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U.S. Elections 2008

Who will be the next US president?

  • John McCain

    Votes: 8 7.8%

  • Barack Obama

    Votes: 80 77.7%

  • Other

    Votes: 15 14.6%
  • Total voters
    103
Admiral Beez

Admiral Beez

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Now that we're finally about to see the backside of Bush, it's time to ask who do you think will be the next US President?

IMO, the pendulem is swinging away from the Far Right and moving leftward, meaning that it's going to be a Democrat. Also, with the Iraq situation, it will be hard for the GOP to appeal to the voters. Of the Democrats, it's either going to be Obama bin Barek or Hillary. I'd say Barek doesn't stand a chance against Clinton, since he's got a bad choice of names (might as well have Alfois Chitler run for German Chancellor) and from what I've heard is not considered black enough (i.e. not from slave origins) to appeal to that important Democrat community.

I think Hillary will make a good President, and will certainly show a change in direction for the country. She may be able to get control over the military-industrial complex, though it will be difficult to weather any threated job losses at military factories.
 
obama looks more confident, clinton has stumbled a few speeches.
 
Prometheus The Supremo said:
obama looks more confident, clinton has stumbled a few speeches.
Click to expand...
She definitely does not have her husband's gift of concise and sharp communication.

I wonder what Hillary would have done if 9/11/01 was 9/11/09. I can't see her attacking Iraq (assuming Saddam's still there until 2009) nor invading Afghanistan.
 
I fear that if Hillary Clinton gets elected, she'll do something crazy like bomb Iran to show that a Democratic (female) president can be "tough", which seems to be the most important thing to so many voters.
 
Clinton. GOP candidates are, for the most part, a joke (Giuliani says something stupid nearly every time he opens his mouth, Romney being a Mormon would depress turnout aong evangelicals, and Thompson...come on).

So it's a question of which Dem gets the nomination. Clinton has the machine, which in primaries is all-important. Maybe she would offer Obama the VP slot, but who knows. He's in it for the long haul and everyone knows it anyway. He'll make a great president one day, but not in '08.

Of course, this is all assuming that a) Bush leaves office peacefully, and b) the vote's not rigged. Both of which are question marks.

For some good analysis, see andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com


Edit--

A further thought: one of the consequences of the last couple of disastrous years in Washington is that the long-term trends are looking very grim indeed for the GOP; among under-30s for example party identification for the Dems is WAY up, and way down for the other side. Combine that with the fact that a number of formerly safe red states are quickly turning "purple" due to immigration from both within and outside the US (CO, NV, AZ, etc) and things could be extremely favourable to the Democrats for a while. This last is a big surprise; many people assumed that as traditionally blue places lost population share (NY, MA, CT, PA, and so on) to the south and west the gaining states would remain Republican. Didn't happen.

Of course, it helps that this GOP administration and three congresses showed themselves to be corrupt and utterly incompetent, in addition to pandering to a relatively tiny, hard-right slice of the electorate.
 
Good points, though I think you could say that Bush was a bigger joke in 2000 than any of the Republican candidates you mentioned, and look what happened to him... Never underestimate the GOP.

That being said, I have no idea who they'll pick. Giuliani is in the lead now, and one should never underestimate the front-runner. I just can't see him winning among the ultra-conservatives who go to Republican conventions. There's the same problem with Romney, since he's a Mormon who flip-flopped on gay rights and abortion. McCain has dramatically flamed out, but I just don't think he can recover. If I were betting money, I'd seriously consider Thompson. The hardcore Republicans worship Reagan, so they certainly wouldn't mind putting in another actor. He's reliably conservative, which is appealing, and he comes from a good Southern state (drawl and all). Even so, there's a long history of seemingly "perfect" candidates who inexplicably announce way too late when everybody's already picked their horse. Wesley Clark and Ken Dryden come to mind. Maybe it'll be Brownback.
 
The vote is not rigged. If even a small amount of the vocally "anti-something (in this case, Bush & Co.) Americans" actually took two friends each and actually went and actually voted, it'd be different down there.
 
If you read any of the numerous reputable articles, including a congressional report, about the voting process over the past few elections, you'd come to the conclusion that it is indeed rigged, at least on a small scale. There's no question that the Florida election in 2000 would have had a different result if thousands of black people had not been disenfranchised completely illegitimately because they happened to have the same name or birthday as an ex-con. That's not even beginning to get into the electronic voting machines. They stubbornly refuse to provide machines that simply print out a paper receipt indicating how you voted. I mean, how complicated could that possibly be? A printer?
 
Unimaginative: you are absolutely right about Bush being a joke in 2000. But now everyone has seen where electing a joke gets you. It's hard to overstate the level of disgust that many, many people--lots of them independents and even Republicans-- have with the current administration in the US--we're talking about approval ratings barely higher than Nixon's. The GOP will have to do something very, very special to win the trust of those people back.
 
unimaginative2 said:
If you read any of the numerous reputable articles, including a congressional report, about the voting process over the past few elections, you'd come to the conclusion that it is indeed rigged, at least on a small scale. There's no question that the Florida election in 2000 would have had a different result if thousands of black people had not been disenfranchised completely illegitimately because they happened to have the same name or birthday as an ex-con. That's not even beginning to get into the electronic voting machines. They stubbornly refuse to provide machines that simply print out a paper receipt indicating how you voted. I mean, how complicated could that possibly be? A printer?
Click to expand...

didn't diebold make the voting machines? they also make bank machines - which print out receipts. it can be done.


one would hope that the election was rigged because if it wasn't, we have some serious shit to worry about when using the ATM's.
 
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