Well, I see you are finally coming around to my prediction for the primary winners. But RM, I don't understand how you can say obviously Rudy would beat Hillary. You are letting your bias affect your judgement here. The bottom line is this. If America votes in Rudy over Hillary, they are basically saying they are supporting the War in Iraq and our continued presence there. Throw all the other issues out the window. That is what you are saying. I don't think America is leaning that way. I think this country, whether they are right or wrong, made a statement in the 2006 elections that this war is too much for this country to handle. At some point the US is going to cry uncle. Hillary is a vote for the US leaving Iraq, and Rudy is a vote to keep us there and possibly move into Iran. Now I know you hate Hillary with a passion, but you have not provided any logic as to why the electorate would make this decision. I think this country is not very supportive of Hillary, but they are far more supportive of the US leaving Iraq. In a showdown between Hillary and Rudy, Hillary wins. If the repubs had dirt on Hillary, they would have pulled it out during her run for the Senate.
We've been scouting you. I'm calling you up from the farm leagues to play in the majors. Whadayasay kid? Jesus
It doesn't matter who gets "elected". Bigger government and higher taxes are ahead. The govs war on the middle class will continue. And the people will remain complacent until they try and take more than is "acceptable". Spending will still run rampant. Officials will remain un accountable. And overly sensitive social groups and lawsuit fearing corporations will determine whats acceptable to be printed and spoken. Sounds Orwellian to me...
I don't understand how Rudy can be polling so well. I just can't see him doing very well in republican primaries, particularly if Fred "Reagan" Thompson gets in. I know people are drawing the conclusion that Bush too was a long shot, except for his name recognition, and surprised everyone with big polling numbers in the runup to the 2000 election. I don't see the analogy. Bush was broadly acceptable to conservative republican primary voters and grass roots activists. Rudy is not. His act will not play well with southern voters. Come on, they will start publishing pictures of him in a dress, with his gay pals, his support for government-funded abortion and gun control. The talk now is that republican voters will swallow anyone if they can defeat Hillary, but I will believe that when I see it. Frankly, I'm not so sure Rudy can defeat Hillary. Democrats will not vote for him, some independents might, but will they offset all the traditional values/evangelicals/hard core conservatives who will sit it out? I doubt it. The republicans have played their trump card--"look how scary the alternative to us is"--one too many times. Voters didn't buy it in the mid-terms, and I doubt they buy it again, not after serial betrayals by Bush and company.
We're now 6 months or so beyond the 2006 elections which is the last look we had at how the voters feel. Here's what voters said: House - No Rep won a Dem seat. Some key red states put Dems in. Bloodbath for Reps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections,_2006 Senate - No Rep won a Dem seat. Again look at what some red states did - MN, TN, OH. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2006 Has the political situation for Reps improved or deteriorated in the last 6 months? The news flow I get suggests it has deteriorated in every way save for two items - the roaring stock market and the NK nuke deal. Does anyone think otherwise and believe the Rep prospect has improved since November?
I think that the bottom has been hit and slowly, but surely, the Republicans are regrouping. Despite the money raised, and whatever the, mainly leftist, media say, this race is wide open. For example, there's a strong argument that neither of the two current front running Democrats are electable, for whatever reasons, good and bad. So, imo, the Republicans will carry the 2008 elections, perhaps with the candidate that positions himself as the most centrist one. What bugs me most is that the American public is being railroaded again by the media and the likes of Hillary, et al. By that I mean that we are all "forced" to think of this election (like the 2006 elections) in a negative way (what not to allow, what went wrong, etc) and that's always bad. A whole lot of things went very well also, but few people talk about those. Very important decisions made in a negative spirit always, imo, make you jump from the frying pan into the fire, and that's a big ouch!
I don't think the Republicans have done much to improve their position, but I believe the Democrats have badly overplayed their hand. Whether it was Nancy Pelosi making a fool of herself, or Harry Reid cheerleading for al qaeda or Patrick Leahy playing politics with the US Attorney firings, the American people have been getting a full dose of what Democrat rule means. The Democrats ran as strong on defense centrists who would stop the corruption and avoid partisanship, but they have done exactly the opposite. They are openly hoping for a US defeat in Iraq, and have pretty much dropped their fiction that they "support the troops." They relentlessly and shamelessly politicize everything. Bush is very unpopular, but at some point, the American people might get sick and tired of a pack of Democrats trying to undercut the president at every turn. They expect their leaders to work together, and even the densest of them can see the Democrats are more interested in scoring points and humiliating Bush than helping the country.
The prejudice come down to the fact that you don't want a guy that believes in fairy stories running the country and making rules on how people should live their lives based on rules that other fruitcakes just pulled out their arses. And god forbid that the Prez should be someone who thinks the fairies actually speak to him and tell him that invading another country is a good idea. Get the prejudice now? Progressive means that we seek to run things on fact and emprically derived theories not on fairy tales and superstitions.
I hate to break this to you, but all 43 US Presidents were religious. So I guess you just eliminated all of them from your pool. Good job. What else do you have for us? I didn't know being a progressive was synonymous with bigotry.