OT: 2008 Elections

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 2:58 pm

Heard a show about budget issues.

One of the biggest items in the budget is now the interest on the national debt, at about $220 billion this year or next.

Hey, but it's only a small percentage of the GDP.

I may have heard this incorrectly but they said earmarks only comprise about $1.5 billion? They may be separating it from other pork barrel appropriations.

Jackdog · Post by **Jackdog** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:38 pm

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02222008/ne ... _98798.htm

DELI PIGOUT A CLINTON GUT BU$TER
By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

February 22, 2008 -- AUSTIN, Texas - Hillary Rodham Clinton's free-spending campaign blew a whopping $95,000 at a low-end supermarket-deli chain last month in Iowa - a telling sign of why she can no longer cut the mustard financially against Barack Obama in critical states.

The heavy spending helps explain why Clinton's camp ended the year $7.6 million in debt, not including her $5 million loan to her campaign. The campaign team has plowed through $116 million so far.

Some are calling Clinton's demise one of the greatest mismanaged campaigns in modern history.

pk500 · Post by **pk500** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:04 pm

One word, Jackdiggity: Hubris.

Take care,
PK

Inuyasha · Post by **Inuyasha** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:05 pm

JackDog wrote:blew a whopping $95,000 at a low-end supermarket-deli chain last month in Iowa -

Bill's such a f***in pig.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:18 pm

JackDog wrote: Some are calling Clinton's demise one of the greatest mismanaged campaigns in modern history.

Certainly from a political perspective (as opposed to economically) it's been utterly tone deaf, totally unresponsive to the changing events of the season and redefined hubris as it applies to politics. Stunning that she could have had so much experience at her disposal and yet fashioned a campaign of such stunning mediocrity.

Basically she's been unable to meaningfully respond to the Obama challenge. All she's done is vacillate between dismissing him and ignoring him in favor of slavish devotion to campaign themes that are resonating with nobody.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:18 pm

There's talk that they didn't plot for having to still contest for the nomination after Super Tuesday.

Also the poor showing in just about every caucus indicates they didn't really deploy grass-roots organization in those states.

However, she was raising money like crazy and then was unprepared for an opponent who fundraised much better.

A candidate whom some suggest is riding a wave bigger than any single individual.

When turnout is high, as they've been in many states, Obama is getting most of those new voters.

Clinton had the name recognition and still drew a lot of votes -- I believe in WI and some other states, she got more votes than the GOP candidates combined.

And still finished a distant second to Obama.

XXXIV · Post by **XXXIV** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:15 pm

RobVarak wrote:
JackDog wrote: Some are calling Clinton's demise one of the greatest mismanaged campaigns in modern history.
Certainly from a political perspective (as opposed to economically) it's been utterly tone deaf, totally unresponsive to the changing events of the season and redefined hubris as it applies to politics. Stunning that she could have had so much experience at her disposal and yet fashioned a campaign of such stunning mediocrity.

Basically she's been unable to meaningfully respond to the Obama challenge. All she's done is vacillate between dismissing him and ignoring him in favor of slavish devotion to campaign themes that are resonating with nobody.

The booing was cool...

sfz_T-car · Post by **sfz_T-car** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:44 am

Clinton's campaign hasn't been effective but people calling it one of all-time worst have very short memories. It's not even the worst of this primary season.

Giuliani's master plan of sitting out the early primaries came up DOA, even without a clear GOP front runner emerging before FLA. It's hard to imagine his strategy ever working out, even with a more likeable, less one-note candidate.

Grandpa Fred's campaign was pretty much flawed from the get-go. He waited, waited, committed then waited some more. By the time he decided he wanted to get serious, nobody cared anymore.

Hillary's campaign by comparison was more strategically sound and far better organized going in (on day one). She had the misfortune to run into a phenomenon which really isn't her team's fault. They certainly could have reacted better in retrospect but an establishment candidate isn't going to do well with an electorate craving change.

Naples39 · Post by **Naples39** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:58 am

sfz_T-car wrote:Giuliani's master plan of sitting out the early primaries came up DOA, even without a clear GOP front runner emerging before FLA. It's hard to imagine his strategy ever working out, even with a more likeable, less one-note candidate.

FWIW, I never believe that was actually his strategy. The simple fact is that he made more visits and spent more advertising money in NH than any candidate other than Romney. After being nowhere near the top in NH however, all of a sudden he was telling everyone that his strategy was to wait for FL where he still had a big lead in the polls. The reality is that he was a candidate who never resonated with the voters but who did try to win NH.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:37 pm

It's often the case that the most insightful articles about the travails of one party are written by the other. Here's Mark Steyn on the topic we were discussing yesterday. Granted, it has some gratuitous Obama digs, but they're probably as well-received in the Clinton camp as by the readers of The National Review, and aside from that it is a trenchant analysis of where it's All Gone Wrong for the restoration.

Hillary Richardson
The Democratic party has a new star.

By Mark Steyn

On the day that Margaret Thatcher was toppled by her own party, I ran into an old friend, a hardcore leftist playwright, Marxist to the core, who wasn’t as happy as he should have been. He jabbed me in the chest. “You bastards on the right!” he fumed. “You wouldn’t even let us be the ones to drive the stake through her heart.”

I’m sure in America’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy there are similar mixed feelings this week. The Clintons have met their Waterloo but it’s not some doughty conservative warrior who gets to play Duke of Wellington, only some freshman pap peddler of liberal boilerplate whom no-one had heard of the day before yesterday.

Such are the vicissitudes of politics. I see from the gay newspaper the Washington Blade that, as the headline writer put it, “Clinton Leads Among Gay Super Delegates.” Only in the Democratic party. I don’t know how many supergays it takes to outvote the non-super primary and caucus voters from Maine to Nevada to Hawaii. They may yet pull Senator Clinton’s chestnuts out of the fire, but they’re looking pretty charred and indigestible right now. Unlike the Fall of Thatcher, it’s nothing so glamorous as an act of matricide, but just the nightly hell of a tired vaudeville act that can no longer find the spark.

Bill Clinton understood a crude rule of show business — that, if you behave like a star, there are plenty of people who’ll treat you like one. The apotheosis of this theory was his interminable ambulatory entrance down mile after mile of corridor at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, when Slick Willie finally out-Elvised Elvis — or, more accurately, out-Smarted the opening sequence of Get Smart. Apparently, no-one had thought to tell him to try to get within four miles of the stage before the introductory video ended. He was, by my calculations, outside the men’s room on Corridor G27, Sub-Basement Level 6 of the Staples Center. As he began the long, long, lo-oo-oo-oong televised walk to the podium the crowd watching the monitors cheered — and, 20 minutes later, after he’d strolled down the first three or four windowless tunnels of attractive luminous drywall, hung a left by the water cooler, taken the emergency stairs, cut across the stationery closet, moved smoothly through the boiler room and had still only reached the Coke machine on Sous-Mezzanine Level 4 and there was at least a mile and a half between him and the stage, and the Democratic activists out in the hall were beginning to figure they could get dinner and a movie and still be back in time for the last third of his walk-on, they were nevertheless still cheering. In effect, President Clinton dared them not to cheer. Tom Jones wouldn’t have risked it. Engelbert Humperdinck would have balked. But, after eight years of talking the talk, Bill walked the walk. In the hall, the delegates’ hands were raw, bleeding stumps, but the Slicker knew that if he started his entrance in Idaho those Dems would cheer him every step of the way.

The Clintons turned the Democratic party into a star vehicle and designated everyone else as extras. But their star quality was strictly comparative. They had industrial-strength audacity and a lot of luck: Bill jumped into the 1992 race when A-listers like Mario Cuomo were too cowed by expert advice that Bush Snr. was unbeatable. Clinton gambled, won the nomination and beat a weak opponent in a three-way race, with Ross Perot siphoning votes from the right. He got even luckier four years later. So did Hillary when she embarked on something patently absurd — a First Lady running for a Senate seat in a state she’s never lived in — only to find Rudy Giuliani going into instant public meltdown. The SAS, Britain’s special forces, have a motto: Who dares wins. The Clintons dared, and they won — even as almost everyone else in their party lost: senators, congressmen, governors, state legislators. Even when they ran into a spot of intern trouble, sheer nerve saw them through. Almost anyone else would have slunk off in shame, but the Clintons understood that the checks and balances don’t add up to much if you’re determined not to go: As at that 2000 convention speech, they dared the Democrats not to cheer.

With hindsight, the oral sex was a master stroke. Bill Clinton likes to tell anyone who’ll listen that he governed as an “Eisenhower Republican,” which is kind of true — NAFTA, welfare reform, etc. If you have to have a Democrat in the Oval Office, he was as good as it gets for Republicans — if you don’t mind the fact that he’s a draft-dodging non-inhaling sex fiend. Republicans did mind, of course, which is why Dems rallied round out of boomer culture-war solidarity. But, if he hadn’t been dropping his pants and appealing to so many of their social pathologies, his party wouldn’t have been half so enthusiastic for another chorus of “I Like Ike.”

Hillary is what the Clintons look like with their pants up. Their much-vaunted political savvy turns out to be a big nothing: The supposed masters of “the politics of personal destruction” can’t turn up anything better on Obama than some ancient essay from his Jakarta grade school, plus a few limp charges of plagiarism. And instead of getting the surrogates to crowbar the enemy every time Hillary opens up on him she looks mean and petty and he gets to do his high-minded Obamessiah routine. Their star quality was also, as noted above, mostly a giant bluff. In his heyday, Bill could channel his narcissism into a famously sure “common touch” — he liked to bask in proof of his awesome empathetic powers. But, in the years since he left the Oval Office, he’s played too many gazillion-dollar-a-plate jet-set dinners in France and Switzerland, and the “common touch” has curdled. That was plain even by the 2002 midterms, when you could more or less correlate Democratic losses by his travel schedule. He’s a bust on the stump.

And, worst of all for Bill and Hill, the Dems found a new star — their first in 16 years. Look at it from Hillary’s point of view: She’d expected to run against the likes of Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd — the usual mediocrities and misfits. Then Barack Obama came along, and did what the Clintons did in 1992 — saw his opportunity and seized it. All of a sudden, she’s the Bill Richardson — worthy but dull, earthbound, and joyless, lead weights round her ankles.

She has a melancholy dignity in decline. She knows she would make the better president, but every time she tries to explain why it sounds prosaic and unromantic. Bill gave the party an appetite for slick lounge acts, and this time round Barack’s the guy delivering it in buckets of gaseous uplift. Can Barbra Streisand and the Supergays get Hillary airborne again? I doubt it. Go back to that Staples Center entrance in 2000, and try to imagine Hill walking that walk. How far would she get before the applause died away and she’d be padding that endless corridor to no audible accompaniment but the clack of her heels?

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:47 pm

Interesting ratings for the three candidates on free trade:

http://www.freetrade.org/congress

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:59 pm

McCain is in the opposite corner (upper-right, free trader) from Clinton and Obama, who are rated interventionists (lower-left).

Supposedly polls reflect misgivings in the electorate about free trade.

If the economy deteriorates, specifically jobs, it'll be interesting to see if that is tied to free trade.

We had a big offshoring debate in 2004 and ultimately it didn't hurt advocates of free trade, even in states like OH which had suffered heavy manufacturing job losses to overseas workers.

In many states, the issue of gay marriage blunted the importance of economic issues. This year, it appears immigration may serve a similar purpose, even if the backlash against immigration might be reflective of economic insecurity.

dougb · Post by **dougb** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 6:37 pm

wco81 wrote:McCain is in the opposite corner (upper-right, free trader) from Clinton and Obama, who are rated interventionists (lower-left).

Supposedly polls reflect misgivings in the electorate about free trade.

If the economy deteriorates, specifically jobs, it'll be interesting to see if that is tied to free trade.

We had a big offshoring debate in 2004 and ultimately it didn't hurt advocates of free trade, even in states like OH which had suffered heavy manufacturing job losses to overseas workers.

In many states, the issue of gay marriage blunted the importance of economic issues. This year, it appears immigration may serve a similar purpose, even if the backlash against immigration might be reflective of economic insecurity.

Looks like the 'straight talk express' has hurtled down the embankment into the ditch as reporters have finally started to write about McCain's whoring with lobbyists (both in the literal and figurative sense). He makes Hillary look like a saint on the hypocrisy and special interest front, when he's got lobbyists lobbying straight from the campaign bus and gets his hand caught in the public funding cookie jar immediately after challenging Obama on it. Mind you, given the number of Republican's found bending over in bathroom stalls, the complete batsh*t insanity of Gulliani, and the incomparable two timing liar Romney, he's probably still the best they can come up with.

Best wishes,

Doug

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:48 pm

dougb wrote:Mind you, given the number of Republican's found bending over in bathroom stalls, the complete batsh*t insanity of Gulliani, and the incomparable two timing liar Romney, he's probably still the best they can come up with.

Best wishes,

Doug

Well it took 25 pages, but somebody's finally made a complete a-hole of himself. I think we should look at it as a matter of pride that we were able to avoid this kind of thing for as long as we did

Seriously, that is just not a constructive post Doug.

EZSnappin · Post by **EZSnappin** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:26 pm

RobVarak wrote:
dougb wrote:Mind you, given the number of Republican's found bending over in bathroom stalls, the complete batsh*t insanity of Gulliani, and the incomparable two timing liar Romney, he's probably still the best they can come up with.

Best wishes,

Doug
Well it took 25 pages, but somebody's finally made a complete a-hole of himself. I think we should look at it as a matter of pride that we were able to avoid this kind of thing for as long as we did

Seriously, that is just not a constructive post Doug.

Did you miss this piece of reasoned, helpful, open-minded criticism?

ProvoAnC wrote:
so what's the solution to fighting smelly bearded men in dresses? Hold hands? f*** sheep as a sign of solidarity? Let them blow more of our s*** up so we can show how tolerant we are of their views?

We either fight them over there or we fight them here...f*** it-leave Iraq, let them come here, and I'll be more than happy to face-shoot a moose-limb everyday, but America better be ready to face the consequences. Its time we start worrying less about what some donkey-f***ers from Douchebagistan think of how we do things and a little more about protecting our own.

America is not at war....the Marines and Army are at war...America is at the mall.

I guess people just have different definitions of "complete a-hole" and "not a constructive post".

I'm really not trying to start anything with this, just find it interesting what gets to people and what doesn't. Personally, I'll take hyperbolic jabs over complete racist fabrications.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:57 pm

EZ, that is an excellent point. OTOH I do recall basically skipping over everything but the last line in Provo's post because I didn't want to parse the parts written in dialect.

EZSnappin · Post by **EZSnappin** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:02 pm

Point back to you! Well played.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 6:42 pm

Obama has definitely pulled an upset, but I agree that Hillary Clinton has not run even the worse campaign of the year. Thompson could have had the GOP nomination if someone had woken him from his nap. Guiliani had more name recognition than any candidate except Hillary and he was getting beat by Ron Paul. And Mitt Romney spent enough to buy a wardrobe of Armani suits for every member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and couldn't even out last Mike Huckabee. McCain got his nomination by sucking the least. Clinton is losing hers in part because of her mistakes, but also because she's up against the most charismatic candidate in the entire field.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:07 pm

I don't think Obama pulled an upset. Yes Hillary's numbers were off the charts but I think most people know Hillary couldn't make it to the nomination.

I really though this was Obama's to lose not to win. So far that's proven to be true. I think McCain stands no chance and this one is pretty much over unless it comes out that Obama that he too part in a islamic gay wedding - tax increase- gun control - ceremony.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 7:40 pm

There's been several references to Obama riding a wave, being some transformative figure and so forth, with the turnout and young voter participation being high.

Then you have phenomenon like Obama drawing huge crowds, even before he announced and the huge donor base he's accumulated.

His detractors, mainly the conservatives, think he's spouting empty words, lacks experience, lacks substance (given since anything but conservatism is empty).

We haven't had a big landslide since '88? Clinton had an electoral college landslide but not in popular vote in '96?

So for Obama to really bring together the country, he'd have to win by more than a few percent of the vote.

But I don't think that is going to happen. Lot of the political ideologies are irreconcilable. Even if evangelicals didn't think Obama was some closet Muslim, they're not going to vote for him. Nor will defense hawks, nor supply-siders.

It's probably going to be another close election.

What's going to bring about a "transformative" figure is some event or series of events to bring the country together, to mute some of the ideological impulses, at least for one or two election.

An election shortly after 9/11 probably would have brought the country behind one candidate. But that has faded as Giuliani found out.

That might explain FDR's electoral domination, that the country went for one big figure in times of distress, rather than looking to divide over policies/ideologies.

Short of some extended disasters, the reds and blues will rally behind their respective candidates.

ProvoAnC · Post by **ProvoAnC** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 12:35 am

EZSnappin wrote:
RobVarak wrote:
dougb wrote:Mind you, given the number of Republican's found bending over in bathroom stalls, the complete batsh*t insanity of Gulliani, and the incomparable two timing liar Romney, he's probably still the best they can come up with.

Best wishes,

Doug
Well it took 25 pages, but somebody's finally made a complete a-hole of himself. I think we should look at it as a matter of pride that we were able to avoid this kind of thing for as long as we did

Seriously, that is just not a constructive post Doug.
Did you miss this piece of reasoned, helpful, open-minded criticism?
ProvoAnC wrote:
so what's the solution to fighting smelly bearded men in dresses? Hold hands? f*** sheep as a sign of solidarity? Let them blow more of our s*** up so we can show how tolerant we are of their views?

We either fight them over there or we fight them here...f*** it-leave Iraq, let them come here, and I'll be more than happy to face-shoot a moose-limb everyday, but America better be ready to face the consequences. Its time we start worrying less about what some donkey-f***ers from Douchebagistan think of how we do things and a little more about protecting our own.

America is not at war....the Marines and Army are at war...America is at the mall.
I guess people just have different definitions of "complete a-hole" and "not a constructive post".

I'm really not trying to start anything with this, just find it interesting what gets to people and what doesn't. Personally, I'll take hyperbolic jabs over complete racist fabrications.

oh so "smelly bearded men in dresses" didn't fly planes into the WTC, Pentagon, and a field in PA? It must've been the other guys, you know the ones that blew up 2 embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. I totally forgot

TheHiddenTrack · Post by **TheHiddenTrack** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 1:18 am

Good point, good sir, I can't wait for the rebuttal. You are quite the formidable opponent.

JRod · Post by **JRod** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:10 am

wco81 wrote:There's been several references to Obama riding a wave, being some transformative figure and so forth, with the turnout and young voter participation being high.

Then you have phenomenon like Obama drawing huge crowds, even before he announced and the huge donor base he's accumulated.

His detractors, mainly the conservatives, think he's spouting empty words, lacks experience, lacks substance (given since anything but conservatism is empty).

We haven't had a big landslide since '88? Clinton had an electoral college landslide but not in popular vote in '96?

So for Obama to really bring together the country, he'd have to win by more than a few percent of the vote.

But I don't think that is going to happen. Lot of the political ideologies are irreconcilable. Even if evangelicals didn't think Obama was some closet Muslim, they're not going to vote for him. Nor will defense hawks, nor supply-siders.

It's probably going to be another close election.

What's going to bring about a "transformative" figure is some event or series of events to bring the country together, to mute some of the ideological impulses, at least for one or two election.

An election shortly after 9/11 probably would have brought the country behind one candidate. But that has faded as Giuliani found out.

That might explain FDR's electoral domination, that the country went for one big figure in times of distress, rather than looking to divide over policies/ideologies.

Short of some extended disasters, the reds and blues will rally behind their respective candidates.

Not all the people that are wanting Obama to be more specific are Reds. I think a lot of people in his own camp are asking that. But right now he doesn't need to be because Hillary can't land any punches.

And to your last point, the number of blues and reds in this country is decreasing. The independents are growing by the day and they are the gamechangers. Not only that but I think more and more people are wanting someone can cross the blue or red line. Do that and I think that president will get called the transformation president.

greggsand · Post by **greggsand** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 2:20 am

ProvoAnC wrote:
EZSnappin wrote:
RobVarak wrote: Well it took 25 pages, but somebody's finally made a complete a-hole of himself. I think we should look at it as a matter of pride that we were able to avoid this kind of thing for as long as we did

Seriously, that is just not a constructive post Doug.
Did you miss this piece of reasoned, helpful, open-minded criticism?
ProvoAnC wrote:
so what's the solution to fighting smelly bearded men in dresses? Hold hands? f*** sheep as a sign of solidarity? Let them blow more of our s*** up so we can show how tolerant we are of their views?

We either fight them over there or we fight them here...f*** it-leave Iraq, let them come here, and I'll be more than happy to face-shoot a moose-limb everyday, but America better be ready to face the consequences. Its time we start worrying less about what some donkey-f***ers from Douchebagistan think of how we do things and a little more about protecting our own.

America is not at war....the Marines and Army are at war...America is at the mall.
I guess people just have different definitions of "complete a-hole" and "not a constructive post".

I'm really not trying to start anything with this, just find it interesting what gets to people and what doesn't. Personally, I'll take hyperbolic jabs over complete racist fabrications.
oh so "smelly bearded men in dresses" didn't fly planes into the WTC, Pentagon, and a field in PA? It must've been the other guys, you know the ones that blew up 2 embassies in Africa and the USS Cole. I totally forgot

Actually, they were quite clean-shaved & and in suites, but that's just splitting hairs. I thought that post was just a joke when it first appeared - whoops. I didn't know the terrorist came from Iraq? At least we're "fighting them there"...

ProvoAnC · Post by **ProvoAnC** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:11 am

So you think the only bad-guys in Iraq are Iraqi's?

"Pussies don't like dicks, "because pussies get f***ed by dicks. But dicks also f*** assholes, assholes that just want to s*** on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way, but the only thing that can f*** an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: They f*** too much or f*** when it isn't appropriate, and it takes a p***y to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of s*** that they become assholes themselves, because pussies are an inch and a half away from assholes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us f*** this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in s***!"