17 aspirants and their views on 7 Issues

Sorry I had failled in my text to name those candidates/applicants/aspirants.

17 appliants are
Joe Biden
Hillary Clinto
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Rudolph Giuliani
Mike Gravel
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter
Alan Keyes
Dennis Kucinich
John McCain
Barack Obama
Ron Paul
Bill Richardson
W. Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson

on the Iraq War

While Biden voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002, he has questioned whether it is still valid and opposes President Bush's current "troop surge.

While she voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002, Clinton has since said that she "certainly wouldn't have voted" for the war if she had known then what she knows now

While Dodd voted in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq, he now says that the war was based on "fabricated" justifications and no longer meets the criteria for a "just war" in the Catholic tradition.

While serving in the Senate, Edwards voted in 2002 to authorize funding for the war in Iraq, a vote he has since called a mistake.

Giuliani supported President Bush's January 2007 decision to increase troops and has said pulling the U.S. military out of Iraq would be a "terrible mistake."

Gravel opposed the invasion of Iraq and now advocates a full withdrawal of troops within 120 days. In a November 2006 speech,

Huckabee says the war in Iraq is part of a "World War III" against Islamic fascism, which he describes as "a perversion of Islam."

Hunter is a vocal supporter of the Iraq War. Along with the removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the toppling of Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime marks, in his view, "the greatest protection of human rights in this decade."

Keyes disagrees with many of the decisions made regarding the war in Iraq but supports it as part of a larger war on terror versus Islamic extremism. He says his one criticism is that "President Bush put a lot of emphasis on democracy for people in Iraq, when our real goal is security for people in America."

Kucinich has made ending the war in Iraq one of his major campaign themes. Kucinich voted against the authorization of the use of force in Iraq in 2002 and has voted against funding for the war since then.

McCain voted for the 2002 invasion of Iraq and remains supportive of President Bush's policies there. He has criticized management of the war, but says pulling out would be a mistake leading to greater instability and future conflicts in the region.

Since Obama was not a member of the U.S. Senate in 2002, he did not vote on the authorization of the use of force in Iraq. But he was an opponent of the war effort as an Illinois state senator and campaigned against the war in his 2004 Senate bid.

Paul has objected to the war in Iraq for having been "sold to us with false information," being fiscally irresponsible and lacking both a congressional declaration of war and moral justification. He has introduced legislation to revoke the president's authority to wage war in Iraq and favors a "clear decision to leave.

Richardson calls for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. He says that "there is no military solution" to the situation in Iraq and argues instead for the necessity of diplomatic relations and "reconciliation talks" with the Iraqi government. Richardson says he believes that the United States "has a moral obligation to do what we can to help the Iraqis end that violence" and that the best way to fulfill that obligation is to leave.

Romney supports President Bush's policy in Iraq, including his January 2007 decision to increase the number of troops in Iraq. He has criticized the planning and management of the Iraq conflict, but says keeping the U.S. in Iraq is the best option for minimizing casualties, securing the country and maintaining a democratic government there.

Tancredo voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in 2002 but has since asserted that American troops' role should be focused on giving "regional powers and Iraqi factions" the freedom they need to "forge a new balance of power."

On the Iraq war issue
both Ron Paul and bill Richarson have a rational views while others are not upto the mark( according to the global views.


On the environment
John edwards views are the best
"Leading the fight against global warming" is one of Edwards' top five priorities. He has called for caps on greenhouse gas emissions, a global warming treaty with developing nations and increased funding for research into new energy sources. Edwards has also suggested banning new coal-fired power plants in the U.S. unless they recapture the greenhouse gases they create.

(Kucinich proposes the creation of a Works Green Administration (WGA), modeled on Franklin Roosevelt's Depression-era Works Progress Administration. Kucinich's WGA would aim to create "millions of new jobs" through environmental initiatives. He has also suggested that there is a link between American foreign policy and environmental policy - between "global warring and global warming" - and says the U.S. should lessen its reliance on oil and coal and move toward reliance on wind and solar power.)

And immigration is the main emotional topic besides Iraq.

Three candidates views are worthy for consideration


Clinton supports comprehensive immigration reform based on strengthening America's borders and implementing new enforcement laws. She advocates providing a path to legal status for undocumented workers already in the U.S. Clinton supports a proposal in New York state to allow undocumented, illegal immigrants to gain U.S. government identification, but she came under fire from her Democratic opponents in an October 2007 debate for appearing to change positions on the issue. In the past, Clinton has used the Bible to criticize a Republican plan to make it a federal crime to offer aid to illegal immigrants, saying the proposed policy "is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scripture because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."

Dodd supports creating a pathway to earned citizenship for undocumented workers already in the U.S. He also favors increased penalties for employers of illegal immigrants, and strengthening the Mexican border through a partnership with the Mexican government. Dodd voted for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. He is a fluent Spanish speaker and opposes efforts to make English a national language.

Kucinich has said that "those who have been here, who have paid their taxes and paid their dues and been part of our economy for the last decade need to have a chance to have a path to citizenship." He has also said that he believes all American children should learn to speak Spanish.

And here is the latest news about immigration.

The Republican presidential candidates sought to embrace Hispanics in a Spanish language debate Sunday, striving to mark common ground with a growing voter bloc while softening the anti-illegal immigration rhetoric that has marked their past encounters.

The candidates avoided the harsh exchanges and name-calling of their most recent debate, while still emphasizing the need for border security and an end to illegal immigration. The polite debate came less than four weeks before the first votes are cast in Iowa and amid a topsy-turvy race in which former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has bolted to the lead in the state.

Only Sen. John McCain warned that harsh immigration views voiced by some Republicans have driven Hispanics away from the party. The Arizona senator has stood apart from most of his Republican rivals because he supported changing immigration laws and creating a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants.

"I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor of or seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," he said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2007-12-09_D8TEAC1O0&show_article=1&cat=breaking

Health care
Edwards' universal health care proposal would provide tax credits for low-income families, expand Medicare and federal health care for children and create a federal health insurance agency that would eventually replace private health insurance. The plan would be funded through a roll-back of the Bush administration's tax cuts for families making more than $200,000 a year and through currently-uncollected capital gains taxes.

Kucinich favors universal health care and has proposed expanding Medicare to cover all Americans, eliminating for-profit insurance companies. He has said that currently "Americans are paying for universal health care. They're just not getting it." Kucinich has called health care coverage "a basic right in a Democratic society."


Education

????

Death penalty

Gravel has said little about capital punishment on the campaign trail, but he called for abolition of the death penalty in his 1972 book, Citizen Power. He still believes capital punishment should be outlawed, according to campaign press secretary Alex Colvin.

Kucinich opposes the death penalty. He says, "Morally, I simply do not believe that we as human beings have the right to 'play God' and take a human life - especially since our human judgments are fallible and often wrong." Kucinich says that his position on the death penalty is "derived from my moral and spiritual convictions."

Poverty

Edwards has made reducing poverty the signature issue of his presidential campaign, calling it "the great moral issue of our time." He has set a goal of ending poverty in 30 years by lifting one-third of the 37 million currently impoverished Americans above the poverty line each decade through a higher minimum wage, tax cuts for low-income workers, universal health care and housing vouchers for low-income families. Edwards has also proposed a plan for ending global poverty that would feature schooling for every child and preventative health care.

Kucinich advocates the concept of ending the war in Iraq and using the money saved to fight domestic poverty, calling things like homelessness, joblessness and poverty "weapons of mass destruction." In July 2007, Kucinich said that he was in favor of reparations for slavery, saying, "The Bible says we shall and must be repairers of the breach. And a breach has occurred. … It's a breach that has resulted in inequality in opportunities for education, for health care, for housing, for employment." He favors raising the federal minimum wage.

http://pewforum.org/religion08/compare.php?Issue=Death_Penalty

Now there are only a handful of few.(5)

Who will refurbish the shattered image of USA?

Now there are only four choices
approved by the American easy chair intellectuals.
None of the corporate sponsered candidates are decent enough to enthuse the non-americans.

I live in Germany and I don't know where is the street called USA

Then stay in Germany and mind your own business.

woiyo
Of course I stay and mind my business.
But I have taken a pledge to expose the criminals.

Then concentrate on your own countries criminals.

http://www.skinheadnation.co.uk/germanskinheads.htm

woiyo
are you human enough or patriotic enough to post a thread about Germany and USA?
I am a human but not a banal banana barbarian.
Take it easy.
You and your comrades are not the only intellectual around the globe..

I care a jot about Indian barbarism nor i care a goose about German fatalism.
My view is this.
USA is a country like Germany or Israel, India.

A2K is a forum to uphold decency
like Abuzz or DER SPIEGEL.
Sorry.
Extremely sorry.
I regret
Rama

l