A Sign
I can't vote but my window (which overlooks a busy Muni stop) can.
I'm not holding out much hope. It'll be Clinton v. McCain with McCain winning in November. You heard it here first (and I'm warning you I'm never wrong in election predictions).
10 Comments:
You depress me.
pessimism is the gift that keeps giving
why do you like obama? it's hard to get a good impression from this distance, but he seems very glib. i went to his website to try to understand what he stands for other than just some nebulous idea of "change". he certainly seems to be for everything that is nice and friendly, but i didn't see much in the way of imaginative solutions.
america, having fucked up iraq, cannot now abandon it to chaos and civil war simply because it values american lives over iraqi lives. for this reason my non-vote will be for mccain unless you can give me good reasons otherwise.
The candidate with the best policies, in my opinion, was a white guy without a chance who left the race weeks ago.
I never said I support Obama. The point is that Clinton (and her husband in particular) are so despised that they will hand the GOP a victory.
McCain's victory will bring more Republicans into the Congress (as the political science indicates). I'll take glib and "imaginative" over that any day.
Obama is by far the best candidate on issues I'm closest to (such as sentencing and criminal justice). And he can appeal to independents.
Hillary recently opposed a very slight reduction in the US's brutal crack penalties. She is so desperate to prove she's "tough" she'll be bush-lite. Also, I don't like her chances in the general election at all.
McCain is still a Republican. Despite his image, he is extremely conservative. He would bring the same parade of fascists and idiots into an administration. The world can't take much more of that party in the most powerful position in the world. Unless you are far to the right of John Howard you probably shouldn't support him.
I think Hillary can win against McCain for a couple reasons. National polls that have her trailing him now will change if she becomes the presidential candidate simply because she'll start looking more presidential. And while the public might not like tough women in general, they do like tough women as the head of the country. I think Margaret Thatcher will have helped pave the way for that.
I also think that to whatever extent Hillary motivates the Republican base, McCain de-motivates it -- so that Hillary can lead just on getting out the vote. Certainly, the democrats will be at the polls in full force, and they already are in the primaries. I think I've seen primaries where 50% more Democrats voted than Republicans!
And, even though I'm pulling for Obama now, I think a Clinton/Obama ticket would provide the best chance for 16 years of Democrats in the White House.
i hope you're right steve
i worry about hillary's lack of appeal with male voters and her inability to appeal outside the democratic base. the female voters voting for her in the primaries will vote for obama in the general but the male voters voting for obama might not stay with the democrats if she's the candidate
i also worry about obama's lack of appeal with older voters for the general election. he's no lock either.
in general, i worry a lot. i think this election will be much harder for the democrats than they think. let's hope i'm wrong.
i won a lot of bets against my YLS classmates by predicting that bush would defeat kerry . . .
whoa! "far to the right of john howard"? unless i'm misinformed mccain accepts the science of climate change and believes it needs immediate action, supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and worked to stop the torture of guantanamo detainees. this puts him substantially to the left of john howard, i'd think.
you have to remember that McCain is running as a republican and would lead a republican administration.
mccain voted against kyoto: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
the actual legislation on torture promoted by mccain (and eventually passed) included many terrible provisions (such as habeas stripping) - it was an enormous dissapointment to anti-torture folks. check the excellent balkinization blog (http://balkin.blogspot.com) for coverage of the torture issue. given his personal history, mccain's actual record (as opposed to his image) on the issue is very dissapointing
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2006/09/final-version-of-warner-mccain-graham.html
mccain has been a lifelong and strong opponent of the right to choose
supported invasion of iraq (only obama of remaining candidates had the wisdom to oppose at the time)
opposes federal universal health coverage
mccain is far to the right of howard on gun control (voted against assault weapons ban)
us immigration politics is very different to australia as big business interests support reform such as that proposed by mccain
mccain has been rated 0% by the aclu on his civil rights voting record
he supports expanding the death penatly and prisons (in a context of already existing massive overincarceration)
the fact that the truly fascistic wing of the republican party don't like him says much more about their extremism than it does about mccain's moderation. i absolutely stand by the claim that, within the context of australia's politics, any mccain administration would be far to the right of any australian liberal government. don't be fooled by media image.
nicholas, i suspect that if you lived here and had more exposure to the republican party you wouldn't consider voting for them - but thank goodness you can't vote now ;)
well, perhaps. i don't doubt you understand US politics far better than I do, and you paint a far bleaker picture of MCain than anything else I've read (I do try to follow it via Google News, etc, but I guess there's a cultural gap.) I still have grave doubts about Clinton and Obama on character grounds. Nor am I sure that Obama's vote on Iraq was quite the principled stand you portray it as. And I still think America abandoning Iraq at this point is cowardly and morally unjustifiable. Now if Obama said, "I didn't support it at the time, but having gone in, we have a moral obligation not to abandon the people of Iraq..." But no. He is, as the Republicans would say, a chickenshit liberal.
History will tell. In the meantime, I'll tone down my pro-McCain rhetoric.
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