Important Message About Sarah Palin

[froopy seal]

Originally Posted by Sean

Gotta give him credit for just flat out stating that all religions should be respected here in the U.S.

Aww, damn. I was reading your sentence and expected the word 'abolished' instead of 'respected'. I'm all for equality under the law.

[Deckard]

Out of interest, what do you think will be the key topics during this upcoming campaign?

I'm guessing Libya (and foreign intervention generally) could be one, what with Iraq now apparently behind us.

Employment and the deficit, obviously.

Immigrants? (that's how you tell when it's election time in Britain)

Anything else stirring the American electorate particularly?

And will we have the pleasure of hearing from Joe the Plumber?

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Out of interest, what do you think will be the key topics during this upcoming campaign?

I'm guessing Libya (and foreign intervention generally) could be one, what with Iraq now apparently behind us.

Employment and the deficit, obviously.

Immigrants? (that's how you tell when it's election time in Britain)

Anything else stirring the American electorate particularly?

And will we have the pleasure of hearing from Joe the Plumber?

It's less a quantifiable topic that I'm anticipating, and more a pure spectacle based on the outlandish level that anti-Obama rhetoric from his opponents has reached. With people like Palin and Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity filling the heads of Tea Party types with a gut-busting helping of dogmatic rhetoric, I expect to see some high level crazy coming from the Republican candidates this election season. And it's already beginning judging from what little of the Republican debate I saw. As I mentioned, Cain came out saying it's not that he wouldn't have a Muslim in his cabinet - he would just make them pass a loyalty test that no one else would be required to pass. That was an applause getter for him. And then Newt jumped on board with an even more stark declaration that added a comparison between Muslims, Communists and Nazis - no distinction whatsoever between radicals or moderates. He too received wild applause. When Romney pointed out that the Constitution already prohibits Shariah law in the U.S., and that we're a country that respects ALL religions, he was met with silence. This, to me, was a preview of what's to come.

Basically, all the crazy they've been sowing since 2009 is ready for harvest, and it's probably going to make for quite a show.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Sean

It's less a quantifiable topic that I'm anticipating, and more a pure spectacle based on the outlandish level that anti-Obama rhetoric from his opponents has reached. With people like Palin and Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity filling the heads of Tea Party types with a gut-busting helping of dogmatic rhetoric, I expect to see some high level crazy coming from the Republican candidates this election season. And it's already beginning judging from what little of the Republican debate I saw. As I mentioned, Cain came out saying it's not that he wouldn't have a Muslim in his cabinet - he would just make them pass a loyalty test that no one else would be required to pass. That was an applause getter for him. And then Newt jumped on board with an even more stark declaration that added a comparison between Muslims, Communists and Nazis - no distinction whatsoever between radicals or moderates. He too received wild applause. When Romney pointed out that the Constitution already prohibits Shariah law in the U.S., and that we're a country that respects ALL religions, he was met with silence. This, to me, was a preview of what's to come.

Oh boy that's depressing. I really didn't realise the mainstream Republican party was now so tainted by tea party twerps. Would Romney even make it to become their presidential candidate? I guess McCain made it last time so there's hope. (Though look what happened to him!)

[Sean]

Sounds like Romney's actually the front-runner overall, but this idealogical purity wing of the conservative side of things looks to be changing the whole Republican approach. Particularly during their primaries, we'll probably be seeing who can out-conservative each other on a whole new level, and I'd be willing to bet right now that the result of it will be a Republican nominee that's unelectable in the general election. They'll have painted thmselves into such a far-right corner that they'll be irrelevant to all the moderates who ultimately decide these things.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Sean

Sounds like Romney's actually the front-runner overall, but this idealogical purity wing of the conservative side of things looks to be changing the whole Republican approach. Particularly during their primaries, we'll probably be seeing who can out-conservative each other on a whole new level, and I'd be willing to bet right now that the result of it will be a Republican nominee that's unelectable in the general election. They'll have painted thmselves into such a far-right corner that they'll be irrelevant to all the moderates who ultimately decide these things.

The thing about the tea party I find the most distressing is its soaking up essential institutions in the political environment. We needed a third party and we needed that party to shore up and voice the frustrations towards the existing two party establishment with all of their hypocrisies.

And for about 15 minutes I had hope that the tea party would be that real grass roots movement to bring legitimacy back to the two party system. Nope. Now they are a liability to democracy because they were easily hijacked by those already in power, like the christian right lobby, and infiltrated by whore politicos like Palin and Glen Beck by parroting their grievances.

Now that the tea party has become the militant wing of the corporate conservative instead of their critic, it leaves the vacuum open to be filled by something else.

And I don't have a lot of hope on this but I do think progressives have abandoned Obama, and enough centrists who are more issue centered have observed that the only difference between the bush years and the obama years is that now its the established democrats that are making excuses for their president instead of the established republicans.. Which means Obama might have a real centrist problem this election, in addition to a rear guard attack from the progressives.

To be quite frank, I would take MoveOn.org a hell of a lot more seriously if they took Obama to task for doing the same things Bush did.

And I'm usually pretty good about listening to Rush and Hannity but lately when they talk about the economy I just can't swallow the injustice of letting these noise boxes squak when they should be held accountable for the part they themselves played.

[Strangelet]

i just realized I didn't even get to my point.

So Obama could have a centrist problem.

Since 2008 those in the middle have been flocking to the republican party according to certain polls. That was especially the talk around the mid term elections.

That center may (*MAY*) offset the tea party winds blowing everything off the cliff of stupid so that we may end up having a centrist republican nomination.

To be personal that is my wish because I won't be voting for Obama. Better than Romney is Jon Huntsman Jr. ex governer of Utah, current ambassador to China for Obama. Centrist, supporter of gay marriage, has a brain. But unfortunately for him, he's also mormon and has gone on record saying nice things about his boss.

We'll see....

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

And I don't have a lot of hope on this but I do think progressives have abandoned Obama, and enough centrists who are more issue centered have observed that the only difference between the bush years and the obama years is that now its the established democrats that are making excuses for their president instead of the established republicans.. Which means Obama might have a real centrist problem this election, in addition to a rear guard attack from the progressives.

To be quite frank, I would take MoveOn.org a hell of a lot more seriously if they took Obama to task for doing the same things Bush did.

For me, I wonder how much of this sentiment is accurate, and how much is the result of anti-Obama rhetoric. I don't personally buy into the claims of Obama and Bush being the same. Yes, Obama is clearly more of a centerist and pragmatist than leftists and progressives would have liked, but to compare, say, Libya to either Iraq or Afghanistan (and don't get me wrong - I didn't want us to get involved in Libya), or the approaches to taxes, or the whole health care issue, or Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc. reveals pretty significant differences.

I just heard a piece on NPR about gay activists being frustrated that yes, there have been positive developments for them under Obama, but not as much as they want, so they're upset with him. I'm far more sick of people expecting that they should be getting everything they want instead of accepting that this is a nation of vastly differing views and beliefs, and that the compromise this necessitates means progress will always be slow. When one group is getting everything they want, then other groups are invariably getting nothing that they want. That's selfish and untenable to me.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Out of interest, what do you think will be the key topics during this upcoming campaign?

I'm guessing Libya (and foreign intervention generally) could be one, what with Iraq now apparently behind us.

Employment and the deficit, obviously.

Immigrants? (that's how you tell when it's election time in Britain)

Anything else stirring the American electorate particularly?

And will we have the pleasure of hearing from Joe the Plumber?

With the quality of candidates throwing their hat in the game I've just been waiting for this guy to announce his candidacy for Republican Nomination 2012



Eye of Sauron: CHANGE YOU DAMN WELL BETTER BELIEVE IN.

The key topics will not be real topics. They will involve the suspicion around Romney's mormonism, Santorum sucking up air time blaming unemployment on homosexuality, Sarah Palin's paper thin populism "why can't we just be great americans by going back to what makes america great, wouldn't that be great, america? great." Obama's religion/nationality/communist leanings, and the decidedly insane posts some Ron Paul supporter makes on one of his community web sites. All of this will comprise about 85% of the national dialog during the election.

The real topics, when we get around to looking at them, will probably be exactly the ones you listed.