Tendo City

Given how well he polls against Obama I hope that he doesn't, and the Republicans keep fighting for some time.

And while we're at it, a much less electable nominee might not be too bad, as long as they don't actually win in the end... :)

Following the Republican nomination campaign has been interesting though, seriously. When your most moderate people running are Mormon governors you know you have an extremist field... but despite that Republicans are quite unhappy with their choices. I can kind of see that, but hey, the other people didn't want to run.

The least crazy Republican is clearly Huntsman, but there's no way he wins, he's far too moderate for today's Republican party. Oh, he'll probably do okay today in NH, but in the South he doesn't have a chance.

I'm planning on staying home on election day. Whoever wins, we lose. There's something to be said for damage control but I'm just too jaded to care this time around.

Of course, once the rhetoric and fear campaigns begin again, my tune may change.

But yes, the parade of clowns stepping up to bat for Republican nomination this time around has been hilarious.

It better. There sure is something to say for damage control. Say "oh I'm disappointed" is no excuse to not do anything. Obama may be a coward, but at least he's not actively trying to dismantle every single bit of infrastructure the nation has put together in the past 50 years. It's not much of a platform. I'm certainly not going to be delighted by my vote, but the alternative with this current warped joke of a "republican" party will be disastrous.

Romney's biggest obstacle, and this itself is a joke, is that he's a mormon. Oh, and it's just sad when he pretends he's got blue collar roots.

Lower taxes for the wealthy, higher taxes for the poor, here we come!

Unfortunately, Romney did well enough in NH that his chances of winning have gone up again for sure. :(

Quote:I'm planning on staying home on election day. Whoever wins, we lose. There's something to be said for damage control but I'm just too jaded to care this time around.

Of course, once the rhetoric and fear campaigns begin again, my tune may change.

But yes, the parade of clowns stepping up to bat for Republican nomination this time around has been hilarious.

Despite the fact that yes, Obama has done plenty of bad things and been ineffectual in some important ways, the Republicans are so, SO much worse that voting simply to keep them out of power is, I strongly believe, quite important.

You know, you're absolutely right. By the time November 5th rolls around, I'll be absolutely possesed to vote to keep whatever nutjob the Republican platform has nominated to run for election. The Republicans are a bunch of lunatics and their obstructionist policies have been used to hold this nation hostage unless their agenda gets pushed even without a Republican in the White House. They don't really want their agenda forwarded, though. They want this country to tank and people to suffer while a Democrat is at the helm. They're all comfortable and won't be affected by a terrible economy, and they're sociopathic enough to believe in darwinian conservative ideals to begin with, so why not?

So yeah, of course I'll vote for Obama, who'd have the best chances to succeed. But at some point, we have to draw a line in the sand. Not only is Obama spineless and an incompetent negotiator, but his administration has either reneged on campaign promises or made things worse without being leveraged into doing so by politics.

See:

-DOJ defending Don't Ask Don't Tell
-expanding and extending parts of the Patriot Act
-signing of NDAA and Obama's insistence on the power to detain American citizens
-assassinations of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki
-resuming of raids on medical marijuana dispensaries for no reason
-stacking the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with people eager to tear into social security and medicare
-backroom deals with insurance executives to craft the health care legislation (so much for transparency)
-cracking down on whistleblowers more than any other president in history

Unless enough voters get pissed off and make some sort of gesture, Democrats will just keep up the same ineffectual disorganization, and kowtow to Republican demands to push center-right policy.

On that note:

Quote:See:

-DOJ defending Don't Ask Don't Tell
-expanding and extending parts of the Patriot Act
-signing of NDAA and Obama's insistence on the power to detain American citizens
-assassinations of American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdul-Rahman al-Awlaki
-resuming of raids on medical marijuana dispensaries for no reason
-stacking the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with people eager to tear into social security and medicare
-backroom deals with insurance executives to craft the health care legislation (so much for transparency)
-cracking down on whistleblowers more than any other president in history

Apart from the marijuana one (as you would expect, I'm in favor of current policy), I agree with this list, for the most part.

Here are some more:

-Not closing Guantanamo (I know, the Congress made it really hard. Still, he promised, and absolutely should have found a way.
-Taking so long to end the Iraq War, and then having the place collapse immediately afterwards anyway (does this mean we should have left earlier, or should still be there? I think we probably should have left sooner, though of course I was strongly opposed to the war at the beginning. We did need to try to fix the country after breaking it, but, yeah, Obama probably could have ended it sooner.)
-Not saying anything at all so far about SOPA/PIPA (and I doubt he'll veto, really... the effort to destroy the internet continues inching forwards.)
-Starting the health care reform effort with such a moderate bill that by the time he compromised far less was left to actually than would have if he'd started with a better bill, like, say, Hillary would have done. Some of the basics of Obama's health care reform come from '90s Republican ideas... yeah. What an amazing reform, huh?
-On that note, starting from the middle over and over and over again, assuming for some insane reason that the Republicans would compromise if you start with a reasonable position. Shouldn't it have been obvious that they would under no circumstances do that and instead they'd just push right from that? And he did this over and over again...
-Not getting environmental/global warming legislation passed when he had a chance (early in the first term, say). This is a REALLY important failure; I know, he decided to focus on health care first, but it became "health care only". Not good. (I mean, the health care reform probably was better than nothing, but still, seriously, we NEEDED climate change legislation!)
Etc, etc.

Oh, as for Anwar Al-Awlaki... I can see why they did it, but it's surely illegal, yeah.


Returning to the Republican primary, it's pretty insane that the first major attack on Romney's Bain Capital record -- that is, of Romney the heartless capitalist destroying companies and getting rich off of the profits -- isn't from liberal or progressive group, but instead... from Newt Gingrich supporters. It's just crazy, I'd never have guessed that Newt and Rick Perry would attack Romney for being a capitalist, in the Republican party...

I don't expect it to work -- too much of the Republican base voting here is surely in favor of things like what Romney did -- but still, it's great to see, really. Some want to credit the Occupy movement for getting the national mood to the point where attacks like that are made. I don't know if that's true or not, but, maybe?

Anyway, here's the film's trailer. Not much here to hint that it wasn't made by a liberal group.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_evS-T-c35M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Site / Full (half hour I think) film: http://www.kingofbain.com/


... Just watching Mitt Romney speeches makes me annoyed at him, he's so fake on the one hand, but he's also going so far overboard with his anti-Obama attacks that it makes me really dislike him...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71364.html

... And even Sarah Palin just said some sane things about Mitt needing more disclosure of his Bain record. What is this country coming to...

This is amazing.

What, Gingrich's half hour video, or Palin's comments?

All three [since we'll also count Perry's comments].

Right, Perry was talking about it as well. And I agree, it's pretty amazing to see to say the least...

What's amazing is we're all now leftists. I don't even think it's because too many of us have drastically altered our views (though some have to give credit where it's due). I think it's simply that the republican party has gone SO far right that it's left us all behind.

To put it in perspective, as everyone has demonstrated above, Obama is actually an early 90's moderate republican. There simply IS no left in America any more.

I guess my tilt to the left might be the most severe, given how, uh, into the whole right wing thing I used to be. Man, going through the Den and looking at my posts from 03 and 04 is rather embarrassing. I don't know if my views have altered as much as my understanding has grown a great deal broader.

There is a Left in America, it's just not prominent in politics. And, I think in the next ten to twenty years, as our generation becomes the main demographic in America, you'll see a leftward shift again in national politics. Right now, we just happen to live in a time where the Baby Boomers are hitting their twilight years and still dominate American politics. I suspect part of the reason the Republican Party has gone so screwloose is a sense of desperation. What would work better for them is to focus on fiscal responsibility (a message which has a wide appeal) and less on enforcement of their own arbitrary morals on everybody (a message which, clearly, does not have as wide an appeal).

I am one of those who believe there really isn't much substantial difference between Republicans and Democrats, the parties themselves at least, except in the things they say. My father, who is extremely right-wing, says he is a conservative but not a Republican. I think I am the opposite; liberal but not a Democrat.

Sometimes I think the biggest problem with immortality is that death is still the best way to clear out outdated ideas. Other times I think maybe it's a good thing I'm not in control of any sort of armed forces.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-habe...10695.html

"Don't vote for Romney, he speaks French."
...it's like they're trying to act cartoonishly stupid and petty. :psyduck: This is amazing. This is the type of thing I'd expect to see in a low-rent satire.

Are they trying to act cartoonishly petty with that attack? Sure, perhaps. But will it work anyway with some of the Republican base? Possibly. :(

Dark Jaguar Wrote:To put it in perspective, as everyone has demonstrated above, Obama is actually an early 90's moderate republican. There simply IS no left in America any more.

There is an American left, but yeah, it's quite small, unfortunately. The Democrats are centrists, and the Republicans are on the right, and only a few people in politics are genuinely on the left. It is a problem, but not one likely to go away.

Yeah but Newt is kind of loony. It's not much of a surprise.

Though I have a perfectly good reason not to vote for Darunia.

Well, things are looking a lot more entertaining now than they were a few days ago... :)

-Romney didn't win Iowa, Santorum probably did
-Gingrich now leads in South Carolina, after a gigantic leap up in the polls in just a couple of days
-Newt also won the last couple of debates, key to his jump in the polls
-Romney's refusal to release tax returns soon is hurting him
-Gingrich, however, does have to deal with the new revelations from his first ex-wife (that he wanted her to accept him having a mistress while still married, apparently; they ended up divorcing instead), though apparently South Carolina republicans don't care about this and are happily willing to vote for him anyway.

... Overall, that's a lot of blows to Romney's inevitability, and if Gingrich does indeed win SC tomorrow (that's when the vote is), this campaign will be going on for at least a little longer, and who knows who'll win... good stuff.

(I mean seriously, Newt Gingrich, Republican nominee? And now it could happen!)

I managed to catch one part of the republican debate last night, but what a part to catch. The CNN "news" person asks them what they think of SOPA, and then "full disclosures" the fact that CNN's parent company supports SOPA (the rest of the full disclosure was a full on endorsement of it complete with all the talking point about how we can't let thieves laugh... on into the night). The republican candidates each in turn backpedal as far away from SOPA as possible, except one who merely says SOPA is "too far" but "stealing is wrong". The funny thing is, the first 3 take time to give all the anti-SOPA talking points to rave applause from their base in the audience, with the 4th actually getting booed when he only partially backpedaled against it.

It was awesome.

I watched most of the debate, and yeah, that part was pretty awesome... it's amazing to see Republicans actually standing against censorship, but hey, I won't complain! :)

The issue seems to be somewhat bipartizan, with some people on each side for internet censorship (like Santorum there, or many Democrats), and others opposed. It's not at all a party-line issue, yet at least.