2008 Primaries Thread

Pols fall SO far in and out of fashion over 3 years. Plus the Dems change what they (say they) stand for every 6 months.

yeah, and this is part of the problem. if things get too far out of whack, like during the intervening three years the nominee gets caught masturbating with a rubber hosepipe and an orange, then there would be a mechanism for another primary -- in fact, such a mechanism probably already exists in and amongst the party rules. which, may i remind those here who seem to consider this whole circus as handed down on tablets, have no basis in law or the constitution and are therely purely for the benefit of the party who created them and can thus be changed if the party feels that it should.

we're getting a great national debate these days with our current system aren't we?

"i am the candidate for change"

"no, i am"

"my name is (x) and this is where i grew up"

CAN WE SKIP THIS PART PLEASE

http://img.breitbart.com/images/2008/1/9/D8U2DTF80/D8U2DTF80.jpg

Dude's starting to look like Jack from "Will & Grace".

tracer i don't get your wish for a solid and unambiguous 'party leader.' that just doesn't make sense in a non-parliamentary system

there are way more people in the exec branch than any other. if you don't like that, you don't like most of the regulatory state.

well whichever party has the presidency has a de facto leader, but the opposition gets none unless there's a particularly egregious, overweening bastard who just has to tell everybody what to do (i.e. gingrich) -- this guarantees either no real visible rational debate, or a debate between a president and a nutcase

uh gabby come on dont play dense there is one decider in the executive branch

sorry i forgot

http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/leftcoastleaner/cheney_short_of_breath.jpg

a US party's eventual nominee for president is not the same thing as the opposition party's "shadow PM" or whatever equally-but-differently gnarly bullshit european parties arrive at

+ there are 50 state legislatures and governorships, big city mayoralties... there's just way more moving parts in the US, and more ideological range within the parties. it's a big country!

xp, well "well whichever party has the presidency has a de facto leader"... except in cases like this year! where the "party that has the presiden(t)" who is not a de facto leader, quite the opposite. how do they figure out who gets the ring next? how about... a big ugly series of public votes on the matter?

there's plenty to complain about w/r/t primaries -- "WHY IOWA AND NH ALL THE TIME JEEZ" -- but asking for it to be more efficient and rational just seems synoymous with making it less public and in the end less healthy

it's a big country!

lol

i wish we'd go back to the vp being 2nd place voter getter in the pres election. that'd make things interesting.

lol assassination

but then i was also hoping the 2000 election would have been contested by gore partly just for the chaos that would ensue.

that'd make things interesting.

yeah, we'd have 2 dozen extra presidential candidates

gr3at system you guys are designing here

anything that moves us even an inch closer to the destruction of the 2 major parties is cool with me, but I can't envision it till we're China's lackeys.

2 dozen presidential candidates? sounds good to me!

has there ever been a point in US politics where there weren't only 2 major parties? there are those moments where one is in the process of fracturing over a particular issue, or a substantial bloc of people with an issue previously ignored... but the equilibrium goes back to 2 in a binary election system.

This discussion right now is like having a guy ranting during a World Series game about how baseball should be more like cricket.

please stop.

no lets talk about who we would have supported in the 1932 democratic national convention

THE HOOV!

BIG HOOV aka the market crasher

i'd have gone for will rogers all the way.

HOOV wasn't at the 1932 Democratic convention.

in the election of 1860 the Dems were split in two, and Lincoln ran against fellow Republican and future secretary of state William Seward.

we;ll stop, elmo ... when we have a second party.

you guys are forgetting that the real problem with the primaries is that they eventually end with the most decidedly undemocratic process in perhaps the entire system, the rest of it doesn't even hardly count

TPM: A key turing point in N.H. was Saturday's Democratic debate, especially HRC's good reaction to the question about her likability and Obama's bad reaction to it

yeah i blame the people who are still undecided on election day. idiots.

Wha? Well, anyway, I haven't seen anyone discuss this (they probably have and I missed it), but I noticed how much HRC's victory speech emphasized domestic issues, beginning -- I think -- with the housing crisis.

Maybe this also had something to do with her N.H. win. Obama's "game-changer" status is largely (maybe implicitly) built on foreign policy issues, e.g., the day he's sworn-in as President, the Arab world will see the U.S. differently (more favorably). But if foreign policy concerns are slipping behind economic anxiety in voter's minds, that won't be as significant a card for Obama to play. And maybe HRC will sound stronger on those issues or do a good job of emphasizing them. Anyway, what issues the campaigns emphasize going into February will be interesting (a few months ago, it was foreign policy/nat'l security; maybe now "it's the economy, stupid").

maybe now "it's the economy, stupid"

Unless there was a terrorist attack yesterday, it's always the economy.

Culinary Workers Endorse Obama

i like marc ambinder's take on NH:

Every time you think you know how politics works....

Consider: Hillary Clinton's own internal tracking poll projected an 11 point loss.

So her victory is more than the sum of its parts.

Here are some of those parts

** Women came home for Hillary, for some reason
** the campaign's absentee ballot program worked well
** The campaign believes that working folks had trouble voting in the caucuses;
** Clinton has always had a much deeper base of support in New Hampshire
** New Hampshire voters have already taken their independence seriously
** Barack Obama spent a month in Iowa, making an argument tailored for Iowa; he did not have the time build up the momentum in New Hampshire; the bounce was ephemeral.
** She stepped out of the bubble: she took control at her events, forcing the fire marshal to let in more voters, tearing up, giving honest answers; she’s started to warm up to her traveling press corps a bit. (A bit.)
** She took control of her campaign, writing most of her stump speech, making most of the key decisions herself
** Barack Obama’s television ads portrayed him as a god; black and white photographs with white lettering; very thematic; very arrogant, in a way – many of them featured Obama talking to voters; Clinton’s ads were more conventionally inspiring, with lots of American flags, lots of American images; not as threatening or ponderous.
** She performed well at the debate
** The tears worked; the free media was influential

Unless there was a terrorist attack yesterday, it's always the economy.

Iraq/Iran are big issues. But a recession is looming, so . . .

Out to rock Michigan:

http://www.latimes.com/media/alternatethumbnails/photo/2008-01/34647783-09100225.jpg

He's no worse than the Nuge.

i caught huckabee playing bass w/a local bar band in new hampshire on cspan a few days ago.

at least the nuge had some good tunes

deej's defense of the united states' right to bomb whatever country it wants has been the most surprising thing about this thread so far. (i guess this means he's in favor of israel's helicopter strikes on hamas leaders too?)

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, January 9, 2008 5:11 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

you guys are missing the point - this is an issue of judgment obv, depending on the degree of our knowledge and how serious and immediate the threat actually is, how far negotiations have gone, the potential consequences of such an action (including incorporating the potential blowback into your decision making) - all i'm saying is that no, i don't think it should ever be ruled out, and it should be a viable response, particularly if yr talking about rogue groups acting with impunity w/in a country that cannot control them.

yr acting like i'm saying it should be our first response to just go in and bomb whoever we please, which is not the position that ive taken or that obama ever took.

so iowa and nh got plenty of juice this go around, does anyone see nevada and/or south carolina getting similar THIS IS THE TURNIN POINT kinda coverage?

deej, you must understand that this doctrine applies only to countries that have no capacity to retaliate effectively. For example, Finland.

Stop watching 24.

so iowa and nh got plenty of juice this go around, does anyone see nevada and/or south carolina getting similar THIS IS THE TURNIN POINT kinda coverage?

south carolina could be for the dems.

yeah, might depend what the expectations/polls are like. lol, feb 5 is hueg.

NV and SC seem much more make-or-break for Obama than for Hillary

As a Floridian, you have no idea how mad I am right now that our primary means nothing! Stupid GOP legislature and their shady election practices.

deej, you must understand that this doctrine applies only to countries that have no capacity to retaliate effectively. For example, Finland.

-- Aimless, Wednesday, January 9, 2008 12:57 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yr assuming that the country in question would want to retaliate