I think it’s going to be Obama vs. Thompson in the general election.
All of the other Democrats will knock themselves out. Hillary has too many negatives, and is ticking off Democrats with her refusal to apologize for her Iraq vote.
Fred Thompson is going to announce any day now, and will win in the primaries. All of the other Republican candidates have fatal flaws noted previously.
Obama should be our next president, with the way the winds are shifting to the Democrats.
However, if I had to guess, Thompson will be our next president. I think there is still a lot of closet racism in this country that will prevent Obama from winning.
If the closet racists don’t prevent Obama from winning, the ignorant people will.
Typical ignorant twit: “Barack Hussein Obama for President? Isn’t he that guy from Irak who brought down the Twin Towers? I heard he swore his oath in Congress on the Korr-ann! No way am I voting for him!” :rolleyes:
Do you think that really will be much of a problem? Similar rumors didn’t stop Clinton back in ‘92. If Hillary and Obama manage to weaken each other enough, and Mrs. Edwards’ condition gets worse or something, and Edwards has to bow out, he seems like he has a chance.
The central rule to the Republican nomination is that the Republicans always nominate the person whose turn it is. The nod goes to the guy who has spent the last four years putting together the most money, laying the strongest groundwork, and making the most political friends. Thompson, Brownback - they’re pipedreams who won’t make it one step towards the nomination because they haven’t lifted a finger yet to do anything. No one’s been drafted to be the party’s nominee for either party since Eisenhower decided he was a Republican in 1952… and even then, Ike had to fight Taft for it.
The only question is whether it’s going to be McCain or Guiliani. Both have spent the last year raising money, patching up relations with other politicians, and both were majorly visible in 2006 campaigning for other candidates.
I know everyone on this board assume that the Evil Moral Majority Hive Mind will refuse to let anyone not 100% faithful to The Moral Code win the election, but the people who actually have political pull aren’t political idiots who will tie their fortunes to a nobody who says the correct platitudes; and they sure as hell aren’t going to turn around and support even a charismatic member of the faithful who hasn’t lifted a damned finger in five years to help them out. Likewise, they aren’t nearly as powerful as everyone here likes to boogeyman them into. Remember that when running against a Bush I when his support was in free-fall, and fully riled by two years of being ignored by the Bush Administration, they never won Buchanan a single primary.
As for the Democrats - it’ll be Hillary, for mostly the same reasons. She has a better organization than any other candidate, the best national organization with her husband’s contacts, and the most money.
Obama may be the great new face, but he’s completely undefined, which means that every statement he makes is more likely to lose support than it is to gain it. Also, he’s black, and it doesn’t matter whether America’s racist or not when enough people like robbybelieve it’s too racist to elect a black, so go with someone white. Which is wonderfully meta.
But most importantly - he’s the big media darling right now. And that’s the worst place to be a year before the primaries - ask Gary Hart or Howard Dean. He’ll get to spend the next year being the “exciting story”, meaning he’ll be pushed to comment on everything, and anything political that happens will have the “How does this affect Obama?” angle. And because he has nothing substantial behind him other than his possibilities, as soon as he screws up, he will get dropped like a hot potato, from people who can’t support a candidate who did X to the metas who can’t support a candidate who did X because that means he’ll have less support.
So 2008 will be Clinton vs. McCain, or maybe Clinton vs. Guiliani. There’s a reason that’s considered the “predictable” outcome.
Please don’t presume to guess how I’d vote. I’d have no problem voting for an African-American whose positions I agreed with regardless of what everyone else thinks.
I do think this country has a lot of people who would never vote for a woman or an African-American or a Hispanic for President. I’m not one of them. My vote has absolutely nothing to do with how I think the country will go.
The point of my post was that I think there are a lot of “closet” racists in this country who will not admit this fact to a pollster. Hell, there’s still a lot of overt racists, too, like my father-in-law.
That being said, I don’t know how you got from out of my post that I would therefore be inclined to “go with someone white.”
Granted, I haven’t listend for about a year, but when I was listening, he never speficified “Wahabi Muslim”, or fundamentalist. He would just say Muslim, and leave it at that.
As for debating, someone actually skilled at debating and under the confines of ana actual structure (assuming he followed it) he would pretty much end up spending his 2 minutes personally attacking the other candidates, usually by disparaging their sexuality.
At least, that seems to be his prefered method. Or at least it was when I listened.
My guess it’ll be either Obama or Clinton. The only way a Republican will win is if America gets attacked again, which it won’t. I get the impression that the American people are sick and tired of pouring money into other countries, when we can be doing so much more domestically. In 2008, I am sure Americans will be more concerned about other things like attentuating the sky-high tuition rates, health care, unemployment, welfare, climate change, and research.
Republicans haven’t talked about reforming health care, improving NIH and NSF budgets, or taking a serious look at welfare reform; No, they just preach about wanting the strongarm the judiciary with conservative judges :smack: .
Personally? I like Obama. He comes across as unflinchingly honest and capable of making intelligent, well-reasoned decisions. The fact that he doesn’t have “experience” is actually a plus for me. Give me an honest decision maker over these Washington hum-drum politicians any day!
It should also be noted that Russia will be having elections during the same time as ours. Britain’s Tony Blair will be resigning as well. If Russia, Britain, and America elect sane leaders, we might be able to turn the United Nations back into a respectable entity.
I don’t think Clinton can win. She carries way too much baggage IMHO, being Clinton’s husband and so so hated by the right; her name being on the ballot is like a free media buy for the Social Conservatives, the Religous Right, and far-right Activists - they just have to say her name and a large part of the electorate starts to froth at the mouth. She may win the primary on name recognition, but I don’t think she can win the general for the hatred reason alone. She’s also not very popular with moderates - a lot of us moderates are still a bit chafed by the amount of power she took on when First Lady in spite of not being elected, as well as by her pro-war vote.
I agree with your next point:
Thank you Cincinnatus for giving us a model of honorable leadership
Obama does face some significant issues, however. His relative inexperience, his race, his foreign-sounding name (and especially being named Hussein). I don’t think they’re insurmountable, but just make for a bit more of an upward reach and all will be targets of the Republican smear machine (and the Republicans are much better at negative campaigning than the Democrats will ever be). His rock-star-like reputation now is a bit of a problem, because being in such intense focus everything he says and does from now until November will be under a magnifying glass and he’ll be driven to comment on every single issue that comes up, but if he can manage that well he just might make the top slot. I predict if he does, Clinton will be VP and that ticket would win - it’s got money, name recognition, newness / coolness to get the kids out voting, Clinton appeals to Liberals, Obama appeals to those fed up with the establishment, and appeals to moderates as well as defusing some of the hatred of the far-right by not having Clinton in the top slot.
Kerry doesn’t have a chance, nor does Edwards - both are too damn easy to smear. Kerry’s a loser with a dodgy voting record in the Senate, and Edwards is an ambulance chaser who will likely be forced to drop out if his wife gets any sicker or be seen as less than human. Gore would be a good President but a lousy candidate - he’s too far behind in raising the necessary to have an chance of winning, and he’s a bit too tied to the eco-crowd to appeal to moderates or independents. He’s quite popular with the kids, though, so could be seen to mobilize a section of voters who rarely get up - that he could use to his party’s great advantage.
As for the Republicans, IMHO the only candidate with any chance who has annouced is Giuliani. He’s tolerable (just barely) to Social Conservatives, he’s popular with Conservatives, and the Religous Right might just support him as the lesser of two evils. And he’s got name recognition and a lot of money, and people sure do seem to like The Hero of 9/11 ™. He also seems to be pretty closely in line with the majority view of American voters, although being the Mayor of New York he’s even less experienced than Obama on the nationla political stage and would face a very steep learning curve indeed. I have no idea who might wind up as VP on his ticket, though; perhaps Romney or Thompson. McCain would be a millstone around anyone’s neck right now.
Romney might do all right with Conservatives, but the Religious Right will have a field day with him because he’s Mormon. I think McCain has pretty much imploded no matter how much money he’s got because even if he wins the primary, he’s too tied to the current crop of pinheads and the Iraq war debacle to win the general. That ‘safe to walk in Baghdad’ idiocy was the final nail in his coffin in my opinion - the mid-terms showed one thing very distinctly, that the majority of American people are tired of the war and won’t vote for a war supporter, and McCain blew his credibility with the anti-War crowd by allowing his anti-torture bill to get watered down by the White House and not changing his views on the Iraq war in general.
Thompson could do all right with everyone but the far-Religious Right but he would have to get in gear like yesterday to have any chance at all, and does a massive effort to get his platform clarified further and can broaden his appeal to capture the moderates and independents. Thompson + Giuliani would be an interesting ticket as well. I don’t know enough about the other Republicans on the ‘wish list’ to comment intelligently.
Final point - I think the Republican party is imploding, and to be honest I’m surprised it held together even this long. If the US was in Europe, the Republican party would be 3 parties (and the Democrats 2), and the only way the social Conservatives and the Religous Right are gonna get the guy they clearly want is to run a third-party candidate. I predict if Giuliani wins the primary that could well happen, and would guarantee a Democrat in the White House in 2008 because even the rifts in the Democratic party between the moderates and the far left are dwarfed by the cracks showing in the Republican party between Conservatives, Social Conservatives, and the Religous Right.
[Auzzie accent]Tell him he’s dreamin’[/Auzzie accent]
Putin will win again in Russia; most of the work he’s doing is to make sure of that now through fair means and foul. China’s still gonna be China no matter what we do in the US, and Britain will likely be stuck with Gordon Brown unless he keeps trying to rape the pensions funds here, or else it will be Cameron who is pretty much an unknown (but might be sane, who knows?) until the next general election when I predict the Tories will take back Government from the Labour party. The people are pretty unhappy with Labour, and pretty unhappy with Brown, and definitely unhappy with the war which is pretty much Blair’s baby. All of the above means to my mind no significant change in the UN, sorry to say.
This is beyond stupidity. This is beyond idiocy. This is beyond paranoia. This is beyond insanity. This is beyond racism.
In my lifetime, I’ve heard this same venom about Communists, Catholics, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and others that I have forgotten; the only thing that differed was the idiot who was doing the spewing. I’ve heard it from politicians, preachers, rabble rousers, family members, and other assorted morons I’ve encountered in day to day living. NOT ONE DAMN TIME have any of the forecast catastrophes come to pass nor or they ever likely to.
You’ve pissed me off. Your work is done. Go back under your bridge. Or, more likely, back into the sewer from whence ye came.
Except they didn’t. I know you want to believe that, and Democrats having been telling each other this for years, but it’s not true.
Bush spent two years before 2000 campaigning for other candidates, making pledges to political leaders, raising money, and laying the groundwork for a 2000 run. McCain didn’t. He jumped into the race late, with less money, with less support, and less groundwork laid. He won in New Hampshire because it was an open primary, where Democrats unenthused by their primary could jump in and make a vote for the “independent” candidate.
McCain didn’t lose because he didn’t suck up to the Moral Majority. He lost because he got into the race late, with little preparation, and tried to run against someone who had spent more time setting up his campaign and getting support from Republican movers and shakers. This isn’t even like expecting the Milwaukee Brewers to win the World Series; it’s like expecting a AAA club that midway through July decides it’s really a Major League team to win the World Series.
I find your definition of the 3 parts of the Republican party to be at odds with my experience.
What do you mean by Social Conservatives? The difference between them and the Religious Right would appear to be small to me.
I see the old line Fiscal Conservatives that were the traditional right of the party.
The Religious Right that is anti-gay marriage, pro-life and religion friendly.
The Liberal/Rockefeller/still believe the party is the party of Teddy Roosevelt/Nixon Moderates as a third group without leadership or any real identity. This is the part of the party that includes Rudy, Christy Wittman, Both Maine Senators and a undefined chunk of the registered voters. Probably close to a third of the party, hopefully more like 50%. Rudy is the one candidate that can galvanize this lost group of Republicans and draw in a lot of Republican leaning independents. McCain could have as recently as 2 years ago, but not now. The others have no chance unless Thompson is something more than a minor pipe dream. No one has even defined what he is or why he could win a nomination yet.
So my three (and I don’t think we’re terribly far apart to be honest)
Fiscal conservativies, or the hard Libertarian-like side of the Republican party, who think the most important thing is tiny government
Religious right / social conservatives - as you described them above
Moderate (or Liberal/Rockefeller as you call them) Conservatives - strong on defence, strong on small government, but don’t really care all that much what people get up to in the bedroom
For the sake of argument, the Democratic party breaks into:
Far-left neo-Socialist - the ‘lunatic fringe’ of the party.
Centrists - not far off from moderate Republicans in reality, but perhaps a bit less strong on international relations / defence and perhaps a bit more supporters of larger government.
Perhaps a 3rd small chunk of people whose single issue of critical importance is the environment - small but growing.
Nice to be an independent, really - I don’t have a dog in either fight and can pick and choose who I support for my issues and not vote a party line
Cool, thanks for the clarification. It does look like we agree. I wish I could get an estimate on what percentage of registered Republicans are in category 3 like myself. We seem rare these days.
Joe Biden. He’s politically acceptable, not too far left or right, actually has experience, & is in the party with the presumptive advantage. It’s inevitable, you should start getting on his good side.
(Hey, if “inevitability” can work for Bubba’s old lady, I may as well try it.)
