VP Picks

**sabang** · 26-08-2008, 04:19 PM

I'll have to disagree with nhogg above- I think Hil would have been absolutely the worst choice for Obama.
I think there is value in announcing a cabinet post for her, specifically healthcare.

**Butterfly** · 26-08-2008, 05:02 PM

Hil was more of a liability than an asset,

and if it wasn't for bill, she wouldn't have stand a chance in the first place,

**Jet Gorgon** · 26-08-2008, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

I'll have to disagree with nhogg above- I think Hil would have been absolutely the worst choice for Obama.
I think there is value in announcing a cabinet post for her, specifically healthcare.

She mucked up healthcare already, didn't she?

How bout minister of sanitation? new post.

**nidhogg** · 27-08-2008, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

I'll have to disagree with nhogg above- I think Hil would have been absolutely the worst choice for Obama.
I think there is value in announcing a cabinet post for her, specifically healthcare.

hey - no probs. With hil I thnk he would have found the election easier (now he has 18 million post menopausal American women to placate who think he "dissed" their girl) but running the country much harder (the Bill factor).

Maybe its agood sign that he had the balls to say "no way". Still, its a bit of a giggle that Hil s making him jump through the hoops at the convention and insisting on her moment.

I suppose the bottom line is I hope to hell that Obama does win - otherwise we are going to get 10 years of re-hashing this, and endless documentaries along the lines of "If Obama had picked Hillary"....

**barbaro** · 27-08-2008, 10:05 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

I'll have to disagree with nhogg above- I think Hil would have been absolutely the worst choice for Obama.

There is a rift between many Hillary contributors and supporters. And Bill Clinton will not be present during Obama's speech.

Would Hillary as VP made a difference in these supporters dropping out of the election and/or even voting for McCain. Probably.

But because of the bad blood between the Obama and Clinton camps, it may affect the election results in tight states.

We'll have to wait and see.

**Bugs** · 27-08-2008, 01:31 PM

Well it looks like the Biden pick didn’t do Obama any good in the gallup poll (yet), hopefully he’ll get the same results following the convention:

Gallup Daily: No Bounce for Obama in Post Biden Tracking

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

In the infamous words of Chuck Berry:

Go Go Go Johnny Go, Go
Go Johnny Go Go
Go Johnny Go Go
Go Johnny Go Go
Johnny B Goode

**DrivingForce** · 27-08-2008, 02:14 PM

I see 2 major recent factors why McCain is moving ahead...
The Russians have done him a big favor by reminding the voters that the world is not a safe place and that it is going to require a strong president that has had enough experience to deal with leaders such as Putin and Medvedev and not learn on the fly.

IMO Bush was duped by Putin who is a professionally trained KGB spy trained at deception so he let Bush see what he wanted "in his soul" when Bush romantically looked into his eyes as it were.. The playing field was most definitely not level and now the game has moved into their half at the moment without proper anticipation.. Medvedev is cut from the same cloth, hell he even has the same arrogant swagger as Putin..

The second major factor is that there is a plan on the table that suggests a possible US withdrawal of troops from Iraq now and it has followed the strategy that was recommended by McCain even before Bush and laid down and agreed upon by Bush and McCain and people see it has been working (I'm referring to the push). That has effectively muted the democrats on that front now and completely deflated their prime strategy for attacking McCain..

Additional smaller muting factors are the price of oil dropping.
The dollar gaining some traction and even a rise in new housing sales in the States. with these type of gains (small or not) it makes it very difficult for the Dems to claim "the sky is falling" and then factor in their own party discord over Hillary and there you have it...

Like the lyrics of another song... "Slip sliding away"

**nidhogg** · 27-08-2008, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by DrivingForce

The Russians have done him a big favor by reminding the voters that the world is not a safe place and that it is going to require a strong president that has had enough experience to deal with leaders such as Putin and Medvedev and not learn on the fly.

IMO Bush was duped by Putin......

Still, maybe not. The timing was pretty good. Maybe they got on much better than we think.

Bush: Ah, Putin, I have a favour to ask....

**DrivingForce** · 27-08-2008, 09:26 PM

Originally Posted by nidhogg

Originally Posted by DrivingForce

The Russians have done him a big favor by reminding the voters that the world is not a safe place and that it is going to require a strong president that has had enough experience to deal with leaders such as Putin and Medvedev and not learn on the fly.

IMO Bush was duped by Putin......

Still, maybe not. The timing was pretty good. Maybe they got on much better than we think.

Bush: Ah, Putin, I have a favour to ask....

Creative thinking but....... highly unlikely......
Putin et al would have a much better time playing with Barack the newbie than McCain.....They'd have a field day with poor little Barry if they had this much fun with Bush, Cheney and his cohorts....

Unless Bush has promised some sort of post white house oil influence that is? That would be an angle to consider.. It wouldn't be the first time a war was started to tilt an election..and after all this isn't really a "war".....it's more like a tiff....

**Jet Gorgon** · 27-08-2008, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by DrivingForce

..and after all this isn't really a "war".....it's more like a tiff....

Ah, but this is where history comes in to teach us a lesson. What little thing started WWI? Just the assassination of a little known archduke.

**DrivingForce** · 27-08-2008, 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Originally Posted by DrivingForce

..and after all this isn't really a "war".....it's more like a tiff....

Ah, but this is where history comes in to teach us a lesson. What little thing started WWI? Just the assassination of a little known archduke.

Oh! don't get me wrong I'm not minimizing it, it's fecking scary it is.. all the more reason I don't think it's some kind of covert deal Putin his BF Medvedev and Bush have going on.. I'm not in the least suggesting it couldn't escalate in a heart beat..

**Bugs** · 29-08-2008, 02:19 AM

A few interesting linky's that are related to Biden:

First one from a lefty:
Pacific Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times

I assumed that Obama was just using Biden to build up some foreign policy cred with the media-thing tank crowd -- the only people stupid enough to believe that Joe Bigen is some kind of foreign policy expert.

Biden poured the filth on them (common people), he joined his campaign paymasters -- the hoggish credit-card conglomerates -- and his ideological soul-mates on the Republican side to drop this bomb (the Bankruptcy Bill) on the hard-pressed working folk he was now claiming to roll up his shirt sleeves and go to work for.

And now it turns out that Biden's son was on the payroll of credit-card behemoth MBNA... for years, as an employee, then as a "consultant," until the bill oozed its way onto Bush's desk to be singed into law. (MBNA is not only one of Biden's biggest campaign supporters; it was also the largest single corporate giver to George W. Bush back in 2000....

Joe Biden voted to give George W. Bush a blank check to wage a war of aggression against Iraq...

Joe Biden eagerly voted for the liberty-stripping Patriot Act; indeed, he claims to be its guiding inspiration.

No one forcede Obama to choose such a running mate. No one forced Obama to make the statement of his own values that such a choice proclaims. It is glaringly, painfully apparent that he has no genuine values, beyond a keen ambition for power. Last week he was denouncing the Bankruptcy Bill. This week he's defending Biden's role in putting together a satisfactory "compromise" on the atrocity, while excusing the flagrant conflict-of-interest in the employment of Biden's son at MBNA.

Whatever happens, whoever wins, there will be more war, more needless death, more mass murder in the name of America. Whoever wins, there will be more state-assisted assaults on working people and the poor. There will be more coddling of the rich, more servicing of the powerful, more injustice, more inequality.

And the choice of Joe Biden as a running mate only confirms this grim fate, which, it is now clear, we must bear out even to the edge of doom -- it not beyond.

**Bugs** · 29-08-2008, 02:26 AM

And here is one from a righty:

Newsmax.com – Biden Fails on Foreign Policy

Biden was selected to plug the gaping foreign policy hole in Barack Obama’s thin job resume, and to provide “adult supervision” for inexperienced Obama in case voters risk America’s future by giving the most powerful job in the world to this young affirmative-action candidate.

Joe Biden has always exhibited a smug sense of superiority. When caught plagiarizing an article at Syracuse College of Law, Biden successfully pleaded with the faculty not to expel him.

“If I had intended to cheat,” The New York Times in 1987 recounted him saying, “would I have been so stupid?”

Biden has tried to cheat “smarter.” He boasted that he graduated in the top half of his Syracuse Law class; in fact, Biden graduated 76th in a class of 85.

Biden helped lead the “borking” of Robert Bork, the brilliant legal scholar whose nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court let him be judged by Biden, a member of the Senator Judiciary Committee. Biden ridiculed, but failed to destroy, Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. In both cases Biden behaved like an infantile idiot attacking giants whose shoes he was unworthy to lick.

Almost being expelled from law school for cheating did not end Biden’s crookedness. During his 1988 run for the presidency, Biden plagiarized a speech by British Labour politician Neil Kinnock that described his coal-miner father. Biden’s father was a used car salesman.

After Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis distributed videotape of Kinnock and Biden’s plagiarism, Biden quit the race.

Biden ran for president again in 2008, winning 9,000 votes nationwide to Hillary Clinton’s 18 million votes. Despite this public repudiation, however, Biden soon might sit a heartbeat away from the presidency — and thereby, God forbid, become president by an act of fate, or of Satan.

I actually think this idea - three regions has some validity:

How competent is Joseph Biden at foreign policy? He has proposed carving Iraq into three autonomous regions, much as Julius Caesar did with Gaul two millennia ago. (His plan oddly parallels what this columnist had earlier proposed, but I doubt he plagiarized me.)

In 1979 Biden backed Democratic President Jimmy Carter in helping topple our ally the Shah of Iran, who was replaced by a now-soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Islamist radical regime that foments global terrorism.

At the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Biden told its mostly-foreign audience that Americans “don’t have much of a democracy ourselves.”

But at least Biden is a pro-working-class, no? No. Biden represents the giant corporations and banks chartered in Delaware, and he helped them tighten bankruptcy rules for credit card debt on middle class Americans. His son Hunter Biden’s law firm was being paid $1.8 million to lobby Congress by some of these same special interests, according to the Aug. 25 USA Today.

Don't really agree with this bit (well maybe some of them are brain dead - but the red team has their share of brain dead followers as well):

Clinton’s “prosperity” came from gutting America’s military and intelligence capabilities and from his spending spree, a wild party, with the $125 billion per year stripped from our national defenses. And 9/11 happened because Clinton indecision and profligacy blinded our intelligence capabilities.

But on Wednesday the liberal media will again tell Americans that Joe Biden and Bill Clinton are divine, and brain-dead Democrats will applaud.

**barbaro** · 29-08-2008, 10:29 AM

I just read an article that said Ridge and Lieberman are on the short list. Gossip from an "inside source" on the campaign, of course.

We'll know tonight, Friday, August 29th.

I would really like to see McCain go for a pro-choice candidate, to marginalize the Xtian right. They are already making threats.

Romney the pick? We'll see.

**pai nai ma** · 29-08-2008, 10:38 AM

^ Pawlenty is likely, say others.

**Bugs** · 29-08-2008, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Milkman

I just read an article that said Ridge and Lieberman are on the short list. Gossip from an "inside source" on the campaign, of course.

We'll know tonight, Friday, August 29th.

I would really like to see McCain go for a pro-choice candidate, to marginalize the Xtian right. They are already making threats.

Romney the pick? We'll see.

Have seen reports that Pawlenty is moving up fast as well - and has even cancels plans to attend events in Denver for some reason.

I doubt Lieberman will get the nod, and I like Romney but it seems that rarely does a candidate pick the VP that most think he will pick.

**britmaveric** · 29-08-2008, 11:10 AM

Perhaps a woman?? (be a bold move on McCain's part)

**pai nai ma** · 29-08-2008, 11:15 AM

^ Yes, but who?

**barbaro** · 29-08-2008, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by pai nai ma

^ Pawlenty is likely, say others.

Yeah, I just have gotten word of that. We'll have to wait for the leak.

**raycarey** · 29-08-2008, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by Bugs

Newsmax.com

it's almost as if boon mee never left.

**Jet Gorgon** · 29-08-2008, 01:31 PM

Lieberman.

Originally Posted by pai nai ma

^ Pawlenty is likely, say others.

For crikes sake. Quit being a liberal wiffle waffle and pick someone on your own. Or don't you have the gumption to do so? Bladdy lefties, always let the party leaders make their decision for them.

**Bugs** · 29-08-2008, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by raycarey

Originally Posted by Bugs

Newsmax.com

it's almost as if boon mee never left.

Maybe you missed the fact that I posted views from both lefties and righties?

Originally Posted by Bugs

A few interesting linky's that are related to Biden:

First one from a lefty:
http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/2980/1/

Originally Posted by Bugs

And here is one from a righty:
Newsmax.com – Biden Fails on Foreign Policy

To get as big a picture of things as possible it is awaly good to at least take a look at what folks from both sides have to say.

**DrivingForce** · 29-08-2008, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Bugs

Clinton’s “prosperity” came from gutting America’s military and intelligence capabilities and from his spending spree, a wild party, with the $125 billion per year stripped from our national defenses. And 9/11 happened because Clinton indecision and profligacy blinded our intelligence capabilities. But on Wednesday the liberal media will again tell Americans that Joe Biden and Bill Clinton are divine, and brain-dead Democrats will applaud

Actually there is quite bit of validity in this with the exception that it doesn't go far enough..

Tex mentioned how he had his portfolio "double under Clinton".....this is a common misconception......but it was actually the previous Republican admins that he prospered from....

You don't stop or even slow down a juggernaut like the US over the term of one admin of 4 years and sometimes not even over 2 depending on how much needs to be changed, that's old world thinking like about late 1800's. Since then there has been a wider and wider gap between what can be accomplished in 4 years much of the first term is used just playing politics and trying to get policies passed. In the case of Regan he not only had to slow it down but he had to stop it and begin momentum in the other direction and there was lot of directional changes that needed to be made.. what the end result was, was a rare opportunity for us to experience what can happen when one president puts good policies into motion and they begin to take effect towards the end of his second term and the next pres. Bush senior, mostly continued implementing those policies during his term. unfortunately human nature is to want the greener grass on the other side and it's short sighted so he was voted out of office which began the process all over again but in reverse and what we are now experiencing is the momentum of Clinton's admin. not the second Bush..

Like it or not, agree or not, a boat this big doesn't change ANY direction as quickly as people think it should and anyone who thinks it does is both short sighted and naive.. It's just like being stuck in traffic on the highway, there is an accordion effect, and it's extreme..

**raycarey** · 29-08-2008, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Bugs

To get as big a picture of things as possible it is awaly good to at least take a look at what folks from both sides have to say.

when the sources are reputable, of course.

sorry, but newsmax.com doesn't meet the criteria.

**raycarey** · 29-08-2008, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Bladdy lefties, always let the party leaders make their decision for them.

yet again you show your ignorance of american politics.

if any party has a reputation of having party leaders choose the nominee, it's the republicans. it's almost a joke that many republican nominees got the nod because it was 'their turn'.

here's an interview with none other than william f. buckley who touches on the subject...

Christopher Lydon Interviews… : It’s Nelson Rockefeller’s Party

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