Vietnam vet - so why do you think McCain is struggling so hard? He was the goods during Vietnam, his republican foes are underwhelming, yet he’s sunk like a rock in the lake. Not an argument - what’s your take on his inability to capitalize on his background?
This isn’t the only poll that has shown Hillary has very strong negatives. We’ll just disagree on her electability - it looks like she’s going to get the nomination, even as early as it is, and the data will be the data on election night. There’s a lot of time to see how the candidates shake out.
He refuses to capitalize on his background, which I respect to some degree, but at a certain point, like around when Bush’s people start talking shit about his wife, he also should start hitting back as hard. I’m not talking about reducing everything to negative politics, I just have a tough time watching him take that kind of abuse from those kinds of people and do…nothing. He seems like a decent man, but he’s a lousy leader.
What is he so worried about? He can kiss their asses to the end of time, he’ll never be one of them. Had he stuck at least to his hostility towards fundamentalist lunatics and a few other cranky politician positions, you could at least sell him on character. As it stands, it seems he’ll act on principle when he’s really pissed or has nothing to lose, and that’s it.
And, of course, the fact that he isn’t part of the modern GOP team means that they will always cut him off at the knees. So he either goes after them directly and takes them down with him, or just fails. I suspect the latter will take place.
This isn’t the only poll that has shown Hillary has very strong negatives. We’ll just disagree on her electability - it looks like she’s going to get the nomination, even as early as it is, and the data will be the data on election night. There’s a lot of time to see how the candidates shake out.
That there is. But at least we can rule out an infidelity scandal for her…right? RIGHT? PUT THAT AWAY BILL!
As we’ve discussed before in the thread about that incident, it’s a lot more complicated than either McCain or randomly selected, anonymized merchants would have you believe. Whether that matters electorally is another issue; I think the whole thing only matters to people that weren’t interested in him in the first place.
The NY Times has been rumbling that Bloomberg might try and run as an independent. From what I’ve read of his time as mayor, he sounds like a practical centrist; my impression is that if his actual policies were all that mattered then he could be a viable candidate. I also think that many many people will be put off by a super-rich guy perceived to be spending his way to the presidency; and that many Democrats will never vote for a guy who was (temporarily) a Republican, and many Republicans will never vote for a guy who’s so into gun control. I also have no idea if Bloomberg’s got charisma that could win him favor with people who are reflexively opposed to him. (Tangential side note: I just saw Gordon Brown speak for the first time this weekend; maybe he didn’t have anything good prepared for his reaction to the Glasgow explosion, but the content and style of his speech were both amazingly dull and uninspiring.) Anyone excited about a Bloomberg candidacy? He could be a non-crazy Perot, but I doubt he’s got the juice to make a third-party splash.
Edit: On topic: Hillary’s also got a practical, centrist position that’s probably closest to me among viable candidates; I too am put off by her personality (or how I perceive it, I should say). I won’t vote for her in the primaries but would against most of the Republican hopefuls.
It doesn’t matter how “complicated” it is, the perception is set.
Also, convincing people who aren’t interested in you to become interested in you is the primary job of someone running for president. And your last line is a tautology anyway. If I’m not interested then it can’t matter to me.
Virtually any change at all would have put Gore on top in 2000. He was only behind by 537 votes in Florida, out of 6 million, when the SC shut everything down.
Most polls show Bloomberg pulling slightly more from Republicans than Democrats. Seeing how far out we are, the proper is answer is “who knows, but can’t be that big of a difference.”
He’s just yet another a rich guy doing a vanity run for President. Short of replacing one of the other major parties - which has always happened over long time periods of bottom-up organizing and coalition building, not a sudden shift to a party wrapped a canddiate - there’s no way a third party can succeed in a winner-take all system.
Bloomberg would be fun. It would be especially fascinating to see two people (Bloomberg and Giuliani obviously), both of whose primary claim to power is running a city, one right after the other, duke it out over who was really responsible for prosperous New York.
I have a difficult time resolving a man who exhibited the bravery and leadership McCain demonstrated in Vietnam, who went through all he went through and responded the way he did, being the same man that took crap from Bush Jr. and his minions. I just can’t comprehend a guy with that background and set of experiences putting up with that kind of thing without attacking back, hard.
For you and your friends at Club Pinko. But the rest of America missed that likely erroneous “set perception” of yours.
Also, convincing people who aren’t interested in you to become interested in you is the primary job of someone running for president. And your last line is a tautology anyway. If I’m not interested then it can’t matter to me.
That’s a really fun direction to take things. Zen arguments are my favorite.
Evidently, my statement was unclear to you. What I was trying to say was only people already resolved against McCain will give a shit about his stroll through Baghdad. Like you and me, but not everyone who voted for Bush the last two times, necessarily.
How many heroic veterans do you know of that didn’t amount to shit in real life? It’s not necessarily the most common outcome, but it’s hardly rare. If anything McCain is an outlier in the other direction having gotten as far as he has…you would expect that out of someone with a more genteel military background but not with his hard luck story.
20% is a healthy shot at a plurality. The more parties are viable, the less of the vote you need.
I guess we can kind of admire McCain for not being huddled in the drive-through of a Palo Alto Burger King, scratching his sores with one hand and steadying his hand-lettered cardboard BLOW JOBS sign against the rain with the other. Way to go on that, McCain. Everything else needs work.
Candidate Ficus produces oxygen from carbon dioxide. How much carbon dioxide have Pastrami and Rye converted into oxygen?
I only personally know a few people I would consider heroic veterans, all of the Vietnam war. One was extremely successful in business, a former POW who was a friend of the family from when the F-4 squadron we followed around the world was stationed in England, right before they (and my father) were sent to Vietnam. He was shot down and taken prisoner, was shot several times as he tried (unsuccessfully) to save the life of his back-seater when they were found, and spend years in the Hanoi POW camp. Like McCain, he had a chance to go home early, and turned it down because the conditions they demanded were unacceptable to him. After he turned it down, they crippled him and to this day he has no use of his left leg. I would like to think I would have the courage he had, but I doubt it. He turned down a number of opportunities to run for political office, but has been extremely successful with a business he built into a national franchise.
The others probably would not be considered “heroes” by today’s society, and I’ll likely be abused for considering them such. One is a guy I knew in a previous company who lost an arm covering a retreat by his unit when they were overrun by an NVA unit - he held them off with a .50 MG while they pulled back, and lost his arm as he tried to finally follow them due to overwhelming enemy fire (wounded all over, arm was torn almost completely off by the fire and was not able to be saved.) He ended up with a great wife and kids, went back to school when he went back on the GI bill, was a chemist in a lab I ran. Others had similar backgrounds and stories, and modest but successful lives. None went into politics, and none took any crap in their work lives as far as I could see.
Perhaps McCain is just a symbol of what American politics really is. Here’s a guy who exhibited far more courage and integrity under conditions none of us could ever imagine, certainly exhibited more guts and fortitude and leadership by an order of magnitude than anyone running (or in the White House) today. Yet it appears Washington and the national political machines have reduced him to a political animal, willing to “go along” as needed. If someone like that can be so compromised, how can we expect more from a George W, Hillary, Obama, Edwards, etc.?
Yeah, that’s a fair assessment of John McCain’s career. Let’s set aside your childishly one-sided assessment of the quality of his actions; objectively speaking, he’s gotten pretty far in life. How many orphans have you adopted?
I didn’t mean you personally, so much. There are plenty who achieve admirable things in war for whom that represents a peak in their lives as far as anyone giving a shit about what they do. They go on to be ordinary people who only seem insignificant in proportion to what they once accomplished, but as harsh as it is, everyone always has their own past held against them.
Perhaps. I’m not sure if it’s more damning to regard him as a notable man gone wrong because he chose to make certain compromises to advance his ambitions, or to see him as a passive victim of circumstance. Either way, he’s a sucker for thinking that could possibly get him elected when it was precisely the opposite that was his primary selling point.
