2008 US election

[brian]

Due to the media saturation with the US election, it was only a matter of time before someone made this thread...

Your thoughts?

Mine are:

Republicans:  Not much to like here, it is more of a question of who is the worst.  I might be going against the grain here, but I'm going to say that Mike Huckabee is only the 2nd worst.  In my opinion Ron Paul is the worst candidate and the biggest threat to secular values (cue the Ron Paul spam squad).  His philosophy of states rights and opposing any sort of protection for minorities and the separation of church and state not only smacks of the philosophy of the southern segrgationists in the 1960s, but would have bad results for people who live in jurisdictions in which the evangelicals are strong.  He is also just as big of a right wing Christian social conservative as any Republican (although he didn't raise his hand, he is a doctor who doesn't believe in evolution).  And this is without getting into some of his batshit insane economic views or racist newsletters.  On the other hand, I do agree with him on war and pot, although I am suspicious of his motives for being anti-war.

Democrats:  Also not much to like here.  Mostly pro-war, and all of them have been trying to play up their faith.  Promises of change ring hollow without any ideas to fundamentally change the capitalist system.  Obama is all image, Hillary has moved way too far to the right since the early 90s, and most who were in congress at the time voted for the war.  None of them have particularly good (or even decent) economic policies.  If someone put a gun to my head, I would pick Kucinich.

Ugh... I am so glad I don't live down there.  I would definitely just stay the fuck home (at lease up here I can occasionally harbour some positive delusions about the NDP).  Or if I was in the mood to go out, I would draw a nice big circle-A on my ballot.  Yeah!  Take that anonymous vote counting person!

[Steven]

I don't follow the election coverage too closely but I would generally agree with you.

I really don't understand the whole Ron Paul thing. He does not represent any kind of meaningful change yet somehow people think he's a revolutionary or something. If you want change, by definition, you don't vote Republican. Mike Huckabee with his affable persona has a way of making whatever he says sound really reasonable, even if what he's saying is absolutely insane, which I find very worrisome. McCain makes me laugh and Giuliani is also hilarious just to see how many times he invokes 9/11.

As far as the Dems go, Hillary is a little too right-wing for my taste. I don't mind Obama, but like you said he's mostly image. People say he represents change but really his policies aren't that radical. Kucinich is probably the best, but he has no chance.

It's a pretty bleak outlook.

If I were a betting man, I'd say Hillary will probably get the Democratic nomination, and John McCain will get the GOP nomination (though that one's harder to call).

[brian]

I think the whole Ron Paul fad is overblown on the internet (just compare his online poll results to his actual results), but I think there are two major things to it.

First, he is wrapping his pro-corporate ideas in a populist, anti-corporate message.  For example, people actually think that Ron Paul is standing up to corporations when he wants to allow them to fire union members at will.  He is the most pro-business of all the candidates, and his economic policies are so right wing that they would make Reagan queasy.  He claims to oppose "coercion" and infringement on people's rights, but judging by his policies he only opposes it when the federal government is infringing on rich people's rights to oppress the working class.  State government infringing on your right to get married?  That's okay.  Company infringing on your right to join a union?  That's okay.  Evil atheists reminding you about the separation of church and state?  Suddenly he has a problem with it.

Second, he does attract a lot of deluded fringe elements such as:

9/11 conspiracy nuts (I would like to see a reporter ask him straight up "who did 9/11" and watch him lose half his support)
Racists
White male Christians with a victim complex
Young rich libertarian kids who grew up isolated from reality.  Too young to vote but not too young to spam
Libertarians who are willing to turn a blind eye to his social conservatism
Anti-war lefties disgruntled with the mostly pro-war Democrats and willing to turn a blind eye to his... well, everything else
Far right Christian patriots who don't vote Huckabee
The kinds of people who vote for Pat Buchanan


If I were a betting man, I would say on the Democratic side Obama has secured either Pres or VP spot with "change".  I think between Hillary and Obama whoever can stack up the most wins in the most big states on Super Tuesday will pull ahead.  Unless he can somehow turn it around by having Hillary or Obama do something incredibly stupid, Edwards is falling to second-tier status.

For the Republicans, it is a bit harder but I would go for Romney or Huckabee, depending all on the activity of the evangelicals.  Giuliani's strategy is interesting but suicidal and he has nothing going for him other than old 9/11 photo ops, Ron Paul's supporters won't leave their computers long enough to actually vote for him (in fact, I think they only exist on the internet), Fred Thompson is too lazy and dumb to pull a Reagan, Duncan Hunter never had a chance (thank god), and McCain was too old 8 years ago.

[Katie]

I wouldn't really call Ron Paul 'dangerous', mainly because his chances of winning the nomination are about as likely as Kucinich's. Huckabee would be the scariest, out of the three GOP frontrunners. Romney and McCain wouldn't be any scarier than Bush, which is still not so great.

The Democrats? Again, a lot of people like to paint the Democrats as a Liberal party, but they're certainly not. I suppose if I had to pick the lesser of two evils, I'd go with Obama. Again, Edwards isn't really a contender at this point.

[Steven]

It looks like my prediction may turn out to be correct. McCain has got the Republican nomination for sure, and Hillary is doing quite well, leading at the moment by 110 delegates. I really hope Obama can catch up, if not on Super Tuesday then in the upcoming primaries. He does seem to be the lesser of two weevils  .

If McCain does in fact get nominated (pretty sure he will), and if Obama is the Democratic nominee, McCain will probably lose the general election. Hardcore conservatives (Coulter, Limbaugh) seem to hate him, though I'm not sure why...he has one of the most conservative records of all the candidates. Unless he puts Huckabee or someone on the ticket with him. Although if Hillary gets the nomination (more likely) it could be harder to call.

Of course this is all speculation.

[brian]

I think the evangelicals hate McCain because he goes through wives like, well, Giuliani.  But now that Romney's out, he's got it for sure.  So now he can focus on pandering to the religious right, which you know he is going to do a lot (more) from now on.

I do think Ron Paul is dangerous not because he is going to win, but because of his whole movement.  I think they could (unfortunately) become quite a force in future elections, which would be quite terrible.

[Steven]

The other day I was following the Super Tuesday primaries so I typed "cnn politics" (as that's the CNN coverage website) and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button (because I was feeling lucky ) and the page that came up was some Ron Paul supporter website. I guess they "googlebombed" it or something. Anyways it was crazy, everyone spouting conspiracy theories as to why CNN was screening out Ron Paul comments. The more I read about him, the more I am concerned that, like Brian says, his movement will actually gain momentum in years to come.

[gliagirl]

Someone said up at the top there some things about being annoyed with Ron Paul that are very interesting. I am not quite sure  if your ideas about him are quite correct. I do agree with Ron Paul on his views against the war. I would say though that the greatest thing about Ron Paul (which he is dead on about if you really did your research) are his very distinct views on the serious problems with the federal reserve and how these issues have greatly affected our country's economic state. Read "The creature From Jekyl Island". This is a very fascinating and truthful read.

[brian]

Well, I agree with you that there are some serious economic problems up ahead, I don't think the gold standard is the answer.  In fact, I don't see a lot of difference between a depository of exchange value that is printed or dug out of the ground.  Admittedly, I haven't done a lot of research on it, but I don't think tieing currency to gold will solve all of our problems.  The problems at their heart lie in the capitalist mode of production.  Basically, through the constantly increasing accumulation of surplus value, we are facing a crisis of overproduction.  Or, in simpler terms, people are working too hard for not enough money and can't possibly buy all the stuff they are making, so they wind up going itno debt, and eventually people call in the loans and the bubble bursts (see: housing crisis).  Unfortunately, Ron Paul's anti-worker ideas would only make the problem worse.  I'm not sure what his position is on the food crisis (the other major economic problem we're facing, but more of a global issue than a US one) is though.