Presidential candidates I Would and Would Not Vote For

I thought most Hillary supporters liked the last President that let the little head tell the big one what to do. :wink:

To tell you the truth, I'm just sorry that Guiliani wasn't able to run against her in the senate race. I'll bet he would've squished her like a bug under his shoe. I would've liked to have seen that.

Hmmm.....come to think of it.....maybe it's still possible..... :wink:

I've been following a few threads that discuss presidential candidates. It is my choice to vote in the primary for Clinton. I like Obama very much, and some other Democrats too, but, I want to return to the days of balanced budget and no preemptive war. Those who bring up her husband's sex life as a reason to oppose her are scraping the barrel, as usual. No response beyond that for them.

The latest Gallup poll shows both Hillary and Rudy have leapt WAY out in front in their respective primaries, with Giuliani holding the edge in the General Election. I strongly suspect the Clinton Camp will establish itself as the go-to-guy so to speak, and the nay saying Democrats will divide up among the other (non-Hillary) candidates. Said other candidates may require a narrowing of the field to compete… though right now Gallup is showing Hillary would dominate Obama head to head.

I don't think this is good for Democrats in the General election, because I think Gore, Edwards and especially Obama would fair better than Hillary at obtaining crossover votes… which they'll likely need to succeed. Hillary's 180 on the Iraq war appears to be appreciated, but she is flat out lying about her past stance to accomplish it and this will be easily demonstrated. Same goes for Edwards, so I believe Obama is truly their best hope. I'm not so much counting Gore out as I am recognizing his apparent lack of interest thus far.

What's exciting to me is that the GOP may very well be forced to put the Moderate Rudy Giuliani on the ticket despite his wild departures from much of the party line. It seems last year; far fewer people thought McCain or Giuliani could win the nomination because of such departures, and now it seems almost inevitable one of them will. At this juncture; I think the Presidency is Giuliani's to lose and I'm quite content with that. I applaud the Democrats for finally fielding some legitimate competition so the Republicans can't get away with another hardliner. I remain astounded they couldn't produce a candidate that could best Bush.

I suspect McCain's age will play a large roll in his demise… especially with Nancy Pelosi sitting in the #2 spot for succession. This is just too close for comfort.

So, for some reason, Guiliani is better than Bill Clinton in the womanizing department? By what logic?

He hasn't yet disobeyed the Supreme Court and lied to a Grand Jury about it for starters. I don't think many hold Bill's blowjob against him... but his utter disrespect for the highest court in the land is another story. None of which has any bearing on Hillary's candidacy... save perhaps that she's shown herself quite gullible if she believed Bill's BS. Witch-hunt? Yep. But that's a thin excuse for lying under oath... especially after the SC denied his request for postponement. Clearly, the law required him to testify honestly, and he thumbed his nose at it.

Clinton is responsible for the death of millions of sperm cells while Bush is concentrating on real people.

gus got that right~!@ Them compassionate conservatives are really scary people.

What does Bush have to do with a comparison between Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton? (Not that I didn't know that was coming.)

I just needed a place to vent, Bill. Sorry about that.

Carry on.

This is on Hillary (and Edwards).


^2/19/07: Wrong Is Right

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton's
refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong
to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past
error? And yes, it was an error -- she may not have intended to cast a vote
for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have
believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but t
he fact is he did.

The answer can be summed up in two words: heckuva job. Or, if you want
a longer version: Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, who said Saddam
had W.M.D., Tommy Franks, who failed to secure Iraq, and Paul Bremer,
who botched the occupation.

For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically
incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real,
disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire
-- and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan -- if Mr.
Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on
that things weren't going well or that their handpicked appointees weren't
the right people for the job.

The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the
way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is
the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards - "I
was wrong" -- matter so much to the Democratic base.

The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the
war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White
House who doesn't sound like another George Bush. That is, they want
someone who doesn't suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit
mistakes and learn from them.

And there's another reason the admission by Mr. Edwards that he was
wrong is important. If we want to avoid future quagmires, we need a
president who is willing to fight the inside-the-Beltway conventional
wisdom on foreign policy, which still -- in spite of all that has happened
-- equates hawkishness with seriousness about national security, and treats
those who got Iraq right as somehow unsound. By admitting his own error,
Mr. Edwards makes it more credible that he would listen to a wider range
of views.

In truth, it's the second issue, not the first, that worries me about Mrs.
Clinton. Although she's smart and sensible, she's very much the candidate
of the Beltway establishment -- an establishment that has yet to come to
terms with its own failure of nerve and judgment over Iraq. Still, she's at
worst a triangulator, not a megalomaniac; she's not another Dick Cheney.

I wish we could say the same about all the major presidential aspirants.

Senator John McCain, whose reputation for straight talk is quickly getting
bent out of shape, appears to share the Bush administration's habit of
rewriting history to preserve an appearance of infallibility.

Last month Senator McCain asserted that he knew full well what we were
getting into by invading Iraq: "When I voted to support this war," Mr.
McCain said on MSNBC, "I knew it was probably going to be long and
hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it
was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I'm sorry they were
mistaken."

But back in September 2002, he told Larry King, "I believe that the
operation
will be relatively short," and "I believe that the success will be
fairly easy."

And as for Rudy Giuliani, there are so many examples of his inability to
accept criticism that it's hard to choose.

Here's an incident from 1997. When New York magazine placed ads on
city buses declaring that the publication was "possibly the only good thing
in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for," the then-mayor ordered the ads
removed -- and when a judge ordered the ads placed back on, he appealed
the decision all the way up to the United States Supreme Court.

Now imagine how Mr. Giuliani would react on being told, say, that his
choice to head Homeland Security is actually a crook. Oh, wait.

But back to Mrs. Clinton's problem. For some reason she and her advisers
failed to grasp just how fed up the country is with arrogant politicians
who
can do no wrong. I don't think she falls in that category; but her campaign
somehow thought it was still a good idea to follow Karl Rove's playbook,
which says that you should never, ever admit to a mistake. And that play-
book has led them into a political trap.
------------------------------------------------------------------

, Gus

A smart lady who's been in the political arena as long as she has should have learned "that" lesson a long time ago. Her stubbornness earns a zero vote from me.

The New Hampshire Union Leader is the sorta official paper of the first primary. It has a great primary section with news and retrospectives and links to candidates' websites.

Very handy to have it all in one place (and interesting to read the retrospectives)


Primary primer



NH's crucial and cherished role

1952: Saluting Eisenhower

1956: Kefauver returns

1960: Kennedy's opening drive

1964: Lodge's write-in victory

1968: McCarthy stuns the President

1972: Nixon's last campaign

1976: A national stage for Carter

1980: Reagan begins his sweep

1984: Mondale's downfall

1988: 'Thank you, New Hampshire'

1992: A rebuke ?- and the end of a record

1996: Another front-runner buried

2000: A record turnout sends a message

2004: Kerry rides NH victory to nomination

I lived in NH in 1976 and registered as a Republican during the primary so that I could vote against Reagan who withdrew from the race. Although I did not talk to people about my move prior to the election, I heard from many others who did the same thing. I lived to regret my action because, perhaps, had I not voted as I had, Reagan might have gone further along the road to victory and failed to capture the WH and then there would not have been eight years of Reagan, four years of 41 and, so far, six years of 43.

The New Dean Political Plan

I like.

I think.

"Not spiritual enough" could be iffy, but if it means like rolling back tax cuts to the richest of the rich, universal healthcare, etc., I'm all for it.

I didn't realize that Mr. Dean hadn't ruled out running again.

Here's a Zogby pole result showing who some voters would not vote for.


Released: March 15, 2007

Poll: Over Half Say "No" to Newt; 46% Would Never Vote For Hillary

New Zogby poll asks voters who would never get their vote?-Gingrich, Clinton, Gore, and Romney lead the field

With the actual voting still a long way into the future, more than half of the American electorate has already made up its mind about who they won't be casting ballots for in 2008 - 53% said they would never vote for Newt Gingrich, even as the Georgia firebrand continues to mull a jump into the field of Republican presidential candidates, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

The leading Democrat in the race can't feel much solace - nearly half (46%) said they have an aversion to voting for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. In a national Zogby telephone survey of likely Democratic primary voters in late February, she led the field of Democratic presidential candidates at 33%. It's no surprise Clinton has been written off by a vast majority of self-described conservative (70%) and very conservative (79%) voters, but even among moderate voters, 42% said they would never cast a vote to put Clinton into the White House.

Another potential candidate attracting a high percentage of antipathy is Al Gore - 43% said they would never vote for the former vice president and 2000 presidential candidate. While Gore has not officially jumped into the 2008 presidential fray, his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" has kept his name in the headlines as opposing sides clash over global warming. Gore may also have some trouble wooing moderate voters - 39% have already made up their mind they would never vote Gore in 2008.

The telephone survey, which asked likely voters to indicate who they would never vote for from a field of 10 potential and declared presidential candidates, was conducted nationwide from March 7-9, 2007 and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.

The war in Iraq shows all signs that it will still be a significant issue in 2008, and candidates are busy shaping their campaigns to reflect their pro- or anti-war stance. While more than half (54%) of households with members currently serving or having served in the military - or who have other family members with current or prior military service - said they would never vote for Gingrich, the military vote could also spell trouble for Clinton and Gore. Half said they would never vote for Clinton and 46% would never vote for Gore.

Overall, around a third of voters said they would never vote for the other two Democratic Presidential frontrunners - 35% would never cast a ballot for John Edwards and 33% said they could never support Barack Obama. Among Democrats, 18% would never cast a vote in Clinton's favor, 19% would never vote for Obama and 20% would never vote for Edwards.

There is similar voter resistance to the top declared Republican candidates - 39% said they wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney, while 32% would never vote for John McCain and 31% for Rudy Giuliani. Among Republicans, 20% said they would never help Giuliani win the presidency, while 24% felt the same about McCain and 34% about Romney.

Men and women were equally split in their decision never to vote for Gingrich - 53% of both genders feel this way. More than half of men (51%) and 42% of women said they would never vote for Clinton, the Democratic candidate who generated the second-strongest "anti-vote" among each gender. Gore trailed closely behind, with 45% of men and 41% of women who said they would never vote for the former presidential candidate.

Among men, Giuliani received the least "anti-votes" (29%), followed by McCain (32%) and Obama (35%). Obama and Edwards received the fewest anti-votes among women (30%), while 32% of women said they would never vote for McCain.


Zogby

So, why do these twerps have to raise so much money?