Libertican says:

While I have not always felt this way, I believe that Obama as President is a win-win situation for just about everyone.

1. He is a powerful antibiotic for the lingering BushClintonBushClinton disease.

2. While you may not agree Obama on every issue, at least he seems not to have powerful alterior motives, as Bush 43 & Clinton have. I don’t buy all of Obama’s ideas, but they seem to come from a naive idealist versus a candidate with a long quid pro quo list.

3. Obama’s stature as POTUS will overshadow Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton politics, which divide more than gain.

4. The inevitable reality of higher taxes will not hurt the economy in the short term as long as someone can communicate the purpose. Unfortunately lower taxes that can be demagogued into the rich paying less will only increase a class warfare sentiment.

5. Foreign opinion will focus once again on America’s past reputation of fulfilling promises for all races and creeds. While his middle name, Hussein, and African lineage can be seen as a negative in white Christian electoral politics, it can be promoted to rid us of this Crusader Knows Best image in the moderate Islamic and developing world.

MikeN says:

Why wouldn’t Hillary accept the VP slot? It makes her the frontrunner for 2016(I’ve spent 43 years working for change), plus gives her almost a one in four chance of becoming president due to death of the president.

Misanthropic Scott says:

#36 – Perry Noiya,

Misanthropic Scott: New York

Hey Perry, What ever happened to the time when the entire south would solidly vote Democrap because Lincoln was a Repugnican?

dusan maletic says:

@#33: “The inevitable reality of higher taxes will not hurt the economy in the short term as long as someone can communicate the purpose” – I guess in the same way as it will alter gravity and make gold from the mud.

Market behaves in scientifically predictable way. Higher taxes in short term will kill one golden goose – stock market, as soon as mentioned, never mind enacted. This will first hurt every working person with 401K or other pension savings. Than, one can communicate “benefits” of the higher taxes ’till their last breath, while not altering capital and the rich fleeing the country from it – they CAN, (Look at the UK example – estimated 800 Mil tax raise will likely result in 4-5 Bil of the wealth leaving the country), and economy further tanking due to populace sliding toward poverty that won’t have purchasing power.

Back to the main topic: Clinton and McCain did all they needed to do in this primary rush and the bet is on them.

Clinton may be wise and pick Obama as VP but knowing her temperament – fat chance, would surprise me.

McCain may pick Huckabee as VP due to the party pressure but I see him making use of the racial issue introduced by Obama successfully competing and VP-ing Alan Keyes (Huckabee and Giuliani will get cushy Washington placement)

So my bet is on Clinton/Richardson vs. McCain/Keyes (with slim but possible VP chances for Obama and Huckabee).

End result: coin toss and maybe Supreme Court intervention. Cries of voting irregularities in most places. 50-50 popular vote and whoever is more lucky with the delegates or the court – in the White House.

Michele says:

I voted for the best man for the job, RON PAUL. He is the only one running that is relly for the American People. Wake up people, the others don’t give a damn about us.

MG says:

Hillary is currently 60 (or something very close to it). While McCain still looks to be going well in the campaign at 72, he would have to be considered the exception. For her to think about a second campaign when she is in her late 60’s is possible but not realistic. She wants to be president and will not take a deal for VP if she does not believe she will be president later.

Strategically, the press seems to always talk about how Hillary would galvanise the base of the Rebulicans and make it hard for the Democrats to win, but Barrack would keep the democrats base and attracts a huge amount of new voters that would otherwise not vote at all. His ‘flaw’ is apparently his lack of experience (which I actually think is a positive) but a stint as VP would give him that experience for a future run and would either make him or show he is not Presidential material.

For that I would put my money on a Clinton/Obama ticket unless Obama wins big between now and the Dems convention. This ticket has the best chance of winning IMHO.

One factor that strikes me about our politicians though, since FDR all the Presidents and the overwhelming majority of Senators and Reps have come from privellaged backgrounds. This does not make them bad people, but means they lack the experience that allows them to empathise with the situations of the majority of Americans. Their decisions of what is best is clouded by their privelaged experience as everyone. They have also seldom had to make tradeoffs, and never those important ones like whether to pay the gas or electricity this month, or can my childs shoes last them another season?

In essense, people who have had to struggle at some point in their lives better understand that there is rarely a 100% right answer, there are tradeoffs in every decision. This is the type of person we need to see in the Whitehouse and see more of in the legislative. In that respect both Obama and McCain qualify and are most likely to live up to the promises that everyone is espousing. The rest all share the same history of being born into privelage and the skewed view of life that gives.

For me, every cantidate in the race on both sides meets my prime criteria in the next election. Not George W Bush.

Misanthropic Scott says:

#42 – Michele,

Good for you. I voted Kucinich. It’s only a waste of a vote if the frontrunners have meaningful differences in your opinion. Otherwise, it becomes a statement.

However, I really have to ask …

Are you aware of how strongly anti-choice the man is? He’s been attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade for quite some time and advertises this quite loudly on his own website.

http://tinyurl.com/ynskqs

So much for personal liberty. Personally, I find this deplorable. If you’re OK with it though, good move.

#45 – MikeN,

I guess you’ve got that “freedom to starve” libertarian thing going. I can respect that opinion. I just disagree with it immensely.

BTW, “freedom to starve” was Heinlein’s expression, not mine. And, he was a strong libertarian when the word was not in common usage or possibly did not exist.

As for your statement about higher taxes long term, I think you should definitely worry about things like the interest on the national debt. You should also worry about corporate welfare as much as you worry about the costs of human welfare. If a corporation is unfit to survive, I’m OK with letting it die. If a human needs food and/or health care, I’d be less OK with letting him/her die.

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#40 – So my bet is on Clinton/Richardson vs. McCain/Keyes

I would love this ticket. Richardson is easily the most qualified candidate that ran in the field, followed by Biden, followed by Dodd. He clearly has the qualities we need to administer leadership in this nation.

Sadly, the press picked Clinton and Obama because they’d make more interesting stories and would capture the hearts and minds the People Magazine Subscribers everywhere… so again, we got fucked.

And Keyes would rock because his never ending monotone rhetoric about whatever Uncle Tom issue he’s on about today will serve to discredit the Republicans even further.

Hopefully Ron Paul (the Nader of the Right) will run as an independent and further siphon votes from the Republicans.

In a perfect world, however, Richardson/Biden would have been the ticket.

See… Not only do I want to beat the right wing… I want to do it with candidates who have experience and credibility and who can proactively repair our nation. It seems the rest of the party is happy to make some symbolic point about peace, love, and happiness by choosing a woman or an African American instead of choosing good leadership.

I’ll say this too… Take out Clinton and give me Obama/Richardson, and I’ll be just that much happier.

Either Clinton or Obama would be reasonably okay choices, which is fine if the middle of the road is your target, but Clinton will inspire every slack jawed right leaning asshat with a Confederate Flag and a hound dog to start clamouring for special prosecutors to open every bitter old wound and imagined grievance they contrived from 02 to 2K up again.

At least Obama will breath life into the office and won’t be an easy target for mouthbreathers like Hannity and Limbaugh and all the red states.

And if McCain does pull off a miracle and win, sure I’ll be stuck with another Republican president… but at least he’s a real Republican who values the Constitution and who carries credibility. I can respect McCain. I can stop being ashamed of being an American.

That’s the best thing about the next elections. No, we aren’t getting a new Roosevelt (Franklin or Teddy), Lincoln, Kennedy, or such. But as long as Huckabee and Romney are crushed, our nation will improve. Up is the only direction we can go from where Bush has brought us.

Michele says:

Hey gquaglia post #43 said,

“How does it feel to have wasted your vote. He has absolutely zero chance of ever becoming President”.

Well, in good conscience I could not vote for those globalist SOBs. Have you even bothered to look at the Ron Paul’s issues? He cares about America, while the rest of them don’t give a DAMN! Check out the Council On Foreign Relations, all candidates except for RON PAUL are involved with it in some way or another. Ron Paul will not be a puppet like all the establishment so called front runner candidates will be, and they are afraid of him. He’s the real deal. It’s a RON PAUL REVOLUTION! Even if he doesn’t win his message is getting out, and that’s good enough for me!

TheGlobalWarmingNemesis says:

I’m actually looking forward to President Obama. It took the utterly disastrous failure of Carter to allow Reagan to get in. In 4 years we could look forward to another bright period.

MikeN says:

There you have it, Scott equates Social Security reform with the freedom to starve.
Any wonder why government keeps getting bigger?

And how much is corporate welfare anyway? OUtside of regular policy like defense or health care spending, I imagine it’s in the tens of billions or less, while Social Security is going into the trillions.

Also, taxes are going higher under Democrats. I don’t understand this logic that you get lower taxes by raising them.

Hmeyers says:

Hillary is a turd of a candidate that was trying to be forced down the throats of the Democratic party by the Clintons and their friends.

Everyone was told by these people that Hillary as the Democratic nominee was “inevitable” as an attempt to force those uncomfortable with the idea to accept it.

But as it turns out, despite all the Clinton and Clinton crony influence, it looks like she won’t be accepted.

How many non-Clinton cronies have endorsed her as a candidate?

Has John Kerry? Has Kennedy? Has Carter? Has Daschele? Has MoveOn.org?

Both her and Romney are being rejected by their parties. Her for the “I’m entitled to be the nominee” attitude and Romney “I’ll be buying the nomination” attitude.

Romney is about dead in the water; Hillary won’t quit but will be worn down by April.

If Hillary ends up being the nominee, it can only happen if a Bush v. Gore styled “appointment” of Hillary as the nominee occurs by the Democratic superdelegates, overriding the pledged delegate count.

If that happens, imagine the uproar and fury.

Gary, the dangerous infidel says:

#55, so far the Bush/Cheney years have seen the value of the dollar drop sharply versus the euro, and the national debt has risen significantly. Our economy is sick and getting sicker, and the world is beginning to see America as less creditworthy than they used to think we were. That creditworthiness, and the borrowing we’ve been doing based on it, has been helping to prop up the American economy to make us look more prosperous than we really are. Don’t be impressed by all the cash we flash around — a lot of it’s borrowed. If we could only borrow a little more, to get us by until January 2009.

I wouldn’t venture to predict when the heavily mortgaged house of cards will collapse. It’s been shaky for many years, but never more so than now. Maybe clever bookkeeping can continue to hide the flaws.

But hey, the good news is that Dick “deficits don’t matter” Cheney will likely weather the financial storm with his investments. I know you’re as concerned about his welfare as he is about yours, but not to worry — he’ll be okay.

Thomas says:

#59
Nonsense. Reagan is generally ranked in the top ten or fifteen greatest Presidents for good reason. For every “homeless” guy, there are thousands of average Americans that did much better under Reagan. The economy improved enormously under Reagan.

How are Chinese imports bad and while you are thinking about that, wouldn’t Chinese political contributions be far more disturbing that Chinese imports?

If college was too expensive, talk to your college. Are you honestly going to tell me that Reagan is to fault for textbook prices for example being so preposterously high?

> I’m not sure if I can blame
> our poor health care system
> on Reagan yet, but I’m sure
> I can find a way.

This explains your point of view quite nicely. Your dislike of Reagan is not based on rational complaints about his performance but simply pure liberal hate.

MikeN says:

The left brings up homelessness every time there’s a Republican president, but then the news stories disappear when Democrats are president. Some Dmeocrats might really believe there were no homeless when Clinton was President.