I think it says a lot that you only see two options: support or oppose.
If I’m stuck with choosing between Rand Paul and anyone else I’m going to vote for anyone else. That man is the last person I would want to see as president.
And it’s obviously not the top issue for very many Democrats. Democrats have a long history of military adventurism with no defined mission while defining the tactics to be used rather than the mission to be accomplished, yet it doesn’t ever budge base support. Even with the emergence of a Republican noninterventionist faction, nary a liberal is moving. I guess war is just a price they are willing to pay for social programs here at home.
“It’s nothing personal, people we’re bombing. We just really like our Social Security.”
Nonsense. The last few Democratic presidential candidates have been much less interventionist than their Republican opponents. We don’t have that Clinton-Paul matchup yet – it would be unwise to act as if this is a foregone conclusion.
It’s a hypothetical given that Paul is trying to pain Hillary as a “war hawk”. I say he’s wasting his time since nobody cares if she’s a war hawk. At least not enough to move votes.
And please, candidates is your argument? In terms of military actions involving the US, Democratic Presidents have been far more interventionist. THat’s such a weird argument to make when we have a President who is on the verge of tying Bush’s record of regime change through military action.
Just admit it. Democrats don’t hate war enough to risk small cuts to social programs.
And frankly, most of them don’t care all that much about civil rights either. If the Republicans went to the left of the Democrats on every single issue but economic issues, from gay rights to race to abortion to guns, 90% of Democrats would still vote for Democrats. Because nothing trumps the social programs.
We’re talking about the here and now, and your characterization of Obama’s policies are way off. In the here and now, the last several Republican candidates ran on an interventionist and hawkish platform, and the Democrats opposed this.
Not surprisingly, you continue to show no understanding of how Democratic voters think in the real world. Hannity’s fantasy-liberals are not real people.
Again, you have a child-like, Hannityesque understanding of how actual Democrats think. Just stop trying. Or, if you really want to learn something, ask a Democrat how he/she thinks. I’d be happy to help you learn.
Irrelevant. What is actually done matters more than what is said during a campaign.
Whether or not that’s how Democrats think, it is the result of their voting. They will always prioritize the social programs over everything else.
Adults understand how their priority-setting affects the world around them. If you prioritize stopping war lower than Social Security, Medicare, ACA, food stamps, higher taxes on the rich, and business regulations, then it will not actually be a priority to stop US involvement in wars. It doesn’t move Democratic votes, so Democrats have no reason to actually keep their promises. They just have to talk the way you rubes like during campaigns and then go ahead and topple Qaddafi or whoever the next dragon to slay is.
It would seem that you are being immature here. In the world we actually live in, you only get to prioritize a few things at a time. Most Democrats have chosen social programs. If I’m wrong about this, then I welcome Rand Paul’s effort to win traditionally Democratic voters to the GOP. However, if I’m right about this, then Democrats can “think” all they want about war. It won’t matter, because it’s not the kind of thing you can set as a lower priority than social programs and still have it matter.
Rand Paul opposes US involvement in foreign wars. Hillary Clinton has a record as quite the hawk. If you support Hillary Clinton despite this, then obviously war isn’t that important to you. other issues have taken precedence.
This isn’t hard to understand. People set priorities even when they aren’t thinking about it. What you choose to actually do determines what your priorities are. Most people aren’t mature enough to avoid having 15 “#1 priorities”, 12 of which they deprioritize completely. LIke people who say their family comes first but actually having a good time comes first. Or voters who say that foreign policy is a top priority for them but vote for the pro-war candidate. It shouldn’t be hard to admit that war isn’t actually all that important to you compared to Social Security. Unless you’re one of those who childishly insists that all of your top 20 issues are #1 priorities, very important to you. Right.
You’ve mischaracterized what he’s actually done. So you’re wrong on both counts.
You’ve presented no evidence this is the case.
Halperinesque faux-punditry nonsense. Obama has done a signficantly better job of keeping his promises than the current incarnation of GOP leadership. This is just easily provable factually false stuff.
Chances are, you’re totally wrong about this.
No one has announced a run for president yet, much less announced a campaign platform. If Hillary Clinton runs on war, then I will be unlikely to support her, unless her opponent is even worse.
What’s the point of jumping the gun like this?
Again, you’re just way, way off on what real people’s actual priorities have been. Obama has been far, far less interventionist than the alternative would have been. We don’t know who the nominees in 2016 will be, so it’s extremely foolish to be making advance judgments about their relative policy goals.
Please don’t worry about Paul being your nominee. Ain’t gonna happen. The moneyed class in the GOP aren’t going to nominate a libertarian and they have too much invested in the military-industrial complex to nominate an isolationist.
I think you are correct that Hillary is more hawkish than the average Democrat, but she is Gandhi compared to say McCain. She recognizes that the Iraq war was folly, something her opposition is not about to say (unless it’s Paul, which it won’t be).
I would prefer that Hillary be more of a dove, but I’ll take a small dose of hawkishness as long as she’s on the right side of economic policy, voting rights, gay rights, women’s rights, and reproductive freedom. Show me a Republican who isn’t a war monger, believes in civil rights, voting rights, etc. and I’ll think about voting GOP.
That’s why I brought up Paul. He’s trying to portray Hillary as a war hawk, perhaps thinking it will net him some liberal votes. I say he’s adorably naive.
The votes Paul needs aren’t liberal. He needs to worry about the nomination first, and you don’t get that by not jumping on the “let’s get them Muslims” bandwagon.
I agree that Paul in naive. I disagree with the adorable part. But I do give him props for doing the pro bono eye surgeries in whatever developing nation he was last in.
ISIS claims to be a state, and roughly meets the definition of one since it controls territory and people.
Yup, adaher has a legitimate point about Paul’s foreign policy. As a far leftwing liberal Democrat, I absolutely cannot stand HRC’s hawkishness, and it really bothers me that that is seemingly the unavoidable direction in which my party is trending. Now, there’s much more to an election than just FP - to the point where I think that just about every voter cares more about domestic concerns than international affairs - so yes, I’d fall in line & hold my nose for HRC if she’s the nominee. At least she’s not a Republican, as is said.
But yeah, Paul will never be the actual nominee to begin with. Forget the donor class of the GOP; no, the primary 'Pub VOTERS will never elect an isolationist to be their candidate. As much as I’d love to see an isolationist get the nomination - from either party, honestly - neither group is truly in the anti-interventionist camp at all, least of all the GOP.
I guess I just didn’t realize that the benefits/harm of champagne was so fraught with politics that liberal misunderstanding on it must be expunged before discussing such trivialities as the second half of the line about the benefits/harm of a Republican senate. Perhaps the class war is bigger than I thought.
I have to admit, Rand Paul as the Republican nominee in 2016 would make for an interesting campaign, and I’d support it on that basis alone, so long as he never gets an actual chance of winning the election.
This compilation has Senate control at a toss-up. Yes, I know, it’s too early …