What don't you like about the candidates?

[hadassahchana[$]]

This one's the opposite of Leslie's thread. Obviously this one's got to be posted over here. Debate without name-calling each other would be good. CAlling the candidates names isn't the point, but I am guessing that we will at some point. In addition to listing what you don't like, feel free to extoll the virtues of your candidate. Convince me not to mount a write-in campaign for Kinky, or for Libby.

Ok, here's why so far I am voting for Kinky:

I have an intense dislike of all the Republican candidates. Giuliani because of just about everything I've heard. However, after watching that video from the NYFD, I can't even consider that he would be anything but a total disaster as a president.

McCain- one of those little whirling garden ornaments- any which way the wind blows. And, much of the wind seems to be coming from him. The clincher for me was watching him suck up to Falwell, after announcing loudly that politicians had no business sucking up to the Christian right.

Romney - sigh. I read his policy about various things and actually agreed with a few. Of course, it turns out that he writes better than he walks. And that dog thing- that may be a shallow reason for cold unchangable hatred, but I never said I wasn't shallow. He is dead to me.

Obama - I was determined to like him, even four years too early. His adamant opposition to same-sex marriage is the deal-breaker to me. If he isn't interested in finally fighting to ensure that everyone gets to live with the same rights, then I'm not interested in him. Feh- I hate the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Ditto for Hillary. Deciding that someone else isn't as good as she is because it's a personal conviction sucks. Really sucks big time.

Edwards - dear God please no. I haven't seen anything at all that would make me trust him, not even a little bit.

I've probably left out another really serious contender, but I'll think of soemthing to say later. In the mean time, I just can't wait for my Kinky shirt to arrive.

[pippadaisy[$]]

Cindy, the only candidate for same-sex marriage is the absolutely unelectable Kucinich. I've been willing to accept the civil union for the time being in hopes that Obama will realize that the country is turning and it needs to be turned over to the states, with the Federal government getting its big fat nose out of it.

I really find Ron Paul's position on gay marriage the most abhorrent... he claims the Libertarian ideal of "turning it to the States" but take a gander at Catholics for Ron Paul and see a comprehensive summary of what he's really been saying about it... he supports the Defense of Marriage Act.

[brian_igo]

Ahhhh, home sweet home. I need to come here after being good in Leslie's thread.

Let's run through the good, the bad and the are-you-smoking-crack?

REPUBLICANS:
Overview - I don't know if I wrote this here or on the motorcycle board where I hang out, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself. The most amazing thing about the 2008 race is that the Republicans in the field are their A-team. This isn't like the Dems in '92 where the heavies sat out because Bush 41 looked unbeatable in the summer of 1991. Every big-name Republican is in the field or got eliminated through election loss or scandal last year. This is their best and brightest, and it is the weakest, most damaged field of candidates I've ever seen. No joke, the Republicans put forward better candidates against Roosevelt in 1936 and 1940 when they knew they would get slaughtered.

What's worse, there are no hot Republican governors or young congressmen in the wings who might be strong contenders in 2012. This is the strongest evidence yet that the GOP is intellectually bankrupt, and is facing a long time in the wilderness before they find their way again. If there is going to be another Goldwater, we haven't seen who he or she is yet - let alone when he or she will make their stand and shock the party back to life.

Anyway, on to the nine dwarfs...

Rudy Giuliani - Where to start? This is a man who gets unhinged over ferrets. He promoted one mistress to a $150,000 job when he was mayor of NYC. Promoted his driver to NYPD commissioner (who took bribes from mob-connected construction companies and after 9/11 screwed his mistress in an apartment donated for use by rescue workers) and to this day writes a paycheck every two weeks for a college friend who was forced out of the priesthood because he was screwing little boys. Giuliani is going to make Bush's personnel choices look like the work of Solomon. His foreign policy is doing more of what Bush has done. (There's a ghostwritten article with Giuliani's name on it in this month's Foreign Affairs.) His view of the role of the presidency is Cheney's unitary executive turned up to 11. If you think the biggest problem with Bush is that he's too much of a pussy, Rudy is the guy for you.

I've never said this before, I don't think I'll ever say it again. But if Rudy Giuliani is sworn in on January 20, 2009, I'm seriously going to look into emigrating. The thought of four years of Rudy with the powers claimed by Bush scares me to death.

Mitt Romney - He's like a Build-A-President kit with bad instructions, and he just hasn't been put together right. Absolutely craven, vacuous of any real convictions aside from the hunger for power. Maybe the most frightening of all the GOP candidates because he'll say absolutely anything to win, but probably the least-likely to be another version of Bush.

Fred Thompson - He's just like Reagan, except for the talent, drive, vision and charm. I'd lay even odds right now that he doesn't get in at all. If he does, his only influence will be guaranteeing that Rudy gets the nomination because Thompson will suck off support from Romney.

Mike Huckabee - The new media darling of the 2008 race, Adam Nagourney practically wrote a f***ing Hallmark card about him on the front page of the NY Times after the Iowa straw poll. He's making good noises on reaching out to Main Street instead of being the party of Wall Street, but all of his solutions center on...Wall Street.

Sam Brownback - Render unto Casear's that which is Caesar's, Senator. But I want him to stay in the race as long as possible to be on those debate stages and remind Republican voters about Giuliani's and Romney's flip-flops on social conservative issues.

Ron Paul - Right on Iraq, wrong on absolutely everything else. A John Birch supporting bigot, a "libertarian" who believe abortion should be illegal.

John McCain - The late, great George Plimpton told a story about one neighborhood party his parents had while he was visiting home from school. One neighbor, an elderly judge, was embarrassing himself with ugly pronouncements on race, sexism, and other subjects. In a private moment young George told his father, "Old man Jones is really losing it." His father replied, "No, he's lost his ability to hide it."

That's John McCain in 2007.

Duncan Hunter - If he stays in the race long enough, he could be the first candidate to be indicted for official crimes while running for President. Hunter was close enough to the bribery meltdown of Duke Cunningham and Jerry Lewis to get a tan. Running for Veep, but will likely lose to Huckabee.

Tom Tancredo - He's only got one issue, and I think he's wrong on it.


DEMOCRATS:
Nothing pithy to say about the field, so here they are...

Hillary Clinton - In one word, Iraq. That was the biggest judgment call of our generation, and she blew it.

Beyond anger about her too-clever-by-half explanations today, how will President Clinton react when she's told what people want her to hear? A smart president presumes that is what he is hearing from 99% of the people who walk into the office.

I've also had a lifetime supply of the DLC "New Democrats", TYVM. The farther we get from Clinton's "triangulation" the worse it looks. But my biggest objection to Clinton is that it will give another four or eight years of oxygen to the nutbags who dominated the 90's. I don't want to waste another nanosecond on who Bill Clinton might be screwing, or what Hillary has thrown at him, or what she did with that goddamn law firm 20 years ago. There is far too much important work to be done to waste time on that, and our media doesn't have either the brains or the balls to just say no to more innuendo.

John Edwards - My second choice. I like him, and I like how he's grown since 2004. He has a steel about him now that was missing four years ago.

I don't disagree with any of his policies, but I think if he were elected he wouldn't have a chance of getting most of it passed into law. His reach exceeds his grasp, but if he gets the nomination I'll be happy.

Bill Richardson - I don't know if he even knows what he stands for. He's the Democratic equivalent of Tommy Thompson, but Richardson isn't 150 years old.

Lot of talk about him as a Veep candidate, but I really want him as Secretary of State. I think he would be brilliant in that role.

Chris Dodd - Like Biden, too beholden to the financial industry for me to take him seriously as a presidential candidate. Likeable...and that's it.

Joe Biden - If he was only half as smart as he thinks he is. His authorship of that awful bankruptcy "reform" bill is something I'll never forgive. Called "The Senator from MBNA" for a good reason.

Dennis Kucinich - Ralph Nader with charm. If politics is the art of the possible, Kucinich is scribbling on the walls with crayons.

Mike Gravel - Meh. Started out refreshing, went stale fast.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Ugh - that would be a total deal-breaker for me. And I still don't have a candidate I like. Too many of the things I want either aren't available at all or don't exist in one candidate.

Oops, posted at the same time as Brian. I was answering 'ugh' to Pippa's info about Ron Paul, not to the excellent post by Brian.

Although I could have been saying 'ugh' to seeing Giuliani's name again...bleah.

[frazzledspice]

If Bill Richardson had charisma, I think he'd be an unbeatable candidate.

He has great experience and accomplishments. I especially like the fact that he's been our ambassador to the UN (after living the past seven years with a President who would like to see the UN run out of NY and disbanded....) The future of our planet depends much more on successful diplomacy than on military might (which, in a world with more and more nuclear players, can only lead one place.)

Huckabee was my governor for six of the seven years I've lived here....

And he IS charismatic (I don't know what it is about those good old boys from Hope, AR, also Huckabee's home town.) Even before he lost the 100 pounds, when I saw him speak I was just bowled over and thought, "Wow." And, as you all know, I'm NOT a Republican.

His policies while Arkansas governor were actually quite moderate. He showed concern for immigrant children when the Feds raided a chicken factory and deported their parents in the dead of night. He took a lot of heat for that.....

He was also the leader of the governors' conference recently (a position held by Clinton at one time, too) despite heavyweight competition like the governator and Romney...

If he wasn't a Baptist minister, I would think that he'd be a pretty good Republican candidate. On the one hand, I think that he's a heckuva better Christian than Bush (which isn't saying much) but on the other hand the conservative Christian movement has too much power on the national front already.

(Not that he's ever hobnobbed with the Reverend Dobson to my knowledge.)

[mtomm[$]]

Brian, did you leave out Obama because you see nothing bad?

ETA:

Oh, nevermind, I see you answered that in Leslie's thread.

But nothing you don't like about Obama?

[brian_igo]

mtomm said

Brian, did you leave out Obama because you see nothing bad?

ETA:

Oh, nevermind, I see you answered that in Leslie's thread.

But nothing you don't like about Obama?

Not much. The only knock I've heard from anyone is his age, and that's not a problem for me.

Josh Marshall at TPM did a nice video blog takedown on how people (Romney and Sean Hannity, in this case) are manipulating Obama's statements as so-called evidence of his inexperience. Hillary got busted doing the same thing last week about taking nuclear weapons off the table, but this one is even more ridiculous.

Hillary Clinton and the Republicans are clearly trying to plant a meme that Obama is recklessly inexperienced, regardless of the evidence. (See Gore inventing the Internet, Kerry faking his combat injuries, and Edwards being effeminate.) I've said this several times before and it pisses off some people here, but all of us really have a responsibility to fact check our media and scream when they try to pull shit like this. And I am getting increasingly furious at Clinton for playing this game. If the only way she can win the nomination is by running like a Republican, then she needs to go home.

[pippadaisy[$]]

I don't think his "inexperience" is an issue. I do have a big problem with his stance on SSM.

[brian_igo]

I'll be honest, I don't think marriage should be a federal issue - period. I don't think the federal government should have anything to do with defining what is or isn't a legal union. That's a state matter, and the only role of the federal government should be the enforcement of the full faith and credit clause that would require states to recognize contracts - including marriage contracts - signed in another state. I think a Democrat pushing for federal endorsement of SSM would be as wrong as the Republican efforts to outlaw it at the federal level.

[hadassahchana[$]]

I don't agree, any more than I think that states ought to be able to decide who gets to vote, or what colour you have to be to live in which neighbourhood. It's that much of an issue to me- denying an entire group of folks basic human rights as well as the same financial benefits we all take for granted is just wrong- but horribly wrong. IMO.

[pippadaisy[$]]

I don't agree that it's a States' rights issue. How they execute it? fine. age of consent? fine.

But in order to have something recognized by the god-blessed IRS, it has to be at the Federal level. If you want to abolish the IRS? Fine by me. I'll take the Federal government turning it to the States.

[brian_igo]

hadassahchana said

I don't agree, any more than I think that states ought to be able to decide who gets to vote, or what colour you have to be to live in which neighbourhood. It's that much of an issue to me- denying an entire group of folks basic human rights as well as the same financial benefits we all take for granted is just wrong- but horribly wrong. IMO.

I don't agree that it's a States' rights issue. How they execute it? fine. age of consent? fine.

But in order to have something recognized by the god-blessed IRS, it has to be at the Federal level. If you want to abolish the IRS? Fine by me. I'll take the Federal government turning it to the States.

A couple of points. First, if there is any question, I am an absolute supporter of gay marriage. I'm not saying gays and lesbians should be prohibited from getting married.

Second, what I wrote about the Full Faith and Credit clause is key. If this article of the Constitution is fully enforced as it should be, then every state has to treat a gay marriage in Massachusetts like every other marriage, including tax and spousal rights benefits. This includes, to use Pippa's example, federal tax law. As far as I know, because of the Credit clause the federal government has always accepted every state's definition of marriage as the requirement for tax and Social Security law. If any state says you're legally wed, that's always been good enough for the federal government - until recently.

If Andy gets married in Massachusetts, I want his marriage to be legally recognized in Alabama, the same way it would for a hetero couple. But I'm enough of a pragmatist to know that using a federal statute to require same-sex marriage by all of the states is the definition of perfect being the enemy of the good. It is not going to happen.

I want a repeal of the awful Defense of Marriage Act if its not thrown out by the courts first. And I want a Department of Justice that vigorously defends the Credit clause. Get those two things and you'll make it possible for every gay who wants to get married to do so (though it may involve a road trip) and live where ever they want with the same benefits as a married hetero couple. That can be done by the next president.

[drmomentum[$]]

Aside from them all being conservative authoritarians, I think they're all peachy.

US Primaries 2007

[hadassahchana[$]]

Ok, I just had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I got to the bit about Hillary being a conservative.

[realtraveller]

I just don't think same-sex marriage will be a top issue for voters in 08.

It will be: the war, terrorism, illegal immigration, taxation, the cost of healthcare and energy. Period.

[theworm[$]]

I think that the war and the cost of healthcare will be the two biggest issues.

[brian_igo]

I think you're all wrong.

Unless things turn around in a huge hurry, the number one issue of the 2008 election is going to be the economy. The "subprime mortgage" meltdown is actually a collapse in confidence in huge parts of the private bond market, and there isn't an interest rate cut on Earth that can fix it.

[pippadaisy[$]]

I don't really give a hoot what other people's issues are. I thought this was about what OUR complaints were?

[brian_igo]

pippadaisy said

I don't really give a hoot what other people's issues are. I thought this was about what OUR complaints were?

Since when do we stay on topic?

[pippadaisy[$]]