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

Go get a dictionary, imposter, and look up the words, "common," and "defense." Then try to figure out the definition when used together. That should help get you started into understanding it slightly.

I don't need to follow any of your so-called instructions; you make yourself look the fool for posting such garbage.

okie wrote: Hey, let all of the citizens be killed, and as long as the paper constitution is still safely housed in a museum somewhere, that should suffice.

Only a ignorant fool would write such a statement.

I illustrated absurdity by being absurd. A tactic that Rush Limbaugh uses. Now do you get it? It isn't complicated.

If you quote Rush, it says more about you than you realize.

Forbes has an interesting tracking series going that some might want to follow:

Politics
Forbes '08 Tracker
David A. Andelman, 05.14.07, 12:00 PM ET
attributes are most important to you in a presidential candidate?
Video: Measuring Presidential Star Appeal

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Most Handsome Candidates
Most Trustworthy Candidates
Most Aggressive Candidates
Most Boring Candidates
Forbes '08 Tracker

Since the dawn of the age of the political advertisement, successful presidential candidates have largely been those who've most effectively sold themselves like soap powder or toothpaste. That's no secret.

But now, Forbes.com has decided to put those traits to a test. If the campaign spinmeisters are going to use Madison Avenue techniques to sell voters on their candidates, perhaps it's time we took a look at these politicos the way the advertising gurus do.

For a decade, one California organization has been quietly matching celebrity endorsers to the products they might be pitching. On the basis of 46 different traits, E-Poll Market Research has developed a profile of the likes of Tom Cruise or Hilary Swank--everything from intelligence and aggressiveness to beauty or sex appeal, even how "kooky-wacky" they might be. Billions of dollars are wagered on endorsements and ad campaigns, hence the need for precise metrics of the value and perception of each individual.

Now, in a collaboration between Forbes.com and E-Poll, these same traits are being used to assess the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. The Forbes '08 Tracker is the result.

Individually, the results are often surprising, amusing, at times even shocking. But taken together, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they are astonishingly, even frighteningly, accurate portraits of the men and one woman who would lead the U.S., and indeed the free world, for the four years beginning in January 2009.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, for instance, was singled out as the "most aggressive" of the candidates of both parties--ahead of both Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain, neither of whom is a shrinking violet. The big shocker is that while Giuliani clocks in at No. 2 behind Clinton, Sen. Joseph Biden is No. 3, just a single percentage point behind the former New York City mayor.

But when it comes to "handsome," Biden has to take a back seat to Sen. John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Sen. Barack Obama, in that order. Bringing up the rear here is Clinton. Barely 1% of those surveyed thought she was handsome, while 3% thought she was "beautiful."

Biden, on the other hand, clocks in as the least trustworthy candidate, not a good position to be in as a candidate for the presidency, but quite likely due to some of his statements, or misstatements, on the campaign trail. The most trustworthy is Republican contender Giuliani, possibly a tribute to his image as "America's mayor" following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

But Giuliani, with a 28% vote on this category, is followed in a close No. 2 by Obama, a Democratic candidate. As for Clinton, only 13% of those polled consider her trustworthy, placing her at No. 8.

Finally, there's the trait that should be the kiss of death for any candidate: most boring. Here, despite his performance at the Academy Awards and all his efforts to loosen up--from a stab at a beard to a Hollywood makeover--Al Gore still clocks in at the top of the heap.

Though not yet an official (or even unofficial) candidate, he did leave the door open on Oscar night. So we sneaked through. Some 24% of those surveyed found him boring, with Clinton coming in a distant second. Least boring? A tie of political polar opposites--Giuliani and Obama. Only 4% of those surveyed considered either one boring.

What does all this add up to? Quite possibly real success at the polls. These days, candidates have to come across to the electorate as appealing on a whole host of criteria, all of which are being measured by the Forbes '08 Tracker. Some of the candidates have been known to American voters for years; others, like Obama, sprang fully formed in the equivalent of a political nanosecond.

There's at least eight months before the first of the political primaries, with billions of dollars in advertising, countless hours of airtime and, no doubt, a host of gaffes, major and minor, still to come. Our goal is to chart each twist and turn in the road, each month, as candidates arrive and drop out.

So while this round of surveys did not include former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, he's bound to resonate with a number of voters who've watched him for five years as the Manhattan district attorney on TV's Law and Order, or in a host of films going back to The Hunt for Red October 17 years ago. Next month we expect to find him on the Forbes '08 Tracker.

Finally, a word about our methodology. While there are approximately an equal number of declared candidates for the presidency from both political parties, we score only three Republicans and seven Democrats. The reason is simple. E-Poll has surveyed its national sample for every candidate. Only 10 made the grade with a sufficient "awareness level" to allow any confidence on the rankings of attributes.

If not enough people have even heard of Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo or Dennis Kucinich, our sample can't render an accurate evaluation of their traits. Clearly, this could change as they and their campaigns gain traction and visibility. Still, even here there's a wide spread.

As for traits, E-Poll has surveyed for all 46, though we are publishing only 20, those attributes that have been identified by our sample of voters as the most pertinent and significant in assessing the viability of each presidential candidate.

In any event, watch this space, from now through November 2008, for the closest monitoring ever of what the American people think of the individual who will eventually lead them.
SOURCE

I'm a little late and don't want to dredge up something that's already died down, but I wanted to respond to a couple of things.

First, the Constitution charges the Congress with providing for the national defense and the President with defending the Constitution. Somehow those roles appear to have gone topsy turvy.

Second:



Well, I would also like to see this, but I don't see how it can happen until there is a return of ethics, honesty, and morality in the way those we elect govern. Maybe we could stop by ceasing to elect morally bankrupt morons to run our country. If our leaders are not getting respect from the people, perhaps it is because they haven't earned it. And in this country, that's the way it's supposed to work.

"Respect is earned." Sounds like a truism to me!

Hey I didn't vote for Clnton.

(Sorry, couldn't resist an opening big enough to run a Mac truck through.)

I know what you mean, though. We are not going to attract enough men or women of the high moral and ethical caliber that we want until we stop trying to destroy those who oppose our favored candidates. If we can get back to electing the best person rather than the last one standing after a bloody brawl, we'll start getting much better candidates.

But the Constitution puts our President in charge of the military that is charged with the national defense that is charged to defend the Constitution that is in place to order and protect the people from each other AND their government as well as from all enemies, foreign and domestic. You can't get around that one, The electorate should have that very sharply in mind when they cast their vote for president so that we elect somebody who understands what it means to be Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States and what those forces are charged to do.

Fox, You do know how to twist the Constitution; the president must receive the apporval of congress to go to war, because congress funds the war. The president can order our military to go to war, but without funding, he'd look pretty silly.

The President can order the military to combat today at this very moment if he sees fit to do so and Congress doesn't need to know about it until after the fact. Congress has to declare war if war is declared and pass the funding to sustain combat.

How did you grow up as an American and not know that?

No need to apologize, I didn't vote for him either.




No indeed, I can't get around it. You've just artfully demonstrated that we in fact have a military dictatorship and not a republic after all. Based on what you've written, the military protects the Constitution and the government, through the military, is in charge of protecting us from itself.

"And my own son, through marriage, is now my uncle."



Yes, we should choose our ruler, ahem, president carefully.

Fox wrote: The President can order the military to combat today at this very moment if he sees fit to do so and Congress doesn't need to know about it until after the fact.

True; but what I said was that the president can initiate the war, but without congress' approval and funding, the president would look damn foolish, ignorant, and act without regard for the interest of our country. It's called the "balance of power."

No, what you said was that I twisted the Constitution. I didn't. You did. I didn't.

Hmm, you did do that earlier, until I pointed out that you were in fact incorrect.

Protecting the Constitution - the Laws which make America work - is by far the most important duty of the President. You appear to disagree with this, which would be an incorrect opinion on your part if in fact you do disagree with this.

Attacking someone with the army isn't the same as 'going to war.'

Cycloptichorn

No foul. No harm. Actually he had his good points. Ethics and morality just weren't among them.



No what I have demonstrated is the fact that we have a system that allows the government immediate response and ability to defend the people against all enemies, foreign and domestic, while not unwisely putting such authority in the hands of the military itself. But military orders directed by Congress would never get out of committee. And yes, an unscrupulous or incompetent or opportunistic president could do a huge amount of damage with the war powers afforded him by the Constitution. But in the entire history of our country, the president who has probably most misused those powers was Clinton. And he probably did some good, did relatively minimal damage, though the civilians killed in the process probably didn't consider the damage minimal.

The Congress does have full power to defund and therefore disable the military if the President does misuse it; the Congress can impeach and remove the President from office, and the people can vote him out at the next election if he has another term to go.

Virtually every act committed by President Bush, both in national security and/or military acts, has been approved/authorized by the law, by the Constitution, by the courts, and/or by Congress. There have been probably fewer unauthorized objectionable acts by this administration than by any previous administration. We just have a President right now that looks really bad doing them and who had a high unfavorability rating when he took office.

But this is hardly a military dictatorship.



And we should be as wary of those who are excessively reluctant to use the military as we should be wary of those with a questionable moral or ethical center.

Is this really true though? I thought the power to call up the military was vested in the Congress, not the president. I was taught that the president gets to command the troops in battle, but Congress gets to choose the battle. If that has changed I wasn't aware of it.

The prez can order the troops into battle w/out authorization from Congress, for 60 or 90 days or so. It's for emergencies.

Cycloptichorn

Without authorization, but without them knowing about it?