US Presidential elections

So, who's everyone voting for? The SmartSelect quiz is still active, if you haven't made up your mind yet, or you're just curious.

Well, I would vote for Obama. Since I live in Florida though my vote wouldn't count (insert Florida election joke here) as the Dems have disenfranchised the state for moving up it's primary date. That and I'm a registered Green.

LOL, Kent McManigal, who would be one of those complete lunatic Libertarians you've mentioned. I'm *not* one of those people, by the way.

But seriously, whom do you pick if:

1A. You opposed the war in Iraq initially, BUT
1B. You think a reactionary and premature pullout of Iraq will result in horrible genocide and endless civil war and must be avoided.

2A. Are pro-choice AND ALSO
2B. Pro-2nd amendment.

3A. Are pro-business and pro-free trade, AND
3B. Are anti-capital punishment and don't believe in security at any cost.

4A. Think it's nobody's business who marries each other, BUT
4B. Think it's nobody's business what kind of health care you choose.

5A. Are a fiscal conservative AND
5B. Feel the environment is one of the most fundamental "public goods" that needs protection.

6A. Believe the market mechanism is one of the most efficient ways to improve the lot of humanity, BUT
6B. Believe markets require regulation because market participants do not have an incentive to preserve the market mechanism itself.

These are not contradictory ideas. They are only contradictory ideas among those who already believe that it's OK for a majority to band together and tell everyone else what to do. WHAT they tell you to do is different, but what everyone seems to agree on is forcing the moral opinions of the majority down everyone else's neck. The opinions differ, but that's just not the point for me.

From a practical point of view, I'd like to see McCain make the finals. He's an honorable man, opposes destruction of civil liberties to fight the "war of terror", and is the only candidate with a sophisticated understanding of the Iraq mess. I don't think he's a fundamentalist idiot who believes the earth is 6000 years old, but he walks that path lightly because those freaks are such an important part of the nomination process (which is just amazing).

Iraq is a mess. We shouldn't have invaded that country and the administration lied to make it happen (probably the least of their transgressions). Current events prove these points. That does NOT mean that leaving and letting the place fall all the way off the cliff into tribalistic civil war will fix it. We can't un-do the terrible mistake, but let's not compound it by abandoning those people like we have the Cambodians, the Afghans, the Kurds and so many others.

Sigh.

Jim

The quiz tells me Obama, but I know better. To me, Edwards is the best candidate among the Democratic frontrunners. Since he isn't likely to win the nomination, Obama is a good second choice. Hillary is the weakest of the 3, IMHO, but I would happily choose her above any of the GOP nominees or any 3rd party effort from Ron Paul, Bloomberg, or anyone else. I'm very pleased with the Democratic field this year and think any of them would make a "good" President.

On the GOP side, I don't see any good options at all. Frankly, anything would be an upgrade from Bush, but all of them have significant dealbreakers. Rudy! 9iu11iani would be a warmongering tyrant the likes of which we have never seen in our country (worse than Bush, I think.) Romney is a complete phony, and would run the country without rhyme or reason just to keep his approval numbers high. McCain is a filthy stinking liar who for some reason has a reputation as a "straight talker." Huckabee's more suited to be a televangelist than he is President. And Ron Paul, the only candidate who has the right position on the most important issue (Iraq) is completely batshit insane.

So, more than likely, I'll end up voting Obama in the general unless something crazy happens between now and then.

Obama for me. He's the only one that seems legitimately "different". I don't think he has been in the game long enough to become completely tainted and I'm hoping he actually tries something different.

I don't trust Hilary or Edwards. It seems like Hilary is doing it because of a right place, right time kind of thing, and I wouldn't vote a trial lawyer into the presidency if my life depended on it, plus all of his speeches sound the same.

The GOP disgusts me.

I recognize your list as pointing out that the current candidates don't represent you well and that you have to pick and choose which of those things are the most important to you, but I question your conclusion of McCain.

In order, for things I can get a handle on, McCain supported the war(-), supports the "surge"(?), is anti-choice(-), gets a mediocre rating from the NRA (and worse from other gun owners groups)(-), pro-death penalty and seems to be indifferent to civil liberties(-), anti-gay marriage(-), anti-nationalized health care(+), has a wildly varying economic stance(?), and is mostly anti-environment(-). That matches you once, maybe twice, and disagrees with you at least six times. Now, maybe your opposition to a universal health care system (which doesn't necessarily imply a nationalized health care system, but which I'll ignore for now) and support for continuing the occupation of Iraq overrides the other things, but I think it's important to examine his stances closely.

But more importantly than all of that, he seldom has a single position on an issue. At best, he'll say one thing and then act differently. At worst, his record will just be all over the place. He can't even manage to stand his ground against torture, which he endured for six years in a POW camp. If he cannot stick to his guns on an issue that should be that important to him personally, how can you trust him on anything else?

Don't get snookered by his "straight talk" advertising. He talks no more straightly than any other politician.

All thoughtful and excellent points, as usual Bitt. The biggest issue for me is the war, which I opposed. Every Democrat candidate seems to think that the war being a bad idea in the first place means that it's the right decision to leave now. That's not a logical argument. I believe there will be an terrible tragedy along the lines of Cambodia, Bosnia or Rwanda if the US leaves Iraq now. What little rule of law exists in Iraq now is held together by the presence of the US Army; remove it and it will be a bloodbath. Look at what happened in Afghanistan and how the removal of American support led directly to the rise of the Taliban.

You make some great points about McCain, and I'll need to hold my nose to support him, if I do. He's definitely a politician. His straight talk advertising is almost certainly BS, but the Democrat's rallying cry of "out of Iraq NOW" is silly, emotional, superficial nonsense that will result in much human misery.

People see "Leave Iraq" as a way to express their disapproval of the war. Approval or disapproval of the war is not the point -- that ship has sailed. What do we do about the mess is the right discussion, and leaving it for them to sort out, after destroying their country and what little rule of law they had is short-sighted, callous, and cruel.

I want to agree with you about leaving Iraq. I think, ideally, we should fix it. However, I'm totally unconvinced that anything that we can do could fix it at this point. I'm also unconvinced that occupying the country for many more years will do anything to alleviate the backlash that will occur when we do leave. So, from my point of view, either we leave now or soon and have a huge humanitarian crisis, or we leave later and have a huge humanitarian crisis before which we continue the large humanitarian crisis that exists now, or we never leave and have a permanent large humanitarian crisis.

This is not a situation that I'm happy with. Sometimes the real world completely steps all over one's ideals. And I do think that a lot of the "leave Iraq" sentiment is totally reactionary and ill-advised. That said, I don't think any of the candidates that are in support of leaving Iraq intend to just dump it on the floor and let it be. I think that they all intend for there to still be a reasonably significant American presence in Iraq, just not an overtly military one. (That said, I haven't examined this in depth because, while I think that this would probably be the best course of action, I also think that staying indefinitely is the worst course of action, so that limits my choices.)

Okay, I did a little research, because it is very relevant.

Obama's position, one can assume, should match the bill he sponsored in the Senate. In particular, it requires that benchmarks for progress be set that are prerequisites for removing troops, enhancing training of internal forces, increasing diplomacy, etc. It should also be noted that he was always against the war, speaking against it publicly before it started.

Hillary Clinton has really always been pro-war, and it's only lessened today due to public pressure. That said, she also is in favor of a slow withdrawal, albeit her position changes so often it's hard to nail down exactly what she wants to do.

Edwards voted to approve military force in Iraq but has since apologized for that vote. He also is interested in a slowish withdrawal, speaking specifically of replacing American contractors with Iraqis, but has also spoken of having all troops removed within ten months of his election.

Recently, all three Democratic candidates have stated that they expect that the US will have a presence in Iraq for at least another four years.

Ron Paul was initially opposed to the war, and continues to be. Like Obama, he introduced a bill intended to remove troops from Iraq. His was intended to remove authorization for the use of military force with Iraq in six months time. His position would seem to be the most radical of the major candidates. He claims that it does not set a timetable for removal from Iraq, but I fail to see how removing authorization for military force would not result in a removal of military force.

All of the rest of the Republicans are pro-war, so we'll not see any sort of impetus to remove the US from Iraq at all.

This BBS is a fascinating storehouse. Even in the short time that it has been around, it is very interesting to look back a few years and see the discussions about issues like the invasion of Iraq. How it might or might not be a good idea. Depending on whether there might or might not be WMDs. Or undemocratic despots. Or people yearning to be democratic.

I think I surpass the typical "Undecided Voter". In Gallup-speak, the Undecided Voter (TM) has not decided for whom they will vote. Me? I haven't decided *if* I'm going to vote.

October 11th, 2002 has to stand as the absofuckinglutely low point of the Democratic Party that some of us cut so much nostalgic slack. Read it and weep:

October 11, 2002 Senate roll call

Hey, a couple of MOTR Knight-Ridder reporters figured out that WMD were complete BS, but our Democrats had to stand like stooges to make sure that America knew that the Democrats were not Soft on Defense.

So now people want to vote for the Stooges? Some of them unapologetic Stooges?

Is this what we settle for?

(edit: I wasn't responding to any specifics in Bitt's post. Just venting in situ.)

I'd like to see anybody but this guy try to do this:

power to the people

I don't know much anything about this guy, but I this was kinda cool. It reminds me how I feel about almost everybody in the race. Far too slick, too cheesy or fake feeling.

that was creepy

i'm possibly leaning to Ron Paul (a couple of highlights). down side is he is a republican, but he is the only person in the race (either side) that isn't saying something vague every time he opens his mouth. not preaching change without a plan and not preaching we must stay in iraq.

anybody but McCain

Jim

RP totally fell apart on the topic of illegals and the possible loss of minority votes for the Republican party. "The law is the law" just doesn't live up to the more sensible opinions he has about the perpetual shitstorm in the Middle East.

Is this guy a sleeper planted by the Dems?

No. He's a big-L Libertarian. Which is to say he's a lunatic. Yes, he's right about Iraq (sort of), but he's wrong about virtually everything else. The talk in that video about the recession being caused by the Federal Reserve is hiding his bigger point, which is that he wants to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank and go back to a gold standard, which is insane. He wants to abolish the IRS and get rid of federal income taxes, apparently to be supplanted by a national sales tax, which will just put more money in the pockets of the rich. He wants to get rid of virtually all restrictions on businesses, which will lead us to the same economic disparities that existed in the late 19th century.

Now, that doesn't mean that he's not better than the rest of the Republicans. He is. For one thing, you pretty much know where he stands. He may not be detailing all of his plans, but he's not changing his story every two seconds. But mostly because all of these lunatic ideas he has are unimplementable, by which I mean that there's no way he could actually accomplish them as president.

The machine ordered me to vote this way. I wonder if Stephen Colbert realy believes what he says or its just an act. Like the rest of the candidates.

1. Theoretical Ideal Candidate (100%)
2. Tom Tancredo (withdrawn, endorsed Romney) (78%) Information link
3. Duncan Hunter (withdrawn) (77%) Information link
4. Alan Keyes (72%) Information link
5. Stephen Colbert (campaign halted) (72%) Information link
6. John McCain (62%) Information link
7. Fred Thompson (withdrawn) (61%) Information link
8. Ron Paul (60%) Information link

Do you really?

Here's another one of those quizes: http://www.electoralcompass.com/
(It's made in Holland)

This one is impressive. Perhaps I am biased because the questions it asked pushed so many of my personal hot buttons... but the depth of the analysis available after your answers are correlated with the candidates positions (including source citations) is a big step ahead of most of these polls I've looked at.

tanstaafl.

I think he does a pretty good job of not showing his true convictions. Better than John Stewart

Then you're not paying attention. Everything he says is a parody of the right-wing lunatics. You can assume he means approximately 0% of it.

Has anyone read Colbert's book? I saw it on my last trip down to the US but didn't pick it up. If it's as amusing as his show I might have to give it a read. I don't even follow US politics outside of the Report.

Yes, he is acting but since he is good at this form of acting/comidy I can't tell what he truely believe. Maybe you can but I can't

I think the point is that the "person" you see on the Colbert Report is a character Colbert plays. Just like playing a waiter or an office clerk in an old skit. The character just happens to share the actor's name in this case.

Not very different from Shacha Baron Cohen playing Ali G or Borat.

Who, by the way, was *awesome* in Sweeney Todd...

To get this further off-topic.. I don't watch musicals, but if someone posts a clip on YouTube then I suppose I can check it out.

His performance was ruined for me by the idiot fratboys in the theater near me giggling everytime he was onscreen, regardless of context, clearly thinking, "It's Borat, bro!"

While I can agree that seeing their citations is helpful, I think they have come to unrealistic conclusions based on those citations.

For example, Barack Obama is quoted as having said:And from that they take that he "completely agrees" with "All semi-automatic weapons should be banned". (Honestly, I'm not at all sure that either Obama or the writers of the quiz know what "semi-automatic" means.) There is a similar problem with John Edwards, but he never uses that term, referring to the Assault Weapons Ban instead.

Hillary says:And, somehow, from that, they get that she "tends to agree" with "Iraq is just one front in a broader fight against Islamic terrorism", which seems to be the exact opposite of what she said. (I won't get into how what she says changes every few minutes; I'm just looking at their pull quotes.)

They have Ron Paul as "tending to disagree" with "The US should never sign international treaties on climate change that limit economic growth". While he has indicated some vague pro-environmental stances, they are all couched inside infringing on personal liberties by others, and never by governmental control. The notion that he would ever in any way agree to a treaty that limits what businesses can do is absurd. Here's a quote to that exact point:That, to me, is the complete opposite of tending to agree with signing treaties that would limit the economy.

They also have him as neutral on two government providing health-care questions. Again, he is vehemently opposed to the government doing much of anything, so there is no way that he would be in favor of the government providing healthcare benefits. He says:So his philosophical goal is to get rid of what little healthcare the US government currently provides.

I don't really want to go further down the Republican rabbit hole, though, so I'll stop there.

I will agree that it does provide quotes for me to disagree with their interpretation of, though, even if it's not the whole story. That's still one up on most of these sites.

If I go by the quiz, apparently, Alan Keyes is my guy. After him, Mitt Romney is the next best match for a major candidate. Surprise!, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum from most of you guys

Hmmm, Republican, Afro-American candidate, South Carolina. I'da thunk your vote would have pushed him into the top three


Part of me longs for a Romney nomination. The notion of a sort of a Daisy television commercial -- but with dogshit dripping down the windshield of the clean-cut family guy's station wagon -- is just too much fun to contemplate without adequate sedatives on hand.


So what you are possibly saying is that you *visited* Wexlerwantshearings.com....but didn't inhale?

In the saddest development yet in the Presidential campaign, Dennis Kucinich has dropped out of the race. This is mainly saddening due to the fact that we will not have a FLILF in the White House in 2008.

Bwahahahahaha!!! That was great! Not to mention I've always been a sucker for a redhead.

Well,you learn something every day. I was once acronym-impaired but am now fully MILF-aware. Whew.

OK, a bit low, but that was funny. And I *would* love to steal Mrs. Kucinich away from her hubby. Ummm, fat chance. Well, he *was* the only person offering a sane health care policy/plan, so I will miss him.

Lust-wise, not sure the game is over. Again, I am not entirely sure what to make of her hubby (can you spell R-e-z-k-o?) but I think I would vote for Michelle in a heartbeat in 2016. And I think she leaves any remaining hottie-wannabees in the dust.

Well, no matter what else happens, I think tonight's crushing defeat of Rudy Giulliani shows that American voters, and Florida voters in particular, aren't hopless after all.

I was hoping for a Romney win just to keep the GOP playing field even, but I'll take any result that has Saint Rudy of 9/11 (and his puppy-murdering wife) abandoning his campaign by the end.

And, for the record, I'm with ya on the Mrs. Obama thing. Now, if her husband would just stop reinforcing right-wing frames with his "the country is too partisan" rhetoric. If anything, we need more partisanship, more fighting, and more conflict in our government, not less.

Maybe Barack is just trying to sound positive and appear palatable to moderates, but it certainly doesn't excite me when he undercuts the movement that's put him in this position in the first place..

Then again, with Hillary doing stuff like this, I think my choice might already be made.

I could be wrong, but I have the feeling that he's trying to stop the feuding, not being conciliatory towards right-wing notions. I agree that the Democrats should stop rolling over for Bush, but there is also a lot of pointless feuding amongst the citizenry. (Of course, a lot of that would go away with more reasonable people in the government.) I know that there are a lot of people that would like to see the country not be as divisive as it is right now, and Obama is the only person I see running that seems to share that ideal. Seems like a good election tactic to me.

Yeah, but bipartisanship itself has never solved a single problem. The only thing bipartisanship does is clear legislative hurdles through compromise. Obama (and a lot of DC pundit types) speak of bipartisanship as if it's a solution to problems in and of itself. It's not.

I'd love it if members of both parties gathered 'round the campfire and sang kumbaya each night while passing votes 435-0 in the House and 100-0 in the Senate, but that's not the world we live in. People disagree about stuff, and one man's "pointless feuding" is another man's "arguing about stuff that matters."

I guess my point is that we're not suddenly going to get smarter politicians to replace all the ones we have, so we might as well have ones that fight for what they think is right rather than kowtowing to an out of control executive branch. "Bipartisanship" is what got us into this mess. It's not going to get us out of it.

Agreed. And my point is that (while I have no proof of this) Obama isn't intending to crumple under the slightest pressure, but is saying that he recognizes that the ire is counterproductive.

This is generally the big problem I have with US politics. We either have bipartisanship or we have two parties fighting against each other with polar opposite views on things. Without a 3rd viable party, or more, nearly every issue that comes down either is good to both sides equally, or completely unacceptable to one side. So we miss out on the process of two opposed sides compromising to swing a third side in their favor to gain the majority. While in theory compromise should be happening with two parties, it seems more often that things are just struck down instead since the majority party can all just say no in unison.

Perhaps, but it's not politics in the US that causes there to be two parties, it's the mathematics of the voting system.

Since a plurality always wins each seat, if three significant parties exist, it is always in the benefit of two parties (usually the 2nd and 3rd) to join forces. Which just reduces things to two parties again. For example, if the Democratic candidate was polling at 40%, the Republican candidate at 35%, and a Libertarian candidate at 10%, it makes sense for the Republicans and Libertarians to join forces to get 45% and beat the Democrats. (Replace Libertarians with evangelical Christians and you have a fairly accurate representation of the last two presidential elections.) This is basically what happens with coalition governments in many parliamentary governments, except the individual parties retain their identities, which means that changes in alliances are more easily possible.

If we either had a voting system not based on winner-takes-all, or a system where seats in Congress were allocated proportionally (so that if the Libertarians got 10% of the vote, they got 10% of the seats in Congress), this would be resolved. But that is unlikely to ever actually happen.

Indeed. Having been brought up in the usual continental Eurpoean "27 parties that have to work it out" system, the anglo-saxon "winner takes all" system has always struck me as rather barbarian.
I don't think democracy really can be based on "50.00001 % gets to decide".

I can definitely understand why it happens, and I was right there voting yes in Colorado to split the electoral votes based on the percentages of the popular vote. Sadly the measure was defeated, as those opposed to it started running ad campaigns smearing they guy from California who started the proposition. They generally attacked it on the principal of "Well, if it's really so great, why isn't this guy pushing it in California?".

It does show a possibility for change in the system though, but it's going to have to be a state by state process. Makes me wonder what it takes to get something like this up for a vote.

Splitting electoral votes is about one-tenth of a step. You'd still be doing first-past-the-post voting. You'd just be conglomerating less. I'm far less interested in that than in a voting system that allowed people to vote their conscience rather than having to vote for whoever is more likely to win.

No, what got us into this mess is the unconstitutional actions of a morally corrupt President who, through distortions and outright lies was able to pressure the Republican-controlled congress into an unjustifiable war with appalling, disastrous consequences for the future of this country.

Bipartisanship is the only chance we have of surviving this fiasco as a nation, and I fear it may already be too late.

tanstaafl.

I think his point is that "bipartisanship" has come to mean "capitulation". See the essay What "bipartisanship" in Washington means for more detail.

And by "this mess", I understood it to mean "the current system of politics in America".