Why the next president will be Republican

Why would Democrats choose Hillary as their candidate?

I can’t think of anyone more likely to get right wingers out in droves to vote against her. The turnout among Republicans and many moderates would be like 90%.

Sometimes, just as I’m falling asleep, I dream that the Democratic candidates have all gotten together and put Hillary up as a smokescreen because they know she can’t win. Their plan is to have Gore hop into the race just after Super Tuesday, after Clinton has taken the brunt of the negative ads. He then sweeps up the remaining primaries and goes on to choose Obama as his running mate, and there’s nothing the Republicans can do about it.

90% of many moderates?

Don’t taunt me.

Because the Clinton political machine is far more powerful than any other in the party right now. Why did Democrats pick Kerry? I think the primary system in general doesn’t really favor picking the candidate most electable in the general election, it picks by design the candidate that most appeals to the party.

The reason Kerry won the primary was because he seemed the most electable in the general election (at the time), which is why guys like Dean were abandoned, so that doesn’t really hold.

Clinton definitely has some strong negatives, but she probably is the most electable of the Democrats in a general election – although Gore probably would be more electable if he ends up running.

Why does everyone keep saying this? The only people I know who can even stomach the thought of HC as president are definitely not representative of most voters. Obama is infinitely more likeable and trustable. The only objections I have ever heard from even my most conservative friends are the typical platform differences for single issue voters (abortion, etc.)

Also, I think sexism enjoys greater support in the US than racism.

I seriously have trouble believing that anyone thinks that Gore or Kerry would have fucked up our nation as badly as George W. Bush.

Did you guys just see the excerpts from Greenspan’s upcoming memoirs? (NY Times, Wall St. Journal have the details). He rips Shrub a new one. And cause he’s the sainted Greenspan, his criticism will have a lot more weight than the other ex-administration officials who are screaming bloody murder.

Really? What country in the world has more women in executive postions? In the corporate/business world, the U.S. is one of the least sexist, and politics seems like an adjunct to those. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but as an ousider, we constantly hear about how racist U.S. society is, and most other places seem more sexist.

A woman President may be a big step forward, but there’s certainly several international precedents that seemed like similarly large steps at the time. But are there any instances in the world where a representative of a visible minority was elected as leader?

There’s other reasons why small-minded indviduals might be prejudiced against Obama, like his upbringing in muslim schools, etc. – as well as valid reasons that make him less electable, such as his inexperience. Clinton gets a Bill-boast too, even if people didn’t like him personally, most people have fond memories of the 90s and his governing period.

Anyway, we’ll see soon enough, I guess. I’d also prefer Obama, by a large margin - he seems far more sincere, smart and “real”.

Desslock, I think even Iran has more women in government than the US.

I wish a woman was in charge of Iran.

That’s interesting though. I tried to google-fu some stats on women/government in different countries in the world and couldn’t find anything comparative, at least that seemed accessible.

That’s not how it works. That kind of two step logic doesn’t motivate more than a tiny fraction of voters.

If you want your base to show up you need to give them something to vote FOR (NO GAYS GETTIN’ HITCHED!) But they won’t turn out to AGAINST something. (I’m votin’ agin’ that GAYS GETTIN’ HITCHED LAW!). In fact, I’d argue that if they tried to make the election one against Hillary that will end up mobilizing her base. Negative marketing can have the opposite effect.

As much as I hope for an enlightened America one day, a woman president isn’t going to happen in our lifetimes.

Hillary is probably my least favorite democratic, as her policies have been too much like Bush’s (still basically a corporate lackey, not really behind leaving Iraq, just fine with the Patriot Act, etc.), and she does have lots of enmity against her, but if she got the nomination I have a hard time envisioning her losing to any of the current lackluster Republican candidates.

I’ve argued for the last elections that the Democrats problem getting in the White House is that they have been all about vote against Bush as opposed to vote for us for these reasons. However, it is interesting how all elections these days seem to be primarily about smearing the other candidate. Very few ads are about why this candidate is so great and going to change the world, they all seem to be about how the opposing candidate is a child molesting mother kicking beastiality hosting liberal/neo-con.

The word you’re looking for is “Reagan.”

Edit: There is no “extreme left” in American politics. If Hillary were to “run center, govern left” as Lum suggests, the terrain would not exist for her to extend this policy “as far as Bush.” (Paraphrasing because it’s on the other page and I’m lazy.) The most left (leftest?) she could get is another health care proposal, which would either get destroyed by Congress and the insurance lobby, or make its way past them by being yet another crooked system that makes things better for corporate interests and worse for the public. Yeah, she’s motherfucking Che there.

I guess I see it this way: moderate conservatives support coalition building foreign policy (Bush #1), ultra conservatives are isolationist, which means middle conservatives tend towards acting on their own (Bush #2, Reagan to some degree).

Except Reagan did that with a democractic congress. Yes, there was big time military spending and the budget was blown up, but it was done as a compromise where Reagan got the military build up he wanted and the dems got to keep the social welfare spending intact.

This time we had a republican congress.

EDIT for typo

Er… No we don’t. Did you mean “had”?

And in other news, Greenspan blasts the moron for exactly that. Fuck yeah!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20781873/