or not

<_<

>_>

I was being nice.

*thinks of the creepiness of Republican candidates fighting over the vice presidency*

Don't worry, George W. Bush will soon declare himself the Republican Vice Presidential Candidate.

can he do that?

no

Quoting the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution:
"...no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

Thank goodness we have a national document that provides for the protection of its citizens.

FIX'D

Cheney can still be VP again though.....

WE ARE DOOMED

Thank goodness Hillary is going to win the nomination, since she believes she has the popular vote and thinks that's what matters

Dun-da-dun! SUPERDELEGATES!

Somebody saaaaaaave meeee...

I saw this in This Modern World. It seemed appropriate enough.

Click to view attachment

Damn I wish that scenario wasn't so likely... I mean I really don't think it will happen but damn I didn't think Bush had a shot in hell at getting re-elected either.

That bit made me laugh


And the Modern World is rarely ever funny, IMO

While it's nothing short of a travesty that people still think that way, simply voting for Obama because he's black or Clinton because she's a women is just as bad.

True equality would means that you would want Obama/Clinton to win the Presidential election because you think he/she is the best candidate for the job, not because you just want to see them win because of his/her race/gender.

Just for the sake of covering all the bases....

I've been flip flopping between Obama and Clinton since my #1, Edwards, dropped out. I was going with Obama, thinking he could bring in the undecideds (a trait that's cited as one of McCain's strengths), but I'm not sure about that anymore.
Also, Obama has more or less said he'll leave Israel out to dry if Iran launches nukes in Jerusalem's direction.
For me, politics and the Israeli situation don't mix. Israel is a sacred and Holy land according to my faith, and Obama basically inviting Iran to nuke it doesn't exactly warm me to the prospect of an Obama presidency.
Besides, I'm still not sold on Obama's "Progress/Change" persona. I'm not convinced he's the real deal. If the 2006 Congressional Elections taught me anything, it's not to believe the hype.

Clinton, on the other hand, seems to fanatical for me. She seems to believe that she knows what's best for people more then they do. That's an attitude I think would best be left as far away from the White House if possible.

As for McCain....

LM (I know it's been addressed, but I feel it warrants repeating), to say that McCain's only selling point is that he's spent time in a POW camp would be to discredit Obama completely. Any way you cut it, if you think McCain doesn't have much substance, then Obama has next to nothing.
Besides, given the current global situation, wouldn't someone with actual military experience running things be for the best? For better or worse, the US is at war.
I would think Americans would prefer someone who knows what it means to be at war (a Vietnam vet who spent time in a POW camp) over someone who got his dad to pull strings to be assigned to a National Guard base in Alabama (and then not even have the decency to report to that).

McCain's always been one of the Republicans I respected, as in he wasn't afraid to vote his conscience even if it meant bucking the party line.
Seeing him cozy up to the fanatical evangelical folks was disappointing to see, but you have to accept the possibility that he was simply trying to improve his standing with the GOP base. You see that all the time come election time. Pick any election year. All the candidates skew to far right or left during the primaries so they can solidify their bases. Those same candidates become much more centrist once the actual presidential campaign begins.

On the other hand McCain is way to war happy for my taste. His pledge to continue the Iraq War "as long as it takes" was disappointing to hear. The US needs to pull out of Iraq within 6 months and readjust their strategy for this War on Terror (like going after countries that actually harbour and aid terrorists).

When it's all said and done I think all three are improvements over Bush, but they all pretty much break even for me when I weigh their positives and negatives. If I had to pick someone from this lot, I guess it would be Clinton, but I'm still very much undecided (thankfully, worst case scinerio, I just sit back and watch, seeing as I won't be voting ).

Oh Don't get me wrong I wouldn't vote for somebody just because they're black or femal, but hey as the son of a woman who marched in the civil rights movement its good to see.

I think they have great ideas and frankly Huckabee had a good shot at my vote. But I've been really disturbed about the direction this country has been heading in since about 2002 or so. I just started having less and less faith in our president (back then I was registered independent)

So having a guy get up there and saying "hey everything is working out great!" well thats the same crap we've been hearing from an oblivious administration the whole time. I'm all for thinking positive but don't piss on my feet and tell me its rain.

Frankly I think Hilklary would be the most Moderate and thus a pretty good leader for the country. Obama has some great ideas and good enthusiasm but I think he'd be a little too liberal for a lot of people.

Where is it written that military experience is a prerequisite for being president? The whole point of the office is for the president to be a civilian leader (just ask George Washington). My point about McCain is that his time as a POW is irrelevant to his qualifications for the office.

And Obama's charisma is irrelevant as well.
We had a PM up here during your Regan years, his name was Brian Mulroney. He was quite possibly the most charismatic politician Canada has ever had.
Following the 1980 election the Mulroney-lead Progressive Conservatives won the largest Parliamentary majority in Canadian history, before or since. By the time he had jumped ship and "retired" he was already being ranked as one of, if not the, worst leaders the country has ever had. In the end a politician's ability to give a good speech means nothing if he/she can't run the country.

As for military experience, it's by no means a prerequisite for the office of the presidency, but given the current global situation it would be a plus (especially considering the military track record of the current office holder).

I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly didn't vote for Obama because of his charisma. I voted for him because he (alone among the remaning candidates) has a view of foreign policy that accords with reality, and also because I believe that he (again, alone among the remaning candidates) will be able to begin to heal some of the rifts between the US and the rest of the world, which were caused by the last president.

And again I must say that military experience means nothing when it comes to determining suitability for the presidency. Especially when one's military experience does not involve significant leadership experience.

John McCain having been a POW DOES NOT translate into him being a good leader for our country, let alone a good military leader. That's like saying, "Well, I was in the hospital last month getting my tonsils removed, so I can OBVIOUSLY perform open-heart surgery." That's the same argument the Clinton camp has been using since the beginning claiming she has "presidential experience". It's bullsh!t, people.

Would you let the 747 pilot's wife fly the fukcing plane? I'll even give her the benefit of the doubt and say she's been living on the plane for 8 years. That still does not mean that SHE KNOWS HOW TO FLY A PLANE.

BTW...

OBAMA'08

Yet, strangely, a similar argument was made for John Franken Kerry 4 years ago. VOTE KERRY, HE ACTUALLY SERVED IN THE MILITARY!!!!

EDIT: And the SAME argument was made for Al Gore 4 years before that!

It's funny how when the shoe's on the other foot...

I think you're making light of McCain's military service. He flew 23 combat missions over Vietnam. (And, considering the aircraft he was flying, he wasn't just "lobbing bombs from 30,000 feet" as another Senator recently put it.) He was released in 1973 and served in several leadership capacities until he retired from active service 7 years later. So he wasn't just a fly-by-night "dental patient." All told, he served in the military for 23 years, including 5 years he was a POW.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a McCain fan by a long shot.

For the record, I voted for Edwards...

Me too. I remember voting for Kerry, but only because Edwards was on his ticket. Well, and Kerry was running against Satan, so...

Seriously. And if we want to talk about "shoe on the other foot," we could talk about how it's totally fine to slander a veteran if he happens to be a Democrat...

This is another reason I voted for Obama BTW. I'm just too freaking sick of all this partisan

QFT to all of this thread

4 years ago I wanted to be the meant in an edwards sandwich.... this time around I lost interest in him for some reason.

The unfortunate part is watching my party of choice bicker and squabble about who's a better leader because they wear a flag lapel pin, or fought off invisible snipers in Bosnia, or whatever. It's all crap.

My hope is (please Barack, don't let me down) that while Obama may not be able to fix some of these perceived problems on partisan politics, he may be able to start the process of starting a new system, because frankly this system is broken IMO.

I wasn't talking about slander, I was talking about the disparity in

VOTE FOR GORE, HE ACTUALLY SERVED! and VOTE FOR KERRY, HE ACTUALLY SERVED!

vs.

JUST BECAUSE MCCAIN SERVED DOESN'T MEAN HE IS QUALIFIED FOR PRESIDENT!

partisan ???
If I may be allowed to be snarky, I'm enjoying it. Especially considering that its all coming from the Dem side of the fence.

Come on, who wouldn't pay for a Pay-Per-View "Hillary vs. Obama ALL OUT BRAWWWWWL!" Special?

My thing is, I have strongly held political views, but I don't enjoy the partisanship the way some people do. And for the record, I also don't consider myself to be a "Dem"... I think that both parties have good policy ideas, but unfortunately the Republican party has been hijacked by Rambo or something and all it can talk about is how awesome it is to be stuck in Iraq forever, because we've confused "being patriotic" with "being right."

For instance, fiscal conservatism is something I'm a big fan of, but "funding a ten gazillion dollar war for no reason" kind of violates that principle. Right now Iraq and the economy are the two issues I care about the most, and IMO Obama is the only candidate who offers serious-minded solutions to both. [/sales pitch]

Well, we have:
- Guam with their 9 delegate primary on May 3
- Indiana with 84 Delegates on May 6
- North Carolina with 134 delegates on May 6
- West Virginia with 39 delegates on May 13
- Kentucky with 60 delegates on May 20
- Oregon with 65 Delegates on May 20
- Puerto Rico with 63 Delegates on June 1
- Montana with 24 delegates on June 3
- South Dakota with 23 delegates on June 3

My bets are on Obama taking Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon and Montana, and Hilary taking W. Virginia (because she will have been born a coal miner's daughter that week), Puerto Rico, and S. Dakota.

Not if you want to go into politics, it's not.

Honestly, LM, I think that if you DON'T have strongly held political views, if you're just kind of "meh" or don't really know how our government functions (or should function, I should say) then you prolly don't have any business voting.

Dude, you aren't going to sell me on Obama!

This made me roffle. I DON'T FEEL NO WAY'S TIRED!

Gods, that woman's voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

That has to be one of the most assinine things I've ever seen said in the political forums (and THAT'S saying a lot!).

"Your opinion is different than mine, so you MUST be misinformed or stupid, unlike ME who totally understands how our political system works (unlike you, the mongoloid). Please don't vote."

Wow. Way to be, man.

Just goes to show how true this thing really is:

Then you need to brush up on your reading skills, because this is not what I said AT ALL. Even paraphrasing it, it's not even close.

I was hoping Kerry would go into some sort of stasis lock that would move Edwards to the presidency.

If only we could have overloaded him with Energon.... AND gotten him elected.

Not so fast, my friend. Hillary has a GINORMOUS lead here in KY. Not only is the state very heavily white (which, unfortunately, is a factor) but there are a lot of people that are more or less Yellow Dog Dems and want to just vote for the most prominent Democratic Party member no matter who that may be or what their platform is.

Now, there's a lot of GOP here too, enough for us to still be considered a Red State, but the Dems we do have will most likely just blindly pull the lever for the name they've heard for years, which is "Clinton".

Honestly, though, I'm ecstatic just because when this race began I wouldn't have bet any amount of money that our May 20th primary would actually matter.

It depends on what kind of white you mean. Iowa voted for Obama...

But who knows, at this point. I've even seen a rumor floated that Clinton is only staying in at this point in order to sabotage Obama as a general election candidate, clearing the way for her to run again in 2012.

So she's willing to give America four more years of policy directly opposed to her ideals just so she gets another shot at the big run later, instead of working to give America someone who is 98% in line with her beilefs now...what a caring and compassionate leader she is.

I do wonder what her motivation is at this point. She can't win the nomination unless the superdelegates abandon Obama en masse, which isn't going to happen.

This whole garbage about her leading the popular vote is :rolleyeyesofdoom X infinity...

LOL I WUN UNKONTESTD PRIMARIEZ

If she can't win this one or at least land vice president then she'd better talk to Martha stewart and give that cookie thing a try.

Either way I want a Democrat to win so we can start backing slowly out of Iraq. I mean thats the immediate concern, then we need to regain our relationship with the rest of the world. The Energy problem and the Economy could have the same answer if we start focusing on innovation.

I'm majorly a fiscal conservative, I mean really who the hell isn't? But there's no dog in the race that would actually cut spending. Help me Newt Gingrich you're my only hope!

Seriously, I thought he was a dickwad back then but you take a charismatic guy like Clinton and put a hard ass like Newt putting the smack down on the budget and you have a mighty fine political stew.

So Obama is a mighty charismatic guy and I think maybe he has a better chance at being both a national and global uniter, if we can get him in there and get some real bonified old skool republican hard asses in there (not bible thumpers, I ain't fallin for that crap boys so can it) to control spending I think we'd be in good shape in a few years.

as for the fuel and economic problems... well if our industrial sector can't figure that one out then we deserve to take a back seat to a new world power.

I'm just glad Hillary has decided which states are the ones that matter for us.

Really, if you wanted to make things "fair", you'd have to ditch the electoral college thinking and just have everything based on a popular vote. You could still have the primaries at differing times of the year, but in the end, my vote here in Iowa counts the same as a vote in CA or FL.

NOOOOOO! That's ridiculous, California, Texas and New York would dictate the way the rest of the country is run.

I know it's not a popular opinion, but our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they came up with the idea of the electoral college. It's there to make things "fair." The electoral college gives smaller states an actual say in the matter. They didn't want "the people" deciding who was going to be president, they wanted the states to decide. Larger states still have the most sway, but smaller states cannot be ignored for the most part.

Going with the popular vote means that THIS would have decided the presidential election in 2000.

20 states for the winner vs. 30 states for the loser. Now, I know a lot of you would have been happy with those results, but consider the consequences if candidates only had to worry about making voters in 15-20 states happy. "Screw you, the rest of America!"

The Founding Fathers also considered blacks to be 3/5 human and women to be unqualified to vote.

An egregious error that has since been corrected, yes? Just because they had some bad ideas doesn't mean that they didn't have some great ones. (See: Bill of Rights).

Besides, the 3/5 thing was included to *gasp* keep the Southern states from having more sway in political matters than the Northern states. It didn't say that blacks were 3/5 of a person, it said that the whole number of free persons and 3/5 of the number of all other persons (including slaves) would be counted for the apportioning of representatives in congress and the amount of taxes levied from the individual states. Not quite the same as saying "blacks are only 3/5 human."

Quoting from Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution:
"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."