With the race for US president heating up, I thought this poll would be fitting.

There are a ton of candidates out there for both parties.

I only put the 2 choices up there because realistically that is what we are going to get, a democrat or a republican, so which is the greater of 2 goods, the lesser of 2 evils or the good greater than the evil?

We can start it off discussing our individual choices and then after we have a clearer view of the forums political and social beliefs we can discuss any patterns that arrise later in the poll.

I'll discuss my choice later but for now I'm opening the floor to all of you, my esteemed collegues.

Democrat. To those of you who know me in any way, shape, form, or pay attention to anything I've said, the reason is obvious.
To the rest of you, go fuck yourselves, I'm hardcore libral in most categories.

...you forgot the neither ballet.

No I didn't forget. You obviously were not paying attention. Our country is going one of 2 ways next election. I'm not letting you think outside the box, I'm trapping you in the one you are already in. Those are the only 2 choices because America is going to pick one of them. Your task is just to pick which you'd rather.

You pick that option by not choosing an answer to the poll.

Well I picked democrat. My time as a stand up comic made me cynical of the world and I realise that there probly won't be that great of a change either way. But Hillary's last name is still Clinton and having Bill become the First Man opens up a hell of a lot of jokes.... hell I feel liker making a T-shirt right now of Bill Clinton smiling giving his classic thumbs up with the words First Man below him in a pimptastic font.

Plus I like funding for the arts.

I'm conservative... barely. It's been a long time since I've seen a presidential candidate of any party that I respected.

Edit: Or, to steal someone else's tagline... "I'm a fiscal conservative. Too bad we don't have a party anymore."

Well to be fair I don't think Bush represents all conservatives... I wouldn't even say most.

He represents the rich ones. He's said so himself.

Neighter as it been deturnmine by past experience that basing a position by political alignment rather than want they would do causes you to have little to nothing that you do want while having all to most of want you don't want.

Patriot Act, anybody?

Though, I do plan on voting for Mitt Romney because of the way he handled Mich. and the Olypmics showing that he would make a great prisendent and have the country trillions of dollars in the black without raising any taxes.

Now I got two questions when choosing are we choosing hardcore or moderate?

Also for Republican do you mean "traditional Reagan republican that believes in low taxes, trickle down theory, state rights, and while believing in Christian morales have the old fashion idea of if it doesn't hurt anyone else allow it" or the slightly newer "Christian Right Republicans that care more about the souls of the nation rather then our economy, and believes we have to protect people by forcing a G rated society on people?"

And the Modern Crusades.
Can't forget the Modern Crusades.

No independent?

I think both parties are full of assholes.

Nah, the democrats have at least one pussy. *rimshot*

I don't know anything about all this political sorcery. I'm just a person.

A third party is not going to win, these elections take a lot of moey and the third parties casnt pay enough to compete with the 2 main parties. One of the 2 is going to win. If you are for someone third party than consider it a lesser of 2 evils poll. I explained in the first post Third party wasn't forgotten, itt was purposly excluded to promote a political debate.

Truth is when it is just between those to parties all politicial debate threads will only end up being agruments rather than debates or keep on going off topic.

Most good debates are arguments, in a broader context.

By forcing you to choose between only 2 parties, I am making the independents leave their comfort zone. With that there is a lot they can do.

It's not a question of who are you voting for. It a question of if the results go to one of the main parties or the other, which is better? Which is worse? And then the rest of the topic is to debate the whys.

As far as the hardcore or moderate go, look at the candidates for this years election. Some are worse than others.

Here to help you out there is info on all of them on Wiki. That should give you at least a general overview.

Where the heck is Ross Perot when you actually need him.

But the question which is better and which is worse, is relative to the example. I'm for Republicans usually but I can admit a moderate Democrat, is far better then a extreme Republican. I mean both suck when taken to the extreme so we need a context, especially since Democrats and Republicans can be broken into groups even.

When in doubt assume moderate. It's rare for an extremist to get elected.

Actually, while it's easy for a moderate to get elected in the main election, it almost never happens because moderates almost never win the primaries.

Not quite true...

That always bugged me how he just dropped off the map.

I suspect pay-off.

With what, Bugger was richer than hell anyways.

But he wasn't richer than richer than hell.


...wait...what did I say?

With all the current shit going on, I wonder if there'll even be elections...



... not that any of the candidates are even remotely palatable.

In that case....do what I did in 04.

Write me in.

Everyone going on about how "all the candidates suck hey let's vote for 3rd-party-with-no-chance/me" is completely missing the point of this thread. I know you want to show everyone just how much you don't like the two main American parties, but this isn't the thread for that.

I'm a big fan of Barack Obama on the Democratic side, and John McCain on the Republican side.

I'd be content with either of them in the big chair.

If you're a fan of both Obama and McCain, I'm guessing you haven't been paying too much attention to what the latter's been saying lately?

The one that I think shows the most is him agreeing with O'Reilly's statement that the libruhls "want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure", and that such a breaking down should be prevented.

That's uhhh quite a claim, you're going to have to provide proof for that one.

Edit: Oh I see, yeah it seems he's agreeing with the "you gotta cap it" part, not the "Trying to destory White males" part.

Did he jump on O'Riley's desk and scream Black Power? that would give him some points in my book.

It's right on his own web page.

It's near the end of that clip. McCain doesn't change expression as O'Reilly says that statement, doesn't attempt at all to disagree or even temper the absurdity of it, and then shortly thereafter says he agrees with O'Reilly's views on the subject.

Since the man's already an admitted fan of using racial slurs, this isn't likely a simple misunderstanding.

That read difrently to me than it did to you... It read to me like the nodding of I'm listening to a point I've heard 1000 times today. He rebutts by bringing p we need to secure the borders for security reasons for the 47th time in the interview.

Exactly, it seems to me he's agreeing to the fact we need to cap the amount of illegal immigrants that are coming to this country (which was O-Reilly's main point), not agreeing about the white male power structure thing and really until we know what he meant, we can't exactly use that as evidence on why he shouldn't be President (unless you disagree with the cap as well)

He's willing to interject to point out that he feels that we do need immigrant labour, but he's not willing to say anything against the idea that a cap is needed for the purpose of preventing the white, Christian, male power structure from breaking down because too many brown people come into our country?

He didn't really interject at all, he just waited calmly and seems far more interested in making his point, not wanting to get into a typical O'Reilly debate. Maybe you're right though, maybe he is crazy about that, but the thing is, that opinion is being judged by 3 words he said, to a rant that had multiple points. I just doubt John McCain is truly a racist, because his policies doesn't show it, he's relatively light on Illegals, he's entirely against the torture of Muslim terrorist, ect. Maybe those are just techniques to acquire votes but I'd rather look at his voting record, and policies as examples of what he'll be like as President then an unspecified, vague agreement to a rant that had a reasonable request (putting a cap on the amount of immigrants that come here) for a ridiculous reason (to preserve the status quo)

Even if you want to give McCain the benefit of the doubt with regards to being a racist/sexist (the torture thing doesn't count in the racism regard and you know it, by the way), it's still an odd choice. Since notty said he liked Obama (one of the more liberal Democratic choices) and McCain, I'm guessing he's operating under the "McCain = maverick" idea that actually had merit back in 2000.

McCain is very hawkish in terms of the Iraq War and the potential war with Iran, he's more against abortion rights than any other senator, he's against gay rights, etc. He's not a liberal Republican in any sense, and he hasn't been a "maverick" since the 2000 election.

I wouldn't agree with the Hawkish comment, while he does support Iraq, he merely been saying that military options can't be taken off the table with Iran (which pretty much every candidate has been saying since most of them want to avoid that topic at all cost except Guilani), the abortions rights thing is true.

Saying he's against gay rights though is kind of true and untrue. The thing is this election, if you're looking for a pro-gay marriage President, it's just not going to happen, all Presidents are against it, Romney, Guilani, Paul, McCain, Clinton, Obama. Each and every one of them is against gay marriage, they all merely sadly only support Civil Unions, so while McCain isn't exactly for gay marriage, he's favorable enough to supports of GLBT that he realizes for the moment that while he may not agree with it, the Government shouldn't be federally banning it. I'm not saying I agree with McCain's position, if it were up to me, I'd have gay marriage either legalized, or turn it so all marriages straight or gay were consider civil unions, I'm just saying that at the moment, that while he's not an ally of the GLBT community, he's not a visible threat on the federal level like Bush is.

Now still those are only 3 issues, he's still very moderate in gun control (he co-sponsers gun control bills), immigration reform, torture of enemy combatants (he wants to eliminate it), environemental issues (he has clashed with the Bush administration, foreign fuels, and stem cell research.