Hillary has hinted she might choose Obama as her running mate. He responded that it is too early to talk about that. To me, that means he would seriously consider it if he loses the nomination.

What would that do to Hillary's vote getting strength?

Would the anti-female/anti-black vote outweigh the pro-female/pro-black vote. Or would the pro-Hillary group and the pro-Obama group all add together and create a landslide for the ticket?

It's a loser ploy, trying to convey being superior --motherly (would say fatherly, but Hilary is a woman, so...) as in, "Obama, you are doing great, but we know better.".

Everybody knows the Vice, Darth Cheney being the exception, is just getting ready to run some other day. That runs counter to the empowerment message Obama is talking up.

What good is empowerment and change later, as in 8 years later, after Obama has done a good job, painting both of the others into the establishment corner? If we really need to be inspired, empowered, unified --and I think we do, then we need it now, not later.

Besides, there are more "fresh start" type Americans right now than the loyal on both sides!

Maybe this would have been viable before Hilary basically pulled the establishment card on Obama. She actually endorsed McCain. That's a very strong statement that does not sit well with a lot of people.

At the very least it's divisive and that's off limits this time around.

With that move, there now is a clear anti-Clinton vote forming too. It's a pretty bad scene.

Before she decided to torch the house, maybe... Now I think it's a net loss over Obama picking somebody solid for VP.

From what I've seen of his character, he won't do it anyway. He's playing pretty fair ball right now and doing well. It's a noted strength of his that's a very clear differentiator. He won't give that up, as long as he sees it paying off.


Hey Deane, can I hijack your thread some?

(hoping so)

You said you fear Obama for his extreme liberalism. Can you tell me something about that?

Missing, there's one thing I've learned about posting on this forum. The liberals have become extremely adept at repeatedly requesting one more level of proof for whatever position is posted. It is not possible to have a discussion of opinion.

The forum does not exist for discussion, but rather for bashing Bush, Fox News, anything conservative.

I have confined my posting recently to asking for opinions on certain things, and have done so because I am sincerely interested in what forum members think.

I will tell you that my perception of Obama from news reports is that he has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. My perception also is that his position that he is a consensus builder, a bring people together person, is not backed up by action. It is my perception than when the compromise bills have been passed, he is not a part of them.

The only way I would consider not voting for Obama WHEN he gets the nod is if he has a mental breakdown and chooses Hillary as his VP running mate. She is just old Baggage that needs to go away.

She might choose him, but he will never choose her. If Obama gets the nomination, it will certainly be interesting to see who he picks.

No question, these are the most interesting election dynamics that have occurred in my lifetime.

If he's smart he won't pick Edwards who has lost twice. While he has some following, it's not good to be associated with someone who has had to throw in the towel twice before.

Tancredo, I highly doubt he will pick a conservative, especially one so oriented to sealing the border. Immigration is becoming like abortion, nobody wants to deal with it.

EDIT: This response is to the following post.

Obama/Edwards ??

Obama/Tancredo ??

http://tancredo.house.gov/

I really liked this guy, wish he could have gone the distance.

Edit Add:

This post should be before DJ's, I deleted it so I could add that link in. When you edit and add a link it will not work without a cut and paste. Sorry bout that!

Add Add:

Hey, how about a McCain/Tancredo ticket. Now I would have to seriously consider that over an Obama/????? ticket!!!!!

Obama's already struggling with the (older) Hispanic vote.

Picking Tancredo might well spark a race war in the south.

I think Obama should pick Bill Richardson. He's experienced, he's Hispanic, he's likeable, and he's reasonable.

A black man and a Hispanic, against most likely two old white men. Wow.

"...against most likely two old white men..."

FAR from likely. Count on a woman or a person of colour to be on the GOP ticket.

Herbert Milhous

SCARY

Possibly McCain/Hutchison.

I vote Obama/Richardson too!
Killer combination.

Edwards for Secretary of Labor.

How about Hillary as Secretary of State?
Would she take it?

Herb said " Count on a woman or a person of colour to be on the GOP ticket."

Why would the GOP do that?

Interesting comments Deane --thanks. Consensus building is one area I'm looking at right now too. Where is Obama really gonna go with that?

Frankly, I think it's very important. Wanted to see where you were on that perception.

For what it's worth, I phrased my question like I did because I did want a discussion of opinion. No "proof" required on that score, and it's the kind of discussion that needs to happen right now.

Most of the Bush bashing has been in direct response to strong statements as to his overall worth. Those do not need to be on the table to talk about the current candidates. I pushed that hard essentially as a challenge. If he had some worth, I wanted to know what it was. Pushing back is quite possibly the most effective way to get there. I

I'm pretty much in the Obama camp. However, I am very interested in the where and whys others are weighing. There is a clear "too good to be true" factor with me in play right now.

So, ignore the other stuff and let's talk a little huh?

What's extreme liberalism?

To start it off, I'm not entirely sure the weighting of general characterizations of liberal and conservative make a lot of sense.

For example: Both have been distorted huge!

Conservative, at least the kind I grew up learning, didn't involve theocratic issues, for example.

It did involve really smaller govt. spending control, fewer laws rather than more, etc...

Still on board with those things mostly.

On the Liberal side, it's just as bad! The liberal I grew up with, didn't involve so much corporate influence.

It was people oriented, social freedom, safety net type of things, environmental regulation, etc...

On board with a lot of that too.

For what it's worth, I fear both extremes moving forward as I'm more of a moderate than extreme, on all but a few things. (and we all have our pet issue on this or that --they are not absolute for me however --everything has a cost.)

The level of divisive discussion, as in framing things into nothing else matters terms, is way too high. Really, we all share a common interest in getting needs met. What are those and what do we think these guys are gonna do for us?

Obama worries me on health care, for example. I really think we need it, and it really should be single pay, or at the least, permitted and encouraged in the states to find best case solutions.

He might haul off and make a quick deal. So we are unified, but stuck with a more corporate friendly solution than we could otherwise have had.

That general concern resonates with him in general. Maybe he's gonna be too eager to represent as the first black President? He's been pretty solid emotionally so far however.

Can you speak on that level a bit? I value your perspective --mostly because it's a very pro-business one. How this goes on social issues is one thing. How it goes on fiscal ones is another and of great concern.

How about Clinton/Clinton, with Bill as VP? That way she could keep a closer eye on him.

!!!

That would be a hoot.

Herb said " Count on a woman or a person of colour to be on the GOP ticket."

Why would the GOP do that?

I'll offer my opinion - Because it would make the GOP LOOK better. Take off some of the guilt they apparently have for not reflecting...something...I don't even know what. I would rather the GOP didn't try and crowbar another facade into the process. I would have more respect for them. But if they pick a black woman or something just to show that they can be just as, whatever, to the rest of the country. They obviously don't have any REAL desire to do whatever they think they will ook like they are doing - or they would have done it a long time ago.

The GOP doing this would be absolutely transparent and ridiculous...but I wouldn't put it past them to, once again, try and fool people for reasons like power.

I nominate Ann Coulter. The neocons see her as more of a man than McCain and Rush would then support McCain.

"I nominate Ann Coulter. The neocons see her as more of a man than than McCain....."

I think "her" adams apple has a lot to do with that.

McCain/Powell, wins in a landslide.

McCain/Paul

Sorry, Nwokie, it could have been Powell/McCain a few years back, with my vote, but the great general ruined his reputation with service under Shrub.

Missing, there is a lot of interesting comments in your post. I'm glad we're back to actually discussing the merits of things instead of bashing. Bashing led no where. I'm terribly disappointed in Bush and the Republicans, there is nothing for anyone to gain in a discussion with me over their shortcomings. I already know about them and wish they had done better with their turn at bat. They squandered it.

"What's extreme liberalism?"

I would define it in my view as being radical anti-defense (military), radical tax the rich and give it to the poor, radical government hand outs, radical do anything you want without consequence, etc. I could go on, but this presents the picture. I believe in more personal responsibility, but not to the extremes of the ultra-right wing. I also believe in safety nets, but with some control.

The other thing about extreme liberalism I find detrimental to our country is the anti-business atmosphere. Who provides the employment? That's easy to answer, it's thriving business. When GM was cooking, they employed a lot of people and gave a lot of benefits. Now they aren't thriving (their own fault), and look at what's happening to the workers. Lost jobs, lost benefits, not a pretty picture. What's that got to do with liberalism. Nothing, I just used it as an example of who really loses when business doesn't do well. A pro-business atmosphere in this country would help everyone. Everyone would pay more taxes because everyone would be making more money.

What does this have to do with Obama. Actually, it has to do with everyone in DC. If we don't get politicians to start working together and stop this silly bickering over nothing, we're going to continue our downward spiral in the world. We need some compromise and consensus. And we need less of this silly crap like trying to impeach every President over nothing.

The people I talk to want this nonsense stopped and the business of the government tended to.

"The liberals have become extremely adept at repeatedly requesting one more level of proof for whatever position is posted."

". . . last throes"

"massive amounts"

"we know where they are."




Hmm . . . I wonder why?

Even if one is discussing opinions, many were formed based on these lies.

We're jaded BECAUSE of the behavior of the Bush adminstration, not because we initally "hated" Bush from the get go.

Ok.

Well, I personally think the call for impeachment on members of the current administration is a whole lot more than over nothing. Still, it may well be in our best interests to just deal.

So long as we go back through the horrible legislation and fix that, maybe that's ok.

It's maybe ok enough for me to support it to see.

Anti business...

Betcha we could have a few really great threads on that one.

One thing I see as a problem is way too much focus on deregulation. Like it or not, market rules are defined by governments. From there, it's competition that business deals with.

Providing employment, at a net social loss gets us nothing. On the flip side, too much employee empowerment gets us nothing too. IMHO, extremes have hurt us here big time.

Legislating monopolies is another big problem. That's honestly my fear with both Obama and Clinton. Edwards grokked that dynamic pretty well. These two want to mandate having us buy into a system that really does not work all that well. I'm talking about health care ideas right now.

I don't think a larger pool of contributors will fix the core problem; namely, focus on dollars and a focus on new means and methods that may or may not actually add value. That goes back to dollars in that cycling in new means and methods makes for some great quarters and jobs, but really failing to add value (genuine innovation over time), means just overhead relabeled. Not good.

I suppose I'm anti really big business. Lots of it is owned outside the US, and lots of it leverages too much outside the US. To me, that's very destructive in that we have to eat our own dog food to a high degree, or we become dependent.

Too many dollars flowing out of the country without a flow back in to compensate.

The energy stuff is worrysome too. Massive innovation in terms of travel technology and networks have empowered these global moves. For virtual things, I like it, have no problem with it.

For real things, it really means a lot of oil being consumed when it does not have to be. Very inefficient and potentially a big problem, should we be peaking right now. (which I think we might be)

So, I'm pro smaller business!

I want to buy local, I want to do business local, I work for a local smaller business and it's damn tough! Too tough.

The more we do here, for our own selves, the better it is.

The big business trend has been to move away from that, and I think it's a net loss.

One pro-business thing would be to bring back some new deal type programs. Sure, we are gonna have to figure out taxes, but if those dollars work here, remain here, etc... the business oppertunities will also be here and for smaller and local enterprises and people, that's nothing but good.

Enough of it done will level out the dollar problem and where there are more dollars and they actually have buying power, taxes are a non-issue.

Right now we've got fairly high taxes, for a lot of reasons, and a rapidly falling currency, which really is just another tax!

Very worried about that, and I'm not convinced a lot of the very large companies care. Being multi-national, their interests are very different from ours, and regulation of them really falls to the lowest common denominator.

When they leverage that, we lose, period. In particular, lots of small to mid sized businesses lose and we really need those.

Too many gone and we are no longer stable as a result of that.


This again is something where all parties need to focus on us --Americans and work out from there, filtering out the biggest business lobby, and not giving too much weight to extremes.

I like that Obama has a great percentage of his contributors being individuals. He's not really all that owned yet, and I think that's good for people and small to mid sized business.

It's highly likely to not be so good for larger enterprises, but they can adapt, will adapt.

If Obama ends up becoming President, it's going to be one of the most interesting shows on earth. We'll see what he can do with a new beginning. Frankly, if he's elected, I'll be cheering for his success.

If he doesn't do anything but business as usual in DC, we'll know he's just another phoney.

Yeah, won't that be a major bummer.

{passes popcorn bowl]

You know, 8 years is a long time. I think back to how unattached and even mildly unemotional I was about politics in general when I was 31. Since then I have had a child, aged 8 years and been able to hone my own reasoning down well enough to know why I do things or why I feel certain ways about things.

This time around, I feel as though I wanted, needed and was offered an oppotunity to get TRULY engaged in the process. I was primed and ready for it - and POOF! Obama comes along and taps into that for me. Now I am about as engaged in the process as I possibly could be.

"If he doesn't do anything but business as usual in DC, we'll know he's just another phoney."

If that happens to me this time around - and I would take it personally. Hey, that's the risk you take when you run a campagin based on things like this - if that happens, I will have a VERY hard time seeing any real hope for our country. We will implode.

That's my opinion.

He's got his own big shoes to fill. Not in the traditional sense. But he built those shoes, walks around in them and is claiming to be able to deliver on some meaningful promises. If he fails and becomes another phony, I will take it personally and really wonder what it is that makes The United States great on any level.

He's got a BIG responsiblity, man. I'm willing to help. But I bet he didn't truly expect to be taken up on his resonant offers in the manner in which he is. He'd better do it, man.

Hillary is mentioning the prospect of Obama as her VP as way to garner those on the fence that like Obama but aren't quite sure he's up to the task. This way those folks can have their cake and eat it too. Experience with Hillary, plus the bonus of Obama. Should this happen, 2008 will be a landslide. Should Obama get the nod, it will be a landslide anyway, regardless of who he picks (and, it won't be Hillary)

Personally, I think the extreme conservatism of the last 25 years, with the exception of the oasis of liberal policies provided by Bill Clinton, is the reason this country is in so much trouble. Rising interest rates, stagflation, sagging dollar, falling markets, job losses, soaring debt, and a war with no end is KILLING this country. Anybody checked their balances in their retirement funds lately? I think a good dose of liberalism would be good for this country. Bring in some new ideas and policy, as clearly what the GOP is selling is a disaster.

"Sorry, Nwokie, it could have been Powell/McCain a few years back, with my vote, but the great general ruined his reputation with service under Shrub."

I respectfully disagree.

Powell removed himself from the Bush administration after Bush was re-elected. He got as far away as possible, and has even cast a few stones at the Bush glass house since.

We all remember Powell's speech to the UN pointing out "WMDs in Iraq", using that same shoddy intelligence that Bush and Congress had. Again, he was a mouthpiece for the administration in that regard. I am glad that he had enough self-worth to remove himself from that.

I don't think Powell would take the VP nomination because he doesn't WANT it. He seems perfectly content sitting back and watching the theatrics.

"I am glad that he had enough self-worth to remove himself from that."

He should have done it before the election.


....................


A Hillary/Obama ticket would give the Democrats the White House for 16 years.