Let the games begin.

In the red corner: John McCain, Mitt Romney and NYC's former antagonist Rudy Guiliani.

In the blue corner: John Edwards, Barack Obama and (now officially) Hillary Clinton.

Barack may have announced his candidacy first, but Hillary one-upped him by announcing her presidential run with a smart web release, replete with perfect hair, makeup and lighting.

My significant other claims Barack is anti-gay. I will have to research this. But at least he is not stained with the blood of Iraq war support. And he's high yella!

Is America ready for either?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Luxury Lex,

Barack is a lot of great things but pro gay he is not. He is a fundamentalist christian who believes in the bible word for word and that gays are sinners waiting to go to hell.

Vote for Hillary

Obama doesn't have a chance. He's misque'd himself thinking a swell in the media means bedrock voter following. That's a sign of his real deficit, marked lack of experience as a US politician. If voters looked just for promise as a qualification he would win hands down. But this place is now so messed up we really need a very experienced politician with a lot of international policy experience. None seem to be at hand. And Rudiani? Nightmareland all over again.

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Obama is not a fundamentalist. The Church he goes to is very liberal and advocated for transgenedered rights among other things. I went to their website. I'm an athiest and wish one didn't have to profess faith to be elected to office, but you do. Hillary is quite reigious and attends prayer meetings in the Senate so it's the same story over there.

Here are the issue differences I'm most concerned about.

Hillary supported the invasion of Iraq, and has been silent for most of the war while thousands have lost thier lives for a lie she supported.

Obama opposed the war from the beginning.

Hillary supports the Death Penalty. Obama opposes it.

On two massive issues of life and death Hillary has chosen death. I cannot support her for the nomination. If she is the nominee, I will support her. But I hope the Democratic Party will nominate a candidate with progressive convictions, and Hillary Clinton does not fit that description.

As for Obama, we'll see. I still don't know enough, but so far he looks better than she does.

My first choice, Senator Russ Feingold decided not to run.

I saw an interview with Obama and when asked about same sex marraige he stated that his faith doesn't allow for such things. I was liking everything he was saying up to that point. But I guess it's just to much to expect from any politician to have everything you want in a canidate.

Well at least Kerry isn't running, sparing us two years of his particular brand of foot-in-mouth. Yeeesh.

I never expect to like everything about a candidate. There's always something. It's true Obama has little foreign policy experience but he couldn't possibly do a worse job than our current president has done. And just because Obama and Hillary are the most well-known, "glamourous" candidates doesn't mean either is best. I'm inclined not to support Hillary at this juncture either, though I will watch her campaign with great interest. Over the next couple of days I'll be scoping the other candidates and see where they stand (except John Edwards, who I will not vote for -- he had his shot).

Hillary opposes same sex marriage as well. Obama did say that he might be wrong on this issue and was open to changing his position. Frankly, I don't think any Democratic candiate who supported gay marriage would stand a chance in a general election.The New Governor of New York supports it, but nationaly it's much tougher. And at the risk of heresy, I put global warming, the war in iraq, fighting poverty and pushing back religious extremism at much higher priority. There's no joy in getting married if we're all dead.

In any case Hillary and Obama are similar on that issue (although she might be worse since she supported the defense of marriage act) while Obama is better on almost everything else. And he can speak without putting me to sleep.

I don't think the gays should be able to get married either Lily.
Then the whole country would be full a little gay babies runnin' around.
All them people do is fu......

Bonnie shut up!

Of course ANYONE would be better than the Dick (Cheney) we have now but there's just something about Hillary that bugs me...
I guess it's that she's such a politician.

And Obama is just a baby.

A high yella baby! My "cafe au lait" cousin.

And those ears! He must have Opie Taylor in his lineage.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Luxury Lex,

the more I think about it, the more angry Hillary makes me. Her positioning, her support of the war in Iraq and the death penalty and more and then expecting the base of the party to just blindly support her. She supported a policy that has killed 3,000 young Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi's, for a pack of lies. At least Obama had the courage and forsight to oppos this disaster from the beginning.

I'm a little uncomfortable with Obama's "faith" talk as I see religion as a great danger to democracy, but he is affiliated with a very liberal church. Honestly, Al Gore would be my first choice. He's been right about everything so far and he's already been elected president.

So let me understand this. Our choices are the least of the worst. I don't like that choice. I guess I will be forced to vote for the least of the worst democrat. As long as a Christian faith based politician is in the running we have to settle for taking what we can get. I'm old, almost ancient, I've been voting longer than most of the folks on this board have been alive.
I marched in Washington in 1967, Nothing has changed in that regard. Irag is Vietnam all over again. I can tell you that to compromise is to fall victim to the politics of an individual who has a personal agenda for what they believe makes America great and as always the individual does not have me in mind. I'm tired of "settling". I say it's time for a real revolution. I say write in your vote for Miss Understood.

Well anything is better than this!

Hillary is not a progressive. To some degree I understand her positioning ... women are judged by a different standard, and it is my belief that for any woman to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate she must convince voters that she can effectively lead the military. That said, she certainly didn't need to rubberstamp Bush's War Under False Pretenses just to prove to midwesterners that she is not Gloria Steinhem. Her political aspirations are not worth human lives, period. And she betrayed the New York electorate that put her in office to begin with.

Ironically, her calculated support of the war may ultimately prove to be a p.r. blunder anyway. Critics of the Iraq invasion (once called "naive") have, over time, been proven correct about everything they asserted, while the war supporters have consistently been proven wrong. At this point her and Lieberman are pretty much the only "yes" voters who haven't recanted. Given how ruthlessly smart she is, I wouldn't be surprised if she springs a cleverly-worded mea culpa on us, one that expresses her sorrow and regret but still pins the blame on Bush. We'll see. A lot can happen in two years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Luxury Lex,

It already happened. I saw her on TV last night saying that she made a mistake in the way she voted regarding the war but one can't take it back . BAH!

I may end up voting for Dennis Kucinich. I wish Feingold had stayed in. He's secular and a true progressive.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Lily of the Valley,

But not as progressive as Billery Clinton. VOTE FOR BILLERY!

Or perhaps someone older with a lot more experience like Kimmy Carter.

Lex your observations of Hill are very perspicuous. I think she is a run of the mill politician who will if elected be guided by and put in to practice policies that mostly benefit the corporations who run the federal government.

There really needs to be a third party that represents the American people in a credible way.

Can any Republican or Democrat change a situation where the entire US military is just a standing private army used to protect and stuff the bank accounts of the corporatedemocracy? It is such a long road back from that situation it will take more than a few lifetimes .....unless....Miss Understood!

quote:

Originally posted by Lily of the Valley:
the more I think about it, the more angry Hillary makes me. Her positioning, her support of the war in Iraq and the death penalty and more and then expecting the base of the party to just blindly support her.

I usually avoid public discussion of politics, but I am a self-proclaimed and public ally-proven hypocrite, so I have to add my two cents on Hillary because I find her a bit irritating, and it frustrates me because I know that arch Republicans do too, and I don't like having similar feelings to right-wingers.

When Hillary, as First-lady, was working to change the dire health-care / insurance situation in this country; I was a big supporter of her. I was so excited that there was a Liberal voice taking Liberal action.

I think that the "evil-doers" Carl Rove and his minions Rush Limburger, Rupert Murdoch-FOX, Newt GingGRINCH, et. al. who all ganged up on Hillary and Health Care with ad hominum attacks on Hillary and their talking points against Universal Health Care which they chanted over and over all over the "so-called" Liberal Media (yeah, right; I wish)- to the point where they killed Universal Health Care, and all intelligent discussion concerning it for a least a generation - but they also got Hillary.

Their focused campaign to chant, chant, chant that LIBERAL = EVIL has brainwashed the populace. (To paraphrase George Orwell in 1984, "Oceania is at war with Eurasia and has always been at war with Eurasia.") They repeated in enough that it became the truth to lazy thinkers . . . and there are a lot of lazy thinkers out there. I don't think that Hillary believes it herself, but she certainly knows how many lazy thinkers there are out here and she panders to them by modulating her opinions to not offend the right and the right-leaning voting bloc.

It is like she has abandoned the left and the still-proud to be liberals like me.

Who here is proud to call them self a liberal, and willing to proudly take a stand? Hillary dropped the ball when she voted for the war. No do overs . . . is right. She was so afraid to be called liberal or left-wing - she wanted to be accepted by America with her sights on more power - as prsident - pure politics. It is embarrassing to watch her back-pedal now; and interesting to watch her in opposition to a person of color . . . I'm sure that somewhere in a cave somewhere Carl Rove is laughing an evil-villan evil laugh over this scenario as he is arranging Rudy's comb-over just so . . .

I want to vote for a candidate who is proud to be thoroughly pro-abortion (I despise that term "pro-choice" as it is still more pandering to the right wing; anyone remember coat-hanger abortions like I do?); who is 100% against the death-penalty because it is heinous and un-civilized; same goes for Universal Health Insurance - everyone covered - no question, no clauses, no brainer!!!

I am totally politically incorrect when it comes to the Gay Marriage issue- as I personally abhor the notion of marriage, but same-sex civil/legal rights should be equal to hetero civil/legal rights. I would like to see a candidate that will support equal treatment to gay unions (I just shudder at that term “gay marriage” as I smell rainbow wedding planners and worse . . . and rainbows do make me throw-up a little) – and I would love that candidate to answer those ditto-headers who ask “Does that mean that you would support equal treatment of someone who wants to marry their dog? Wit ht a plain and simple “Yes, if they want to marry their dog, I would support their union being given equal legal and civil rights as a heterosexual male-female union; though only publicity-seekers would marry their dog, and only a right-winged brain-dead-washed idiot would ask the question.”

Oh, and I would love to hear someone out there say, "No, I don't support the troops. They went their willingly, and they are not supporting American freedom, they are supporting Halliburton's no-bid contracts to "rebuild" Iraq destruction caused by American invasion. So no, I do not support the troops, or "the war," or any other action that is result of George Bush's monomanical Ahab-like book-of-revelations-based, end-of-the-world-scenario, un-do my daddy's whimpishness, Barbara-Bush-pussy-whipping war. So they are not innocents, and NO they do not deserve my respect, compassiopn, sympathy or blind-support."

OK Daddy, how do I turn on the ignore user feature on this thing? Because I think I am going to have to use it soon . . . xxx Haps

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Hapi Phace,