured destruction all but guaranteed that each side had something to gain and something to lose by opening up talks.

We have nothing to gain by opening up talks with Iran. We can only offer them bribes to shut down their nuclear program, and as we saw with North Korea, they'll blackmail us again 10 years down the road.

Hillary had it exactly right in the debate: you don't have direct talks with heads of rogue states, because then you start to lose the propaganda war. You go through the proper channels if you want to open up a dialog. Everyone knows that. Duh.



The way I see it, there are going to be two broad issues in the election:

1. The war. Obama has the advantage of not being elected until 2004, so he can be on record as never having voted for the war in the first place (unlike Hillary Clinton). Inasmuch as most Americans are now unhappy with the war, +1 to him.

He also, however, has the disadvantage of favoring a more or less immediate troop withdrawal, leaving innocent Iraqis high and dry and leaving us with an embarrassing "loss of the peace." McCain's timetable - 2013 - is much more realistic. And he should know. He's on record early in the war as opposing Rumsfeld's plans. He called for more troops in November of 2003, a call which was vindicated when last year's "surge" proved successful.

I trust McCain to manage the war much better than Obama. It's not just a matter of who supported the war and who didn't. It's a matter of who's going to manage the military better in the future.

2. The economy. Frankly, I don't know what either candidate's plans on the economy are, but I do know that Obama favors raising taxes (particularly capital gains tax rates, which will undoubtedly lead to a decline in tax revenue as folks want to hold onto their investments) and wants to socialize health care. I don't believe either one of these courses of action is wise under our current economic conditions.


If I were McCain, I'd focus my campaign around the following:

1. Not Bush. Highlight his disagreements with the President, some of which have angered conservatives.
2. Campaign Finance Reform. McCain-Feingold, although flawed in many ways, was the first real attempt at reform. Not too many other politicians can claim to be the poster boy for campaign finance reform.
3. Earmarks. There's nothing that gets people riled up like earmarks. McCain is the Senate's earmark warrior.
4. War Hero. His record in Viet Nam is unimpeachable, unlike other recent Presidential candidates.
5. Experience! John McCain has been around the block. Who is this Obama guy? What has he done? Made a speech at the 2004 convention? Permit white liberals to proudly proclaim that they're gonna vote for the (half) black guy?


Obama's campaign appears to be focusing on "change," an unimpressive and vague concept. But it's consistent with his [url=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/12155]image[/url] [url=http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/02/the_empty_suit.html]as an[/url] "empty [url=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/27/75917/4913/396/444051]suit[/url]." As many folks have noted, Obama's Senate career has been too short to accomplish anything of note, and he has yet to really advance the details of his ideas. That's because his candidacy is more focused on style than substance.

And that will ultimately doom him, at least in this election.

[AdGator02]

it'll be interesting to see if anyone opens up the old 2000 playbook to see if there's anything still lying around, aside from a black child, that will turn voters against mccain. he wasn't good enough before (still can't believe bush beat him), so what makes him good enough now? the fact that the democrats are putting up a new (half black) guy?

i like to take the cynical view [img]{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[G8rMom7]

^^^I've been following this thread but have resisted the urge to say anything. But I will say the difference between 2000 and 2008 is that I think the Republicans wanted a strong conservative back then. Then of course the 8 years of Bush happened...and now the Republicans are, well...sort of split I think. They realize they cannot win with another far right conservative so they chose that guy that wasn't far right enough in 2000. Just my guess.

[TheTodd]

So Obama's peeps should say:

"The Republicans didn't want McCain in 2004 and now America doesn't want him in 2008!"

[a1bion]

Isn't McCain in violation of the McCain-Feingold Act currently? TSIFU!

[DocZaius]

^^^ What'll be really interesting is how much the exit polls differ from the actual vote results.

There's gonna be an awful lot of people who like to say that they voted for the black guy, but really didn't.

You know what's funny about that whole "black baby" push poll story? It may have never actually happened. From what I understand, there was only one person who ever reported receiving such a phone call, but the story just never died. I think the LA Times did an investigation into the matter and couldn't find any evidence that it happened, but I'll be damned if I can find the story online.

Don't get me wrong - there WAS a smear campaign against McCain in South Carolina in 2000. A Bob Jones University professor circulated emails saying that McCain had had a child out of wedlock, and there were push-poll phone surveys going on, but the one thing that the media glommed onto was the "black baby" story, probably because it preyed upon their preconceived notion of South Carolinians as a bunch of racist hicks.

[AdGator02]

just saying, mccain got screwed then and it'll be interesting to see if that has any effect now.

the campaign has shown how much racism still exists. my grandparents, who are old southern democrats, are voting for mccain and it's not because they switched party affiliations. if you asked, of course they aren't racists and how dare you say so, but they say others are and that's why obama won't win. i wish the issues were the only thing that mattered, but they definitely aren't.

i honestly haven't decided how i'll vote. i don't like that mccain is anti-choice (which shouldn't be a political/government issue in my mind) and i don't like that obama could even remotely be sympathetic to muslims (yes, pot, meet kettle). a big thing that bothers me about mccain is that he's trying so hard to prove he's conservative to people who doubt him, that he'll go to extreme measures. the next president will be appointing supreme court judges and we need them to be as impartial as possible.

i want to see who the runningmates are too.

[DocZaius]

You know what soured my wife on Obama? His admission of cocaine use.

That was a deal-breaker for her, and she's as left as they come.

[texgator]

Would you categorize the overwhelming black support of Obama racism?

[AdGator02]

^^^
possibly, the same way i wouldn't vote for hillary just because we both have vaginas. people should vote because of issues, not demographics. i think semantics are involved. however, the fact that people definitely won't vote for him because he's black, regardless of his platform, is racism. see what i said earlier regarding my grandparents.

[a1bion]

and i don't like that obama could even remotely be sympathetic to muslims

OH NOES!!!

[img]http://g.photos.cx/Bush20urges20Saudis-d9.jpg[/img]

[img]http://g.photos.cx/bush_kiss-ba.jpg[/img]

[AdGator02]

^^^
yeah, that sucks too.

i know it's wrong, and i know there are many good muslims, but many would love to see me dead, so screw 'em.