If I ran for President of the United States as a (D) from MA

With the following policy beliefs:

1)Pro 2 State Solution/Israel has blanket right of self defense

2)Pro Affirmative Action for what it really is/anti-AA for what most people believe it is

3)Pull troops from Europe, post them on Rio Grande

4)Medicaire for all/import prescription drugs

5)Implement tax brackets I posted in another thread

6)Pro School Vouchers/School Choice

7)“Protectionist” trade policies/anti-“Fast Track”

8)Split Iraq into Sunni and Shiite provinces, grant Kurdistan independence, adding in Turkish Kurdish regions

9)Force:
1.N. Korea to repudiate nuclear program
2.Iran to disavow terrorism
3.China to cede: Tibet, Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

10)Pro ANWAR drilling, and RESPONSIBLE REGULATED off-shore drilling, utilize Natural Gas resources more

11)Pro Brady Bill/Assault Weapons Ban

12)Pro-Life with these restrictions:
1.Rape
2.Incest
3.PHYSICAL health of the mother
4.“Doomed” fetus (Doomed=Won’t live to donate organs)
5. Pro-parental/spousal consent (judicial when necessary)

13)Pro Adult stem cell research (FWIH adult cells show more promise)

  1. Living Wage for Heads of households, Minimum wage for others.
    (Living Wage=Working 40hr/wk, 50wks/yr can afford necessities)

Knowing these positions, categorize the 50 states:

  1. Can take for granted

  2. Can write off

  3. Campaign in, ultimately lose

  4. Campaign in, ultimately win

BTW, abortion reason 4 splits to become reason 5 when I discuss consent, please edit for me.

I’m not convinced you could get the Democratic nomination with those policies, and…

…would depend on who you were running against. With the positions as you’ve listed them, that opens up the possibility of a Green Party (or similar) candidate gaining support to challenge you from the left.

You wouldn’t get nominated. But if we assume it happened somehow, I think supporting the Assault Weapons Ban, national Medicare coverage, and the living wage would make you noncompetitive in most conservative states. So would your position on troop withdrawals, I think. Your position on abortion would be a major obstacle in more liberal states, and the school voucher thing would probably leave you with little support from teachers’ unions- a major Democratic constituency. In the grand scheme you’re probably a moderate, but as a candidate, some of your positions would make you unpalatable to very big chunks of both parties. Maybe it’d be different if we assume you’re running against a Republican whose views also don’t fit neatly into the Democratic or Republican side.

How would you do that? Those soldiers are stationed there as the result of treaties. To get them out, you’d have to get the European countries to agree to it. I’m not saying Europe needs to be full of U.S. soldiers, but this is not something you can do just by signing an executive order. (Oh, and Mexico probably wouldn’t be thrilled about it either.) Of course, a candidate can say anything he wants and then just ignore it later, but I’m guessing you think you could do this.

This is more implausible than the Rio Grande thing. The U.S. does not run Iraq, much less Turkey, and they do not want to do this. The Iraqi government does not want to split up the country, and Turkey is vehemently opposed to Kurdish independence. I can understand supporting this - although the idea of splitting Iraq made a lot more sense a few years ago - but again, the President of the U.S. can’t just make this happen. Even when the U.S. fully occupied Iraq and really ran the show, this woudl not have happened and Turkey would never ever go along with it.

HOW? Threat of war? Sanctions?

I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened. The nuclear program is largely a joke so they can extort more aid out of developed countries. It’s not a guarantee but it could happen. But that’s mostly up to China.

See above. I’m not defending Iran, but I have no idea how you expect to make this happen. The U.S. has no relationship with Iran, so it doesn’t have much leverage to make Iran do anything.

This is by far the most impossible thing on your list. I can’t understand how you think you can get China to do it. I want to see China stop doing what it’s doing in Tibet and I don’t enjoy seeing Taiwan get threatened either. But unless you can convince the U.S. and much of the rest of the world to live without trade with China, you can’t do anything there. And I don’t know how Macau and Hong Kong got on this list. No way is China giving them up. I’m not sure why they should. They’re definitely part of China geographically; they were just run by other countries until recently. And it’s not like China stole them. Portugal and the U.K. agreed to hand them over.

Moved MPSIMS --> Great Debates.

Being pro-life means you can’t get the Democratic nom. Being pro-vouchers means the teachers unions will oppose you. Most of your foreign policy positions are a wish list instead of concrete proposals.

Do you have a link to your tax bracket proposal?

Regards,
Shodan

The mind boggles. Why the hell would anybody think the US has any standing to force Turkey to hand over its Kurdish regions? How exactly are you going to get China to grant Hong Kong independence? The Chinese are never in a million years going to do that.

The rape and incest exception for abortion always strikes me as ill thought out. [ul]
[li]Does it rely on somebody being convicted of rape (not an easy thing to do)? [/li][li]If not: how do you prevent people from just crying ‘rape’ and getting an abortion? [/li][li]If you require a conviction will you implement some sort of ‘fast-track’ justice system for rape trials to ensure that they are completed soon enough to allow an abortion? How is that compatible with American notions of justice?[/ul][/li]
Basically it seems it’s a position taken by pro-life people in attempt to reconcile some of the problems with that position. IMO it does nothing of the sort because it’s completely untenable.

I don’t want to turn this into massive derailment, but I wonder how it is that you see the policy actually working?

As to your electability, you’re screwed. Taking extreme policies from both the left and the right doesn’t make you a popular centrist, it makes you equally unpopular with everyone.

How telegenic are you?

With that platform you better be really telegenic, witty, affable, tall, and have a huge war chest. And not talk about your platform much; focus on how bad the other candidate is. Major negative ads. Policy platforms tend to be ignored by most voters anyway.

As far as the platform goes - people vote against things more than for things. You’ve got enough “must vote against no matter how much else I agree with him” items there from all interest groups, enough to rile up against you the largest cohorts from every pole and most of the middle. Baboonanza is right - you’d find one or two who may not disagree with you enough about something to pull for you, but that’s it.

That’s a lot of non-US issues for an American president. One should imagine the USA is in enough trouble that the US voters would be more interested if you concentrated on fixing US problems.

> 1)Pro 2 State Solution/Israel has blanket right of self defense
Sure thing, be pro all you want, as long as you realise it is not yours to call.

> 8)Split Iraq into Sunni and Shiite provinces, grant Kurdistan independence, adding in Turkish Kurdish regions
Not your decision.

> 9)Force:
> 1.N. Korea to repudiate nuclear program
What tools of force do you propose to bear on North Korea?

> 2.Iran to disavow terrorism
How do you propose to force Iran?

> 3.China to cede: Tibet, Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Good luck with that one. And again, without any specific proposals of the kind of force you want to use, those are just empty words. In this case, I suspect nothing short of an all-out war will suffice.

If that is your platform, I suggest you make a new party called “Huh?”

I doubt any party would nominate you, especially the Democrats.

Who is the opposing candidate?
What are her/his positions?
Which one of you is the incumbent?
What is your money source, and how much have you got to spend?
Your query makes as much sense as asking, “I’m playing poker with five other people and I’ve got a 7-high straight. Will I win?”

While I by no means approve all of Chinese policies in Tibet, one is forced to admit that China’s occupation of Tibet for the last half century has resulted in it civilizing and modernization from a corrupt feudal Buddhist theocracy. Indeed it is one of the few things Chinese Communists have done that is beneficial.

Lyndon LaRouche? Is that you?

It seems you’ve changed positions on a couple issues, but you’re still all over the map.

P.S. Thank you for dropping the campaign talking point about Queen Elizabeth II being the biggest drug dealer ever.

Just like the Brirtish did in India!

They’re exterminating a culture because it contradicts their ideology. It’s a little surprising to hear you defend a Communist (well, sorta) government that is destroying a religion.

You have deal breakers that would make it impossible to get the nomination or win support from either side. Just the abortion and assault weapons ban would kill your chances with both parties.

I think you’d sooner get elected running as a Republican.

I’ll actually try to answer this.

  1. Can write off: All 50
    I’m curious. What do you think affirmative action really is, and what do you think most people believe it is?