USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by roni

A thoughtful endorsement

Personally, I don't give much thought to this type of endorsement. I really don't care that newspaper A or B endorses Candidate A or B as I see it as more of Big Business getting involved with running the Government. Basically, I see it as a continued effort to influence the people by saying..."we know more than you and we are backing this candidate. So, you should vote like we do."
Now, what I would rather see is pure black and white objective reports on the issues and where the candidates stand. Instead we get OPEd's that tell us how great or how bad a candidate is.

[diogeron]

Originally Posted by horizon200

Personally, I don't give much thought to this type of endorsement. I really don't care that newspaper A or B endorses Candidate A or B as I see it as more of Big Business getting involved with running the Government. Basically, I see it as a continued effort to influence the people by saying..."we know more than you and we are backing this candidate. So, you should vote like we do."
Now, what I would rather see is pure black and white objective reports on the issues and where the candidates stand. Instead we get OPEd's that tell us how great or how bad a candidate is.

Here's some new polling data, FWIW. As I've said earlier, I think polling data in Iowa is less reliable than in a straight ahead primary like NH.
RealClearPolitics - Election 2008 - Iowa Democratic Caucus

[sctx]

Originally Posted by horizon200

Personally, I don't give much thought to this type of endorsement. I really don't care that newspaper A or B endorses Candidate A or B as I see it as more of Big Business getting involved with running the Government..

but that's only true if Rupert owns the news media outlet....... if it's anyone else, it's just valid non-partisan support

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by melliedee

Des Moines Register endorses Clinton. Not sure how influencial these endorsements are; they picked Edwards in 04.

Democratic endorsement editorial: Why Clinton | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

I don't think that too many people have actually heard of the Des Moines Register until very recently.

[roni]

Originally Posted by STOGEY

I don't think that too many people have actually heard of the Des Moines Register until very recently.

Not too many of you Massachusetts liberals, anyway

[melliedee]

How does a guy polling in the single digits raise 6 MILLION in one day?


U.S. Representative Ron Paul raised $6 million yesterday for his presidential campaign, bringing his total for the last three months to $18 million, his campaign said.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

[eccentrictinker]

Originally Posted by melliedee

How does a guy polling in the single digits raise 6 MILLION in one day?


U.S. Representative Ron Paul raised $6 million yesterday for his presidential campaign, bringing his total for the last three months to $18 million, his campaign said.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

The reason? There are an incredible number of really stupid people who have money.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by eccentrictinker

The reason? There are an incredible number of really stupid people who have money.

It makes the parting so much easier....

[roni]

Originally Posted by melliedee

How does a guy polling in the single digits raise 6 MILLION in one day?


U.S. Representative Ron Paul raised $6 million yesterday for his presidential campaign, bringing his total for the last three months to $18 million, his campaign said.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

People with money like him. Ron Paul is adored by gold bugs and almost everyone who has serious issues with US govt economic statistics, the Federal Reserve, and other financial parts of our government.

Say bad things about Ron Paul on internet fora focused on investments in precious metals and the companies that mine them and you'd better have on an asbestos suit.

[roni]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton appears to have recaptured the lead among Democratic candidates in New Hampshire, according to results of a new CNN/WMUR poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire.

Clinton was virtually tied with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in last week's New Hampshire poll, along with several other recent surveys.

But in the Wednesday poll, the New York senator now has a 12-point lead over Obama -- 38 percent to 26 percent.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is in third place with 14 percent, with the remaining Democratic hopefuls in single digits, according to the poll.

Clinton gained some 7 percentage points over last week's poll, with Obama losing 4 percentage points.

"Nearly all of Clinton's gains come among older voters. She also is ranked higher than Obama on every issue tested, with health care and the economy her strongest suits," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is in first place for the Granite State's GOP voters, with 34 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain has 22 percent, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has 16 percent. Since last week's poll, McCain has gained 3 percentage points and Giuliani has slipped the same amount. See how the candidates measure up »

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is in fourth place with 10 percent. The remaining Republican candidates are in single digits.

[roni]

washingtonpost.com

I am surprised that real Christians don't sue some of these hard-line alleged Christians.


By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 19, 2007; Page A19

As Christians across the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it's a fitting moment to contemplate the mountain of moral, and mortal, hypocrisy that is our Christianized Republican Party.

There's nothing new, of course, about the Christianization of the GOP. Seven years ago, when debating Al Gore, then-candidate George W. Bush was asked to identify his favorite philosopher and answered "Jesus." This year, however, the Christianization of the party reached new heights with Mitt Romney's declaration that he believed in Jesus as his savior, in an effort to stanch the flow of "values voters" to Mike Huckabee.

My concern isn't the rift that has opened between Republican political practice and the vision of the nation's Founders, who made very clear in the Constitution that there would be no religious test for officeholders in their enlightened new republic. Rather, it's the gap between the teachings of the Gospels and the preachings of the Gospel's Own Party that has widened past the point of absurdity, even as the ostensible Christianization of the party proceeds apace.

The policies of the president, for instance, can be defended in greater or (more frequently) lesser degree within a framework of worldly standards. But if Bush can conform his advocacy of preemptive war with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount admonition to turn the other cheek, he's a more creative theologian than we have given him credit for. Likewise his support of torture, which he highlighted again this month when he threatened to veto House-passed legislation that would explicitly ban waterboarding.

It's not just Bush whose catechism is a merry mix of torture and piety. Virtually the entire Republican House delegation opposed the ban on waterboarding. Among the Republican presidential candidates, only Huckabee and the not-very-religious John McCain have come out against torture, while only libertarian Ron Paul has questioned the doctrine of preemptive war.
ad_icon

But it's on their policies concerning immigrants where Republicans -- candidates and voters alike -- really run afoul of biblical writ. Not on immigration as such but on the treatment of immigrants who are already here. Consider: Christmas, after all, celebrates not just Jesus's birth but his family's flight from Herod's wrath into Egypt, a journey obviously undertaken without benefit of legal documentation. The Bible isn't big on immigrant documentation. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him," Exodus says the Lord told Moses on Mount Sinai, "for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.

So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border. The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.

We've seen this kind of Christianity before in America. It's more tribal than religious, and it surges at those times when our country is growing more diverse and economic opportunity is not abounding. At its height in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was chiefly the political expression of nativist Protestants upset by the growing ranks of Catholics in their midst.

It's difficult today to imagine KKKers thinking of their mission as Christian, but millions of them did.

Today's Republican values voters don't really conflate their rage with their faith. Lou Dobbs is a purely secular figure. But nativist bigotry is strongest in the Old Time Religion precincts of the Republican Party, and woe betide the Republican candidate who doesn't embrace it, as John McCain, to his credit and his political misfortune, can attest.

The most depressing thing about the Republican presidential race is that the party's rank and file require their candidates to grow meaner with each passing week. And now, inconveniently, inconsiderately, comes Christmas, a holiday that couldn't be better calibrated to expose the Republicans' rank, fetid hypocrisy.

meyersonh@prospect.org

[melliedee]

This is pretty funny...

YouTube - Mike Huckabee's Message to Iowa

[woodman]

Originally Posted by melliedee

This is pretty funny...

YouTube - Mike Huckabee's Message to Iowa

Thanks mel,i'm voting for mike huckabee.

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by woodman

Thanks mel,i'm voting for mike huckabee.

I like him too. He's charming in debates and answers questions with honesty and conviction. I would never vote for such a social conservative, but I like Huckabee nonetheless.

This guy has youtube spots making fun of all the candidates, this one I thought was funny.

[woodman]

Originally Posted by melliedee

I like him too. He's charming in debates and answers questions with honesty and conviction. I would never vote for such a social conservative, but I like Huckabee nonetheless.

This guy has youtube spots making fun of all the candidates, this one I thought was funny.

I don't know what mike huckabee is,but i sure like what he is'nt.