Explain the likely US presidential candidates

[mrmitchell]

Ladies, ladies, ladies! We're supposed to succinctly describe the Presidential candidates, not bicker about Obama this and Edwards that.

Anyway, about the other Presidential candidates.

Hillary has the best chance of winning, because she can use the network of connections her husband built, and Repugs pretty much just crap their pants when they see her. (FOX News is trying to push Obama for that reason.)

Mitt Romney is a Mormon. If he is elected, some fear he will bow to the Mormon-Pope, making the US a vassal state to Salt Lake City. Just kidding.

Dennis Kucinich is just solidly a nut. He has done some remarkable things, but you throw enough darts in the dark and one will hit a bullseye.

Rudy Giuliana is probably too socially liberal for most Republicans to stomach. He'd be a nobody if not for the 9/11 attacks.

John McCain has missed his wave of opportunity and is now slamming into the wall of backlash, deservedly. He is officially dead in the water and certifiably a hack, which is sad, because a few years ago we all thought he was sugar and candy canes and rainbows and fairies.

I don't know much about the others, except that Ralph Nader has outlived his usefulness and should be out promoting more safety regulations instead of running again for President and sucking a few votes off of the Dems.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by VJ
Care to explain what exactly was the reason for both Time and Newsweek putting Obama for their cover at the same month?

Ah because he's charismatic and sharp you big dummy.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Ah because he's charismatic and sharp you big dummy.

No, you fool! He used his forbidden Black Man Powers! He must have!

[RGBVideo]

Originally posted by Elok
I'm arguing against your positively asinine remarks on race, you tool.
[post filled with badly hidden insults, foam coming from Elok's mouth follows]

As I already have said, there aren't any. You are imagining things and making an idiot out of yourself.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by VJ

As I already have said, there aren't any. You are imagining things and making an idiot out of yourself.

I think he is refering to your claim that Obama was put on the cover of magazines to show that the magazines are not racist. Although that's a possibility, I think it's pretty obvious that they put him on the covers to sell magazines.

edit: If you really think they put him on the cover of their magazines to prove they aren't racist why don't you try to find out the sales of those issues. That would be usefull. Otherwise your claim is silly, and maybe you don't understand American society as well as you think you do.

[Arrian]

Part of the problem with judging candidates based on their positions on the issues is, of course, that you cannot trust what they say their positions are.

You can follow a candidate's voting history, but even that isn't a great guide to a candidate's positions (a candidate may indeed have voted against a bill aimed at, say, campaign finance reform, but have voted against it because somebody tacked on something assinine to kill the bill), and as any investor knows, past performance is no guarrantee of future performance.

Witness the mad scramble as candidates back away from unpopular positions, both before and after the primaries - McCain and Romney are examples of this right now. I wonder what Rudy will do, and if anyone will buy it if he goes all moral majority on us...

-Arrian

[Wycoff]

Re: Yes true. I asked for actual voting record differences. Come up with such or stfu.

Originally posted by VJ
Edwards (received his education from State Uni of NC) leeched off millions of dollars from corporations as a trial lawyer before being elected as a Democratic US Senator from a state leaning Republican in 1998.

UNC-Chapel Hill is a very good school. It's among the top 50 tertiary educational institutions in the U.S. That's not bad, considering that there are over a thousand of such institutions.

[RGBVideo]

Thanks for telling me that, but I already know that now, Kuci educated me about US college rankings through PM's

[lord of the mark]

no ones mentioed Joe Biden.

QOTM used to work as a local journalist in Delaware, and she was always impressed with Biden's intelligence and competence. Hes been associated with the DLC for some time, and in fact talked about moving the Dem party back to the center way back in 1988 (unfortunately he quoted from Neil Kinnock, without attribution, in making that point - which sank his campaign, though after Clinton and W, it hardly seems like a monumental moral failing)


He probably has very little chance of getting nominated though, hes not well known, hes bitterly hated by the left, and Hillary seems to have preempted the center, and he has a tendency toward gaffes.

[Kuciwalker]

no ones mentioed Joe Biden.

togglecaps and Elok did.

[Arrian]

He sounds like VP material...

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian
Part of the problem with judging candidates based on their positions on the issues is, of course, that you cannot trust what they say their positions are.

You can follow a candidate's voting history, but even that isn't a great guide to a candidate's positions (a candidate may indeed have voted against a bill aimed at, say, campaign finance reform, but have voted against it because somebody tacked on something assinine to kill the bill), and as any investor knows, past performance is no guarrantee of future performance.

Witness the mad scramble as candidates back away from unpopular positions, both before and after the primaries - McCain and Romney are examples of this right now. I wonder what Rudy will do, and if anyone will buy it if he goes all moral majority on us...

-Arrian

I think the degree of movement is exagerrated - McCain, for ex, though he doenst speak in favor of Roe anymore, has been part of the centrist group of Senators on SCOTUS nominations, and thats the practical aspect of the abortion issue right now.

Similarly, despite the assertion that he went hawkish for political reasons, I think hes been fairly consistent on that since before 2000.

The fact is centrist candidates like Clinton, Biden, and McCain (and yup, I know McCain is pretty far right of Clinton and Biden) will always be accused of waffling. Oddly by some of the same people who demand they waffle more (see Clinton and her vote on the war, forex).

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


That might be true of Obama. But -- and I speak now as a political junkie who was living in Iowa in 1988, and thus was able to follow the campaign up close at the very beginning -- it certainly wasn't true of Jackson. The Jackson campaign -- the Rainbow Coalition -- was a grassroots effort of considerable scope and depth that the mainstream media nevertheless didn't treat seriously until it became impossible not to; Jackson had deeper and more passionate support than any other candidate in '88, including the eventual nominee, Dukakis.

actually Jackson first came to the fore in 1984, when he ran with almost exclusively black support, and ended up with large numbers of delegates, a prominent speech at the Dem convention ("God isn't finished with me yet") and so was treated quite seriously practially from the start in '88 - well at least from the point that it became clear Gary Hart was out of it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DanS
This cycle's crop of candidates is especially deep because this is the first time in a long, long time that the office is wide open -- i.e., the president isn't running for office again and the vice president isn't moving up.

Selectively talking about some candidates...

Bill Richardson is governor of New Mexico. He has overachieved in every office that he's held,

at DOE?

[RGBVideo]

I presume Biden is in because he isn't losing much by being in, and he has a small chance of being elected as a dark horse in case of a deadlock of primary votes.

Originally posted by lord of the mark
actually Jackson first came to the fore in 1984, when he ran with almost exclusively black support, and ended up with large numbers of delegates, a prominent speech at the Dem convention ("God isn't finished with me yet") and so was treated quite seriously practially from the start in '88 - well at least from the point that it became clear Gary Hart was out of it.

Already pointed out.