A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

from Tico's paste...

Quote:

The other thing that's bothering me is this Barry Hussein Jr., guy.

Your integrity ain't improving.

McCain was not/is not the first choice of many of us. But as it seems a near certainty that he will be the nominee, the one question Republicans and conservatives will have to ask themselves is whether Hillary gets us closer to what this country needs in a leader, or the most liberal senator in Congress gets us closer to what this country needs in a leader, or whether McCain gets us closer to what this country needs in a leader.

From where I sit, it's a no brainer.

According to statistics, Obama IS the most liberal Senator

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.

In their yearlong race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton have had strikingly similar voting records. Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10. "The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter," said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.

woiyo wrote:

According to statistics, Obama IS the most liberal Senator

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.

In their yearlong race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton have had strikingly similar voting records. Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10. "The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter," said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.

Did you not read above? The National Journal is not an independent observor, and their word on who is the 'most liberal' should not be taken as gospel by you guys.

Sure does make for a nice talking point, though.

Cycloptichorn

Looking For A Reason

by digby

I know the MSM isn't particularly quick on the uptake, but this one is so obvious even they should be able to get it. I have been hearing for the past 24 hours how this NYT story has really been good for McCain because it finally brought the base back over to his side.

Can we get real here? The "base" meaning Rush, Fox and the lesser wingnut blowhards, were desperate for an excuse to get on board the Straight Talk Express. The man is the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, the electoral arm of the conservative movement. Did anyone really think their animosity for McCain was going to last through November? Please. They are all on wingnut welfare to one degree or another and there's no way in hell that they could continue to do their jobs in opposition to the Republican presidential nominee. It's ridiculous. I'm sure they all felt a huge sense of relief that they had finally found a hook to get back down to business, which is demeaning and destroying liberals on behalf of Republicans.

This is not to say that they won't blame McCain for being a heretic and turncoat to conservatism when he loses in November. Their lizard brain logic will be "The liberal Democrat won because McCain wasn't conservative enough." But in the meantime, they had to find a way to earn their paycheck, and now they have their hook.

Defining Victory Downward
No, the surge is not a success.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008, at 2:59 PM ET


Why was President Bush's decision a year ago to send another 30,000 troops to Iraq called the "surge"? I don't know who invented this label, but the word surge evokes images of the sea: a wave that sweeps in, and then sweeps back out again. The second part was crucial. What made the surge different from your ordinary troop deployment was that it was temporary. In fact, the surge was presented as part of a larger plan for troop withdrawal. It was also, implicitly, part of a deal between Bush and the majority of Americans who want out. The deal was: Just let me have a few more soldiers to get Baghdad under control, and then everybody, or almost everybody, can pack up and come home.

In other words: You have to increase the troops in order to reduce them. This is so perverse on its face that it begins to sound zenlike and brilliant, like something out of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. And in Gen. David Petraeus, the administration conjured up its own Sun Tzu, a brilliant military strategist.

It is now widely considered beyond dispute that Bush has won his gamble. The surge is a terrific success. Choose your metric: attacks on American soldiers, car bombs, civilian deaths, potholes. They're all down, down, down. Lattes sold by street vendors are up. Performances of Shakespeare by local repertory companies have tripled. Skepticism seems like sour grapes. If you opposed the surge, you have two choices. One is to admit that you were wrong, wrong, wrong. The other is to sound as if you resent all the good news and remain eager for disaster. Too many opponents of the war have chosen option No. 2.

But we needn't quarrel about all this, or deny the reality of the good news, to say that the surge has not worked yet. The test is simple, and built into the concept of a surge: Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started? The answer is no.

In fact, President Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: "If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home." At the time, there were about 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. Bush proposed to add up to 20,000 more troops. Although Bush never made any official promises about a timetable, the surge was generally described as lasting six to eight months.

By last summer, the surge had actually added closer to 30,000 troops, making the total American troop count about 160,000. Today, there are still more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq. The official plan has been to get that number back down to 130,000 by July and then to keep going so that there would be about 100,000 American troops in Iraq by the time Bush leaves office. Lately, though, Gen. Petraeus has come up with another zenlike idea: He calls it a "pause." And the administration has signed on, meaning that the total number of American troops in Iraq will remain at 130,000 for an undetermined period.

So, the best that we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many next July?-and probably next January, when time runs out?-as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started. Maybe the situation in Baghdad, or the whole country, will have improved. But apparently it won't have improved enough to risk an actual reduction in the American troop commitment.

And consider how modest the administration's standard of success has become. Can there be any doubt that they would go for a reduction to 100,000 troops?-and claim victory?-if they had any confidence at all that the gains they brag about would hold at that level of support? The proper comparison isn't to the situation a year ago. It's to the situation before we got there. Imagine that you had been told in 2003 that when George W. Bush finished his second term, dozens of American soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis would be dying violently every month; that a major American goal would be getting the Iraqi government to temper its "de-Baathification" campaign so that Saddam Hussein's former henchmen could start running things again (because they know how); and "only" 100,000 American troops would be needed to sustain this equilibrium. You might have several words to describe this situation, but success would not be one of them.

Which candidate, Clinton, Obama, McCain, will lead the government to violate the Constitution the most, and which one to violate it the least?

Don't ask me. It's too close for me to call.

ican711nm wrote:

Which candidate, Clinton, Obama, McCain, will lead the government to violate the Constitution the most, and which one to violate it the least?

Don't ask me. It's too close for me to call.

Of those 3???

Clinton.

mysteryman wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Which candidate, Clinton, Obama, McCain, will lead the government to violate the Constitution the most, and which one to violate it the least?

Don't ask me. It's too close for me to call.

Of those 3???

Clinton.

There WERE two sides to the question - will violate and won't violate - so yeah Clinton is a good answer.

Foxfyre wrote:

mysteryman wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Which candidate, Clinton, Obama, McCain, will lead the government to violate the Constitution the most, and which one to violate it the least?

Don't ask me. It's too close for me to call.

Of those 3???

Clinton.

There WERE two sides to the question - will violate and won't violate - so yeah Clinton is a good answer.

yesterday I ordered 3 pair of levis, which will actually fit?

February 27, 2008
Poll: McCain's hard to beat
Posted: 11:54 AM ET



WASHINGTON (CNN) ?- A new poll out Wednesday suggests Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will be a difficult candidate for the eventual Democratic nominee to beat in a general election match up this fall.

According to a just released Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, McCain would be in tight races with either of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates.

McCain is statistically tied with Sen. Barack Obama, 44 percent to 42 percent, and ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton by 6 points, 46 percent to 40 percent. The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.

The poll also showed McCain with a 61 percent approval rating, a number higher than both Clinton's and Obama's in past polls. (A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll earlier this month measured Clinton's approval rating at 52 percent and Obama's at 58 percent.)

The Arizona senator holds a clear advantage on dealing with the war in Iraq, according to the poll, and holds a 9 point advantage on economic issues over Obama, despite having acknowledged that area is not his expertise. Though the poll finds voters favor Clinton by 10 points over McCain to handle the economy.

The same poll also showed Obama with a 6 point edge over Clinton nationally ?- a finding that's consistent with several other polls out earlier this week that indicate that the senator from Illinois is the frontrunner in the Democratic race.

I suppose I could post other polls which show Obama with as much as a 16 point advantage over McCain, but you already knew that.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I suppose I could post other polls which show Obama with as much as a 16 point advantage over McCain, but you already knew that.

Cycloptichorn

Of course you can! The older your poll the better.

"Things are a changing!"

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I suppose I could post other polls which show Obama with as much as a 16 point advantage over McCain, but you already knew that.

Cycloptichorn

Of course you can! The older your poll the better.

"Things are a changing!"

Oh, you think so?

This is a little hard to read, but I think you'll figure it out.

Code:Poll Date Sample McCain (R) Obama (D) Und Spread RCP Average
02/18 - 02/25 - 43.4 47.1 6.7 Obama +3.7
LA Times/Bloomberg 02/21 - 02/25 RV 44 42 9 McCain +2.0
AP-Ipsos 02/22 - 02/24 755 RV 41 51 2 Obama +10.0
USA Today/Gallup 02/21 - 02/24 1653 LV 48 47 2 McCain +1.0
CBS News/NY Times 02/20 - 02/24 1115 RV 38 50 7 Obama +12.0
Research 2000 02/18 - 02/21 802 LV 44 50 6 Obama +6.0
FOX News 02/19 - 02/20 900 RV 43 47 10 Obama +4.0
Rasmussen (Wed) 4 Day Tracking 1700 LV 46 43 11 McCain +3.0

What's that? 2 polls in the last week showing him up by more then ten points over McCain?

Nice try, thanks for playing!

Cycloptichorn

...

Code:Poll Date Sample McCain (R) Obama (D) Und Spread RCP Average
...

Rasmussen (Wed) 4 Day Tracking 1700 LV 46 43 11 McCain +3.0

...

Cycloptichorn