Election '08: Florida Primary

You know the drill. Vote away.

DAMN IT - private poll again.


(Also for the Democratic SC Primary on Jan 26th)

Dennis showing a strong 20% in this poll! Only 5 precincts reporting though...

I need to get a life...

I don't know anymore, aren't they all bad one way or another? :inquisitive:

Dunno, but if I were to vote, I'd vote for someone who'd bring all the troops back to the US within the next year or two rather than have them colonize Iraq and Afghanistan and/or wait for "victory" whatever that will be.

Btw, I really like McCain's speeches. Much more inspiring than Obama.

Does anyone know when the next debate is?

TuffStuff, you missed the Dem primary in SC on Jan 26. Since you're including Dems in the poll, you may want to edit the title of the thread ... just a thought ...

Oh good

So far it's socialist lite vs "Everything is fine here, just move along" with some tax cuts.

Rudy's campaign will go down as one of the dumbest campaigns in history.

DUMB

Ah at first I thought this was a mafia game and was unsure of which gangster to vote for...

Is Thompson going to drop out before or after Florida?

If he drops out before Florida, would he help Romney or McCain?

Is he trying to position himself to become the VP by brokering a deal with McCain?

What are the chances that he stays in to see how the chips fall on super Tuesday?


My questions are directed to his supporters in this forum.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by caravel

Ah at first I thought this was a mafia game and was unsure of which gangster to vote for...

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I've felt more confident about many of my mafia votes. :cheesy:


Oh, and sign up for some mafia (see sig).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff

Is Thompson going to drop out before or after Florida?

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My guess is he'll drop out before. I've heard he already withdrew from the upcoming debate. I don't really know who his dropping out would help. I don't really support any candidate is a good alternative. :shrug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

My guess is he'll drop out before. I've heard he already withdrew from the upcoming debate. I don't really know who his dropping out would help. I don't really support any candidate is a good alternative. :shrug:

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Done

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.) bowed to the obvious moments ago, dropping out of the 2008 presidential race in a tersely-worded statement.

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States," read the statement. "I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Those close to Thompson say that his mind has been elsewhere since his disappointing third place finish in South Carolina's Republican presidential primary because he has been in Tennessee caring for his mother who is seriously ill. Those same sources suggested that Thompson is not likely to immediately endorse any of the remaining candidates in the field.

crap. I was hoping that he'd do it after. I think it will help the guy who has fallen behind in Florida. Ie: McCain. Any double digit movement in the tight race will be unsettling for Romney as the recent poll leader.

At this point, I don't feel as though Giuliani is viable enough to mention.

It's too bad that Huckabee took so long to dry up and blow away. He's now cutting staff and abandoning Florida since he's non-competitive there. I think he drained a lot of Thompson supporters from the Christian conservative side of things.

Anyone see the Democrat debate in SC? What a slobberknocker. :laugh4:
It's hilarious to me to see what passes for insults in Democrat circles- 'You worked for WalMart!' 'Oh yeah? Well, you thought Reagan had some good ideas!'

Seriously, what is their world like? :dizzy2:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

It's too bad that Huckabee took so long to dry up and blow away. He's now cutting staff and abandoning Florida since he's non-competitive there. I think he drained a lot of Thompson supporters from the Christian conservative side of things.

Anyone see the Democrat debate in SC? What a slobberknocker. :laugh4:
It's hilarious to me to see what passes for insults in Democrat circles- 'You worked for WalMart!' 'Oh yeah? Well, you thought Reagan had some good ideas!'

Seriously, what is their world like? :dizzy2:

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It was pretty bazaar. I prefer the G.O.P. debates. It's less of a circle jerk.

At the end, i preferred Obama. Clinton reminded me of a rabid, lying attack dog.

I think it's hypocritical Hillary calling Obama on the slumlord, after some Chinese buisnessman funneled thousands into Hillary's campaign, and was actually prosecuted for it. And, besides, Clinton's pardons were all for good men right? None of whom committed any foul, ever. Right? Right?

For what it's worth, somebody bothered to fact-check the debate. Now if only we could have these little reports in realtime ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

For what it's worth, somebody bothered to fact-check the debate. Now if only we could have these little reports in realtime ...

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I'm not surprised that they were full of crap as often as not. What was really amazing to me was the absurdity of the whole thing. So what if Hillary worked for WalMart decades ago? And if Obama really did say (he apparently didn't) Reagan had a good idea or two, so what? They act like it'd be blasphemy to ever admit any Republican ever had a good idea. It's crazy.

Both Hillary and Obama showed they weren't above partisan hackery and personal attacks at the debate. And in so far as that, I would say Hillary won. Previously Obama had managed to give the impression of being "above it all", but Hillary finally managed to drag him down to her level and I think that's a big win for her. He's fighting on her terms now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

... Previously Obama had managed to give the impression of being "above it all", but Hillary finally managed to drag him down to her level and I think that's a big win for her. He's fighting on her terms now.

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That's how it looks to me, too. I only saw the final 20 minutes of that so-called 'debate'. By then, it was turning into some kinda cheesy love-fest - a contest to see who loved MLK more, and for how long.

Edwards had a good point (which was ignored). I paraphrase: "How many poor children have we fed, how many hospitals have we built [...] by all this bickering among ourselves?". Indeed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

... showed they weren't above partisan hackery ...

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don´t knock partisan hackery....it´s what elections are all about.

Color me amused.

haha. Oh man.

I understand Giuliani's idea about saving everything until Florida. If he had gone in early, he would have been sunken on policy - the G.O.P. regulars would have torn into his divisive nature and flocked to other pro-life and pro-2nd amendment candidates. He must have thought that if he didnt put up to much of a fight he wouldn't be targeted as much. His tremendous lead would have held until Florida where he would have overwhelmed the other candidates and gone into super tuesday with the leading momentum. (people are less likely to ask the hard questions then and already liked him even without campaigning.)

Once he won the majority of the votes, republicans would back him almost entirely - as each party does once they find their nominee.

Unfortunately for Rudy, his charisma isn't as universal as some believed and the other candidates went after him anyway - the rest is history. Or next tuesday.

The NY Times ran a piece about Rudy's methods and means, emphasis on the mean. I would be beyond unhappy if this man became president. And yeah, sure, NY Times -- bias! -- evil liberal instrument -- blah blah blah, but it's still the guy's hometown paper. And it's chock full of named sources and verifiable dates, events, etc. If this is all fabrication then I am the Queen of Norway.

January 22, 2008

In Matters Big and Small, Crossing Giuliani Had Price

By MICHAEL POWELL and RUSS BUETTNER

Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.

In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Mr. Schillaci turned to The Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: “GOTCHA!”

That morning, police officers appeared on Mr. Schillaci’s doorstep. What are you going to do, Mr. Schillaci asked, arrest me? He was joking, but the officers were not.

They slapped on handcuffs and took him to court on a 13-year-old traffic warrant. A judge threw out the charge. A police spokeswoman later read Mr. Schillaci’s decades-old criminal rap sheet to a reporter for The Daily News, a move of questionable legality because the state restricts how such information is released. She said, falsely, that he had been convicted of sodomy.

Then Mr. Giuliani took up the cudgel.

“Mr. Schillaci was posing as an altruistic whistle-blower,” the mayor told reporters at the time. “Maybe he’s dishonest enough to lie about police officers.”

Mr. Schillaci suffered an emotional breakdown, was briefly hospitalized and later received a $290,000 legal settlement from the city. “It really damaged me,” said Mr. Schillaci, now 60, massaging his face with thick hands. “I thought I was doing something good for once, my civic duty and all. Then he steps on me.”

Mr. Giuliani was a pugilist in a city of political brawlers. But far more than his predecessors, historians and politicians say, his toughness edged toward ruthlessnessand became a defining aspect of his mayoralty. One result: New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years.

After AIDS activists with Housing Works loudly challenged the mayor, city officials sabotaged the group’s application for a federal housing grant. A caseworker who spoke of missteps in the death of a child was fired. After unidentified city workers complained of pressure to hand contracts to Giuliani-favored organizations, investigators examined not the charges but the identity of the leakers.

“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”

Mr. Giuliani paid careful attention to the art of political payback. When former Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins spoke publicly of Mr. Giuliani’s foibles, mayoral aides removed their official portraits from the ceremonial Blue Room at City Hall. Mr. Koch, who wrote a book titled “Giuliani: Nasty Man,” shrugs.

“David Dinkins and I are lucky that Rudy didn’t cast our portraits onto a bonfire along with the First Amendment, which he enjoyed violating daily,” Mr. Koch said in a recent interview.

Mr. Giuliani retails his stories of childhood toughness, in standing up to bullies who mocked his love of opera and bridled at his Yankee loyalties. Years after leaving Manhattan College, he held a grudge against a man who beat him in a class election. He urged his commissioners to walk out of City Council hearings when questions turned hostile. But in his 2002 book “Leadership,” he said his instructions owed nothing to his temper.

“It wasn’t my sensitivities I was worried about, but the tone of civility I strived to establish throughout the city,” he wrote. Mr. Giuliani declined requests to be interviewed for this article.

His admirers, not least former Deputy Mayor Randy M. Mastro, said it was unfair to characterize the mayor as vengeful, particularly given the “Herculean task” he faced when he entered office in 1994. Mr. Giuliani’s admirers claimed that the depredations of crack, AIDS, homicide and recession had brought the city to its knees, and that he faced a sclerotic liberal establishment. He wielded intimidation as his mace and wrested cost-savings and savings from powerful unions and politicians.

“The notion that the city needed broad-based change frightened a lot of entrenched groups,” said Fred Siegel, a historian and author of “The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life.” “He didn’t want to be politic with them.”

He cowed many into silence. Silence ensured the flow of city money.

Andy Humm, a gay activist, worked for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which pushed condom giveaways in public schools. When Mr. Giuliani supported a parental opt-out, the institute’s director counseled silence to avoid losing city funds. “He said, ‘We’re going to say it’s not good, but we’re not going to mention him,’ ” Mr. Humm said.

“We were muzzled, and it was a disgrace.”

Picking His Fights

Mr. Giuliani says he prefers to brawl with imposing opponents. His father, he wrote in “Leadership,” would “always emphasize: never pick on someone smaller than you. Never be a bully.”

As mayor, he picked fights with a notable lack of discrimination, challenging the city and state comptrollers, a few corporations and the odd council member. But the mayor’s fist also fell on the less powerful. In mid-May 1994, newspapers revealed that Mr. Giuliani’s youth commissioner, the Rev. John E. Brandon, suffered tax problems; more troubling revelations seemed in the offing.

At 7 p.m. on May 17, Mr. Giuliani’s press secretary dialed reporters and served up a hotter story: A former youth commissioner under Mr. Dinkins, Richard L. Murphy, had ladled millions of dollars to supporters of the former mayor. And someone had destroyed Department of Youth Services records and hard drives and stolen computers in an apparent effort to obscure what had happened to that money.

“My immediate goal is to get rid of the stealing, to get rid of the corruption,” Mr. Giuliani told The Daily News.

None of it was true. In 1995, the Department of Investigation found no politically motivated contracts and no theft by senior officials. But Mr. Murphy’s professional life was wrecked.

“I was soiled merchandise — the taint just lingers,” Mr. Murphy said in a recent interview.

Not long after, a major foundation recruited Mr. Murphy to work on the West Coast. The group wanted him to replicate his much-honored concept of opening schools at night as community centers. A senior Giuliani official called the foundation — a move a former mayoral official confirmed on the condition of anonymity for fear of embarrassing the organization — and the prospective job disappeared.

“He goes to people and makes them complicit in his revenge,” Mr. Murphy said.

This theme repeats. Two private employers in New York City, neither of which wanted to be identified because they feared retaliation should Mr. Giuliani be elected president, said the mayor’s office exerted pressure not to hire former Dinkins officials. When Mr. Giuliani battled schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines, he demanded that Mr. Cortines prove his loyalty by firing the press spokesman, John Beckman.

Mr. Beckman’s offense? He had worked in the Dinkins administration. “I found it,” Mr. Beckman said in an interview, “a really unfortunate example of how to govern.”

Joel Berger worked as a senior litigator in the city corporation counsel’s office until 1996. Afterward, he represented victims of police brutality and taught a class at the New York University School of Law, and his students served apprenticeships with the corporation counsel.

In late August 1997, Mr. Berger wrote a column in The New York Times criticizing Mr. Giuliani’s record on police brutality. A week later, a city official called the director of the N.Y.U. law school’s clinical programs and demanded that Mr. Berger be removed from the course. Otherwise, the official said, we will suspend the corporation counsel apprenticeship, according to Mr. Berger and an N.Y.U. official.

“It was ridiculously petty,” Mr. Berger said.

N.Y.U. declined to replace Mr. Berger and instead suspended the class after that semester.

‘Culture of Retaliation’

The Citizens Budget Commission has driven mayors of various ideological stripes to distraction since it was founded in 1932. The business-backed group bird-dogs the city’s fiscal management with an unsparing eye. But its analysts are fonts of creative thinking, and Mr. Giuliani asked Raymond Horton, the group’s president, to serve on his transition committee in 1993.

That comity was long gone by the autumn of 1997, when Mr. Giuliani faced re-election. Ruth Messinger, the mayor’s Democratic opponent, cited the commission’s work, and the mayor denounced the group, which had issued critical reports on welfare reform, police inefficiency and the city budget.

So far, so typical for mayors and their relationship with the commission. Mr. Koch once banned his officials from attending the group’s annual retreat. Another time, he attended and gave a speech excoriating the commission.

But one of Mr. Giuliani’s deputy mayors, Joseph Lhota, took an unprecedented step. He called major securities firms that underwrite city bonds and discouraged them from buying seats at the commission’s annual fund-raising dinner. Because Mr. Lhota played a key role in selecting the investment firms that underwrote the bonds, his calls raised an ethical tempest.

Apologizing struck Mr. Giuliani as silly.

“We are sending exactly the right message,” he said. “Their reports are pretty useless; they are a dilettante organization.”

Still, that dinner was a rousing success. “All mayors have thin skins, but Rudy has the thinnest skin of all,” Mr. Horton said.

Mr. Giuliani’s war with the nonprofit group Housing Works was more operatic. Housing Works runs nationally respected programs for the homeless, the mentally ill and people who are infected with H.I.V. But it weds that service to a 1960s straight-from-the-rice-paddies guerrilla ethos.

The group’s members marched on City Hall, staged sit-ins, and delighted in singling out city officials for opprobrium. Mr. Giuliani, who considered doing away with the Division of AIDS Services, became their favorite mayor in effigy.

Mr. Giuliani responded in kind. His police commanders stationed snipers atop City Hall and sent helicopters whirling overhead when 100 or so unarmed Housing Works protesters marched nearby in 1998. A year earlier, his officials systematically killed $6 million worth of contracts with the group, saying it had mismanaged funds.

Housing Works sued the city and discovered that officials had rescored a federal evaluation form to ensure that the group lost a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Martin Oesterreich, the city’s homeless commissioner, denied wrongdoing but acknowledged that his job might have been forfeited if Housing Works had obtained that contract.

“That possibility could have happened,” Mr. Oesterreich told a federal judge.

The mayor’s fingerprints could not be found on every decision. But his enemies were widely known.

“The culture of retaliation was really quite remarkable,” said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the lawyer who represented Housing Works. “Up and down the food chain, everyone knew what this guy demanded.”

The Charter Fight

The mayor’s wartime style of governance reached an exhaustion point in the late 1990s. His poll numbers dipped, and the courts routinely ruled against the city, upholding the New York Civil Liberties Union in 23 of its 27 free-speech challenges during Mr. Giuliani’s mayoralty. After he left office, the city agreed to pay $327,000 to a black police officer who was fired because he had testified before the City Council about police brutality toward blacks. The city also agreed to rescind the firing of the caseworker who talked about a child’s death.

In 1999, Mr. Giuliani explored a run for the United States Senate. If he won that seat, he would leave the mayor’s office a year early. The City Charter dictated that Mark Green, the public advocate, would succeed him.

That prospect was intolerable to Mr. Giuliani. Few politicians crawled under the mayor’s skin as skillfully as Mr. Green. “Idiotic” and “inane” were some of the kinder words that Mr. Giuliani sent winging toward the public advocate, who delighted in verbally tweaking the mayor.

So Mr. Giuliani announced in June 1999 that a Charter Revision Commission, stocked with his loyalists, would explore changing the line of mayoral succession. Mr. Giuliani told The New York Times Magazine that he might not have initiated the charter review campaign if Mr. Green were not the public advocate. Three former mayors declared themselves appalled; Mr. Koch fired the loudest cannonade. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Mayor,” he said during a news conference.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., chairman of a Charter Revision Commission a decade earlier, wrote a letter to Mr. Giuliani warning that “targeting a particular person” would “smack of personal politics and predilections.

“All this is not worthy of you, or our city,” Mr. Schwarz wrote.

Mr. Mastro, who had left the administration, agreed to serve as the commission chairman. He eventually announced that a proposal requiring a special election within 60 days of a mayor’s early departure would not take effect until 2002, after both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Green had left office. A civic group estimated that the commission spent more than a million dollars of taxpayer money on commercials before a citywide referendum on the proposal that was held in November 1999.

Voters defeated the measure, 76 percent to 24 percent. (In 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg advocated a similar charter revision that passed with little controversy.)

Mr. Green had warned the mayor that rejection loomed.

“It was simple,” Mr. Green said. “It was the mayor vindictively going after an institutional critic for doing his job.”

None of this left the mayor chastened. In March 2000, an undercover officer killed Patrick Dorismond, a security guard, during a fight when the police mistook him for a drug dealer. The outcry infuriated the mayor, who released Mr. Dorismond’s juvenile record, a document that legally was supposed to remain sealed.

The victim, Mr. Giuliani opined, was no “altar boy.” Actually, he was. (Mr. Giuliani later expressed regret without precisely apologizing.)

James Schillaci, the Bronx whistle-blower, recalled reading those comments and shuddering at the memory. “The mayor tarred me up; you know what that feels like?” he said. “I still have nightmares.”

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

The NY Times ran a piece about Rudy's methods and means, emphasis on the mean. I would be beyond unhappy if this man became president. And yeah, sure, NY Times -- bias! -- evil liberal instrument -- blah blah blah, but it's still the guy's hometown paper. And it's chock full of named sources and verifiable dates, events, etc. If this is all fabrication then I am the Queen of Norway.

January 22, 2008

In Matters Big and Small, Crossing Giuliani Had Price

By MICHAEL POWELL and RUSS BUETTNER

Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.

In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Mr. Schillaci turned to The Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: “GOTCHA!”

That morning, police officers appeared on Mr. Schillaci’s doorstep. What are you going to do, Mr. Schillaci asked, arrest me? He was joking, but the officers were not.

They slapped on handcuffs and took him to court on a 13-year-old traffic warrant. A judge threw out the charge. A police spokeswoman later read Mr. Schillaci’s decades-old criminal rap sheet to a reporter for The Daily News, a move of questionable legality because the state restricts how such information is released. She said, falsely, that he had been convicted of sodomy.

Then Mr. Giuliani took up the cudgel.

“Mr. Schillaci was posing as an altruistic whistle-blower,” the mayor told reporters at the time. “Maybe he’s dishonest enough to lie about police officers.”

Mr. Schillaci suffered an emotional breakdown, was briefly hospitalized and later received a $290,000 legal settlement from the city. “It really damaged me,” said Mr. Schillaci, now 60, massaging his face with thick hands. “I thought I was doing something good for once, my civic duty and all. Then he steps on me.”

Mr. Giuliani was a pugilist in a city of political brawlers. But far more than his predecessors, historians and politicians say, his toughness edged toward ruthlessnessand became a defining aspect of his mayoralty. One result: New York City spent at least $7 million in settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years.

After AIDS activists with Housing Works loudly challenged the mayor, city officials sabotaged the group’s application for a federal housing grant. A caseworker who spoke of missteps in the death of a child was fired. After unidentified city workers complained of pressure to hand contracts to Giuliani-favored organizations, investigators examined not the charges but the identity of the leakers.

“There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, who served as environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.”

Mr. Giuliani paid careful attention to the art of political payback. When former Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins spoke publicly of Mr. Giuliani’s foibles, mayoral aides removed their official portraits from the ceremonial Blue Room at City Hall. Mr. Koch, who wrote a book titled “Giuliani: Nasty Man,” shrugs.

“David Dinkins and I are lucky that Rudy didn’t cast our portraits onto a bonfire along with the First Amendment, which he enjoyed violating daily,” Mr. Koch said in a recent interview.

Mr. Giuliani retails his stories of childhood toughness, in standing up to bullies who mocked his love of opera and bridled at his Yankee loyalties. Years after leaving Manhattan College, he held a grudge against a man who beat him in a class election. He urged his commissioners to walk out of City Council hearings when questions turned hostile. But in his 2002 book “Leadership,” he said his instructions owed nothing to his temper.

“It wasn’t my sensitivities I was worried about, but the tone of civility I strived to establish throughout the city,” he wrote. Mr. Giuliani declined requests to be interviewed for this article.

His admirers, not least former Deputy Mayor Randy M. Mastro, said it was unfair to characterize the mayor as vengeful, particularly given the “Herculean task” he faced when he entered office in 1994. Mr. Giuliani’s admirers claimed that the depredations of crack, AIDS, homicide and recession had brought the city to its knees, and that he faced a sclerotic liberal establishment. He wielded intimidation as his mace and wrested cost-savings and savings from powerful unions and politicians.

“The notion that the city needed broad-based change frightened a lot of entrenched groups,” said Fred Siegel, a historian and author of “The Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York and the Genius of American Life.” “He didn’t want to be politic with them.”

He cowed many into silence. Silence ensured the flow of city money.

Andy Humm, a gay activist, worked for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which pushed condom giveaways in public schools. When Mr. Giuliani supported a parental opt-out, the institute’s director counseled silence to avoid losing city funds. “He said, ‘We’re going to say it’s not good, but we’re not going to mention him,’ ” Mr. Humm said.

“We were muzzled, and it was a disgrace.”

Picking His Fights

Mr. Giuliani says he prefers to brawl with imposing opponents. His father, he wrote in “Leadership,” would “always emphasize: never pick on someone smaller than you. Never be a bully.”

As mayor, he picked fights with a notable lack of discrimination, challenging the city and state comptrollers, a few corporations and the odd council member. But the mayor’s fist also fell on the less powerful. In mid-May 1994, newspapers revealed that Mr. Giuliani’s youth commissioner, the Rev. John E. Brandon, suffered tax problems; more troubling revelations seemed in the offing.

At 7 p.m. on May 17, Mr. Giuliani’s press secretary dialed reporters and served up a hotter story: A former youth commissioner under Mr. Dinkins, Richard L. Murphy, had ladled millions of dollars to supporters of the former mayor. And someone had destroyed Department of Youth Services records and hard drives and stolen computers in an apparent effort to obscure what had happened to that money.

“My immediate goal is to get rid of the stealing, to get rid of the corruption,” Mr. Giuliani told The Daily News.

None of it was true. In 1995, the Department of Investigation found no politically motivated contracts and no theft by senior officials. But Mr. Murphy’s professional life was wrecked.

“I was soiled merchandise — the taint just lingers,” Mr. Murphy said in a recent interview.

Not long after, a major foundation recruited Mr. Murphy to work on the West Coast. The group wanted him to replicate his much-honored concept of opening schools at night as community centers. A senior Giuliani official called the foundation — a move a former mayoral official confirmed on the condition of anonymity for fear of embarrassing the organization — and the prospective job disappeared.

“He goes to people and makes them complicit in his revenge,” Mr. Murphy said.

This theme repeats. Two private employers in New York City, neither of which wanted to be identified because they feared retaliation should Mr. Giuliani be elected president, said the mayor’s office exerted pressure not to hire former Dinkins officials. When Mr. Giuliani battled schools Chancellor Ramon C. Cortines, he demanded that Mr. Cortines prove his loyalty by firing the press spokesman, John Beckman.

Mr. Beckman’s offense? He had worked in the Dinkins administration. “I found it,” Mr. Beckman said in an interview, “a really unfortunate example of how to govern.”

Joel Berger worked as a senior litigator in the city corporation counsel’s office until 1996. Afterward, he represented victims of police brutality and taught a class at the New York University School of Law, and his students served apprenticeships with the corporation counsel.

In late August 1997, Mr. Berger wrote a column in The New York Times criticizing Mr. Giuliani’s record on police brutality. A week later, a city official called the director of the N.Y.U. law school’s clinical programs and demanded that Mr. Berger be removed from the course. Otherwise, the official said, we will suspend the corporation counsel apprenticeship, according to Mr. Berger and an N.Y.U. official.

“It was ridiculously petty,” Mr. Berger said.

N.Y.U. declined to replace Mr. Berger and instead suspended the class after that semester.

‘Culture of Retaliation’

The Citizens Budget Commission has driven mayors of various ideological stripes to distraction since it was founded in 1932. The business-backed group bird-dogs the city’s fiscal management with an unsparing eye. But its analysts are fonts of creative thinking, and Mr. Giuliani asked Raymond Horton, the group’s president, to serve on his transition committee in 1993.

That comity was long gone by the autumn of 1997, when Mr. Giuliani faced re-election. Ruth Messinger, the mayor’s Democratic opponent, cited the commission’s work, and the mayor denounced the group, which had issued critical reports on welfare reform, police inefficiency and the city budget.

So far, so typical for mayors and their relationship with the commission. Mr. Koch once banned his officials from attending the group’s annual retreat. Another time, he attended and gave a speech excoriating the commission.

But one of Mr. Giuliani’s deputy mayors, Joseph Lhota, took an unprecedented step. He called major securities firms that underwrite city bonds and discouraged them from buying seats at the commission’s annual fund-raising dinner. Because Mr. Lhota played a key role in selecting the investment firms that underwrote the bonds, his calls raised an ethical tempest.

Apologizing struck Mr. Giuliani as silly.

“We are sending exactly the right message,” he said. “Their reports are pretty useless; they are a dilettante organization.”

Still, that dinner was a rousing success. “All mayors have thin skins, but Rudy has the thinnest skin of all,” Mr. Horton said.

Mr. Giuliani’s war with the nonprofit group Housing Works was more operatic. Housing Works runs nationally respected programs for the homeless, the mentally ill and people who are infected with H.I.V. But it weds that service to a 1960s straight-from-the-rice-paddies guerrilla ethos.

The group’s members marched on City Hall, staged sit-ins, and delighted in singling out city officials for opprobrium. Mr. Giuliani, who considered doing away with the Division of AIDS Services, became their favorite mayor in effigy.

Mr. Giuliani responded in kind. His police commanders stationed snipers atop City Hall and sent helicopters whirling overhead when 100 or so unarmed Housing Works protesters marched nearby in 1998. A year earlier, his officials systematically killed $6 million worth of contracts with the group, saying it had mismanaged funds.

Housing Works sued the city and discovered that officials had rescored a federal evaluation form to ensure that the group lost a grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Martin Oesterreich, the city’s homeless commissioner, denied wrongdoing but acknowledged that his job might have been forfeited if Housing Works had obtained that contract.

“That possibility could have happened,” Mr. Oesterreich told a federal judge.

The mayor’s fingerprints could not be found on every decision. But his enemies were widely known.

“The culture of retaliation was really quite remarkable,” said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the lawyer who represented Housing Works. “Up and down the food chain, everyone knew what this guy demanded.”

The Charter Fight

The mayor’s wartime style of governance reached an exhaustion point in the late 1990s. His poll numbers dipped, and the courts routinely ruled against the city, upholding the New York Civil Liberties Union in 23 of its 27 free-speech challenges during Mr. Giuliani’s mayoralty. After he left office, the city agreed to pay $327,000 to a black police officer who was fired because he had testified before the City Council about police brutality toward blacks. The city also agreed to rescind the firing of the caseworker who talked about a child’s death.

In 1999, Mr. Giuliani explored a run for the United States Senate. If he won that seat, he would leave the mayor’s office a year early. The City Charter dictated that Mark Green, the public advocate, would succeed him.

That prospect was intolerable to Mr. Giuliani. Few politicians crawled under the mayor’s skin as skillfully as Mr. Green. “Idiotic” and “inane” were some of the kinder words that Mr. Giuliani sent winging toward the public advocate, who delighted in verbally tweaking the mayor.

So Mr. Giuliani announced in June 1999 that a Charter Revision Commission, stocked with his loyalists, would explore changing the line of mayoral succession. Mr. Giuliani told The New York Times Magazine that he might not have initiated the charter review campaign if Mr. Green were not the public advocate. Three former mayors declared themselves appalled; Mr. Koch fired the loudest cannonade. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Mayor,” he said during a news conference.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., chairman of a Charter Revision Commission a decade earlier, wrote a letter to Mr. Giuliani warning that “targeting a particular person” would “smack of personal politics and predilections.

“All this is not worthy of you, or our city,” Mr. Schwarz wrote.

Mr. Mastro, who had left the administration, agreed to serve as the commission chairman. He eventually announced that a proposal requiring a special election within 60 days of a mayor’s early departure would not take effect until 2002, after both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Green had left office. A civic group estimated that the commission spent more than a million dollars of taxpayer money on commercials before a citywide referendum on the proposal that was held in November 1999.

Voters defeated the measure, 76 percent to 24 percent. (In 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg advocated a similar charter revision that passed with little controversy.)

Mr. Green had warned the mayor that rejection loomed.

“It was simple,” Mr. Green said. “It was the mayor vindictively going after an institutional critic for doing his job.”

None of this left the mayor chastened. In March 2000, an undercover officer killed Patrick Dorismond, a security guard, during a fight when the police mistook him for a drug dealer. The outcry infuriated the mayor, who released Mr. Dorismond’s juvenile record, a document that legally was supposed to remain sealed.

The victim, Mr. Giuliani opined, was no “altar boy.” Actually, he was. (Mr. Giuliani later expressed regret without precisely apologizing.)

James Schillaci, the Bronx whistle-blower, recalled reading those comments and shuddering at the memory. “The mayor tarred me up; you know what that feels like?” he said. “I still have nightmares.”

---

I won't be defending Rudy. I liked him only as far as he helped businesses in the city and because he called himself a Republican in NYC while keeping a straight face.

The cheating and the misuse of funds and the nanny state and the abortion thing and the gun thing and the lisp - all unforgivable. Plus Koch hates him, and everybody loves koch here - even republicans.

Kucinich dropped out.

Rassmussen and Mason-Dixon have Romney winning the Florida polls. I will flip out if that happens and buy everyone in this forum a brand new car.

Mason-Dixon was the polling org that was closest to the Michigan verdict. They had him winning by 8 points. The average was 2.7. The outcome was 9 points.

Zogby said that McCain would win by 1 point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Kucinich dropped out.

---

Nooo! My candidate is gone!

Oh well, time to jump on the Obama bandwagon...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff

Rassmussen and Mason-Dixon have Romney winning the Florida polls. I will flip out if that happens and buy everyone in this forum a brand new car.

---

Quoted in case Romney wins.

:beam:

I guess I'm a Romney supporter now, too, since Fred's gone.

CR

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff

Rassmussen and Mason-Dixon have Romney winning the Florida polls. I will flip out if that happens and buy everyone in this forum a brand new car.

---

I thought Oprah was campaigning for Obama, not Romney? :wink:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

Quoted in case Romney wins.

:beam:

I guess I'm a Romney supporter now, too, since Fred's gone.

CR

---

YEAAAA!!! You won't regret it!

He's doing very well in the debates tonight, but they tried to slam him with a slimy question about his campaign funds, followed by his one about his faith.

The New York Times will endorse Clinton and McCain in their respective Primaries.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

I guess I'm a Romney supporter now, too, since Fred's gone.

---

Frankly, I don't care who wins at this point. :shrug:
The only thing I ponder is if it would be better to risk 4yrs of Hillary so that we can have a chance at some real candidates in the next primaries. If McCain or Romney get elected we'll be stuck with them on the GOP side for 8yrs until we can choose a new nominee- that's a depressing prospect to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xiahou

Frankly, I don't care who wins at this point. :shrug:
The only thing I ponder is if it would be better to risk 4yrs of Hillary so that we can have a chance at some real candidates in the next primaries. If McCain or Romney get elected we'll be stuck with them on the GOP side for 8yrs until we can choose a new nominee- that's a depressing prospect to me.

---

As improbable as it would seem, I've wanted to see a Romney McCain ticket this entire time. When was the last time that the 1st place and runner up formed a tag team? When McCain ran against Bush I preferred McCain. I was also 8 years younger.

I know that they seem to hate each other, but they would shore it up with independents and I'm sure that come convention time if Mccain is down in the numbers that he'd listen to the proposal. Talk about re-uniting the coalition!

In fact, that would have always been my ideal team.

Well, if a Romney-McCain ticket does come about, and actually win, at least we wouldn't have to worry about McCain's vote in the Senate too often.

Bob Novak has a couple of (unconfirmed) tidbits concerning the primaries:

First off, his data suggests that Thompson's departure is giving a bump to McCain. "Thompson did not endorse McCain, even though the former Senate colleagues are on close terms with each other. Nevertheless, McCain appears to have picked up much of Thompson's Florida voter support and now leads Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani in the last primary before Mega Tuesday Feb. 5."

Second item is kinda odd, but here it is:

Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration.

Installation at the Justice Department of multimillionaire trial lawyer Edwards would please not only the union leaders supporting him for president but organized labor in general. The unions relish the prospect of an unequivocal labor partisan as the nation's top legal officer.

In public debates, Obama and Edwards often seem to bond together in alliance against front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton. While running a poor third, Edwards could collect a substantial bag of delegates under the Democratic Party's proportional representation. Edwards then could try to turn his delegates over to Obama in the still unlikely event of a deadlocked Democratic National Convention.

http://www.mittromney.com/img/downlo...ads-275x75.jpg

A look back

Now

Well, isn't America's attention span a little short? You hear little about Hsu, but Rezko, he's your puppet-master.

Also, alot of Floridians are voting today (early voting and all) and one of the local columnist lamented mailing his vote in, since Richardson dropped out.

Has anyone got any live video streaming from any news outlet for SC?

ABC Report

Closest you'll get is a South Carolina news website, or Drudge.

Obama win, Hillary 2nd, Edwards 3rd

Hopefully this victory will drive Obama onward and upward Super-Tuesday.

Wow... I am just stunned.

Obama's speech was one of the best speeches I have ever heard. Even as an Australian, he made me want to vote for him... I might come into a few legal problems, but screw it - I'll find a way...

Linky?

Yeah, various people are saying it's the best speech they've ever heard. Somebody, please link. This I gotta see.

Fox News Transcript

Yes. We. Can.

"The following is a transcript of Barack Obama’s prepared remarks for his victory speech in Columbia, S.C.:

Over two weeks ago, we saw the people of Iowa proclaim that our time for change has come. But there were those who doubted this country’s desire for something new - who said Iowa was a fluke not to be repeated again.



Well, tonight, the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina.



After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans we’ve seen in a long, long time.



They are young and old; rich and poor. They are black and white; Latino and Asian. They are Democrats from Des Moines and Independents from Concord; Republicans from rural Nevada and young people across this country who’ve never had a reason to participate until now. And in nine days, nearly half the nation will have the chance to join us in saying that we are tired of business-as-usual in Washington, we are hungry for change, and we are ready to believe again.



But if there’s anything we’ve been reminded of since Iowa, it’s that the kind of change we seek will not come easy. Partly because we have fine candidates in the field - fierce competitors, worthy of respect. And as contentious as this campaign may get, we have to remember that this is a contest for the Democratic nomination, and that all of us share an abiding desire to end the disastrous policies of the current administration.



But there are real differences between the candidates. We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington - a status quo that extends beyond any particular party. And right now, that status quo is fighting back with everything it’s got; with the same old tactics that divide and distract us from solving the problems people face, whether those problems are health care they can’t afford or a mortgage they cannot pay.



So this will not be easy. Make no mistake about what we’re up against.



We are up against the belief that it’s ok for lobbyists to dominate our government - that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem, and this election is our chance to say that we’re not going to let them stand in our way anymore.



We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose - a higher purpose.



We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea - even if it’s one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.



We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.



And what we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won’t cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don’t vote. The assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate; whites can’t support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can’t come together.



But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. I saw shuttered mills and homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from all walks of life, and men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be.



That is the country I see. That is the country you see. But now it is up to us to help the entire nation embrace this vision. Because in the end, we are not just up against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we are also struggling against our own doubts, our own fears, and our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.



So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. That change will take time. There will be setbacks, and false starts, and sometimes we will make mistakes. But as hard as it may seem, we cannot lose hope. Because there are people all across this country who are counting us; who can’t afford another four years without health care or good schools or decent wages because our leaders couldn’t come together and get it done.



Theirs are the stories and voices we carry on from South Carolina.



The mother who can’t get Medicaid to cover all the needs of her sick child - she needs us to pass a health care plan that cuts costs and makes health care available and affordable for every single American.



The teacher who works another shift at Dunkin Donuts after school just to make ends meet - she needs us to reform our education system so that she gets better pay, and more support, and her students get the resources they need to achieve their dreams.



The Maytag worker who is now competing with his own teenager for a $7-an-hour job at Wal-Mart because the factory he gave his life to shut its doors - he needs us to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship our jobs overseas and start putting them in the pockets of working Americans who deserve it. And struggling homeowners. And seniors who should retire with dignity and respect.



The woman who told me that she hasn’t been able to breathe since the day her nephew left for Iraq, or the soldier who doesn’t know his child because he’s on his third or fourth tour of duty - they need us to come together and put an end to a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.



The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It’s not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.



It’s about the past versus the future.



It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation - a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.



There are those who will continue to tell us we cannot do this. That we cannot have what we long for. That we are peddling false hopes.



But here’s what I know. I know that when people say we can’t overcome all the big money and influence in Washington, I think of the elderly woman who sent me a contribution the other day - an envelope that had a money order for $3.01 along with a verse of scripture tucked inside. So don’t tell us change isn’t possible.



When I hear the cynical talk that blacks and whites and Latinos can’t join together and work together, I’m reminded of the Latino brothers and sisters I organized with, and stood with, and fought with side by side for jobs and justice on the streets of Chicago. So don’t tell us change can’t happen.



When I hear that we’ll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who’s now devoted to educating inner-city children and who went out onto the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don’t tell me we can’t change.



Yes we can change.



Yes we can heal this nation.



Yes we can seize our future.



And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we’ve carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:



Yes. We. Can."

I'll be frank,
I cried. I wept and wept, after reading this. I'm still crying. My body is still shaking, quivering, moving. My emotions are twisted, turning, churning. I've felt this emotion only once before, standing at the WW2 memorial on that spring day. I cried then, and I'm crying now. I've read or heard many of the great speeches. George Washington, Patrick Henry, MLK, Kennedy, FDR. Then I read this, and, it was fantastic. It was, inspiring, hopeful. For one of the few times in my life, I've connected, and it was fantastic.

I wonder, is there going to be a thread for every state?

Obama's speech was excellent. I hope that he is the next President - I sense reasonable intent. I know that Republicans really have little shot and I've never been all that fond of McCain; He has no business running for President, he's out of his league. If Romney is beaten out by McCain, I honestly don't think I'll vote (unless Hillary is the nominee)

Obama said he'd like to give big tax breaks to companies that keep jobs stateside. As conservative I can understand that, even though it is essentially a tariff. I have been pushing the issue myself.

I think that almost all of us, both at home and abroad can unite in the fight against Hillary. Hopefully that sentiment comes out in the final election.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-obama-is.html

What a piece of garbage. The Clintons use people as fuel for their ambition; once their usefulness wears out, expect a betrayal. What happens when America loses their interest?

Great quality for a Presidential candidate. Or Two.

1st - Anyone have Barack Obama's email? I've got some words for him...

2nd - Now I'm tired. Tired of Hillary, tired of Bill, tired of 'them'. I'm tired, disgusted, and disappointed. I'm voting for Obama.

Here you go MM:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/contact/

Thanks for that transcript as well - I can't wait to watch that speech again once it comes up on YouTube.

Dang, even the NRO is being gracious about Obama:

Barack Obama's speech tonight was simply exceptional — and a reminder of why he is one of the most remarkable political talents in our lifetime. He was able to speak in ways that seem to rise above conventional politics, even as he was able to masterfully push back against the Clinton attacks of the last several weeks. His capacity to touch and stir authentic emotions is remarkable. And unlike Clinton and especially Edwards, the Obama message is about unity, not divisions; and hopes rather than grievances. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, Republicans have a great deal to fear. He has tremendous break-out potential.

Do we need to create another sub-forum for this subject?

Youtube Victory Speech

Hillary Clinton is like an unholy alliance; the worst of the Democratic party coupled with the worst of the G.O.P.

She would represent the downward decline of the United States personified.

Please for all of our sakes vote Obama.

Where's Nader?:grin:

I read Obama's speech and it was quite moving I have to say. I'd like to actually hear it though.

Edit:Oh, MM put one up.

I preferred reading it opposed to video.
When reading it, you don't get the chants and applause, which breaks the flow of thought, but whatever helps...

Go to the BBC website - er here have this link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7210389.stm

Click on the right the 'Democrats cast their votes' and in that you can also view, seperately, the speech Obama made.

Quite a speech, I have to agree. If the Dems don't vote for this guy and then the US don't vote for this guy, I think the world will finally loose what little respect and hope we had in the US electorate after the previous 2 votes. ;)

He is quite some candidate and will be a good President, at least in my opinion, he has been above and beyond all the other candidates from both parties the entire race so far - he can speak to the heart of people not even blimming American! I hope he wins, for the Dems sake as well as all of ours!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Marshal Murat

I preferred reading it opposed to video.
When reading it, you don't get the chants and applause, which breaks the flow of thought, but whatever helps...

---

But the problem I have with reading it is that you don't get the atmosphere and energy that he has the power to create in a room.

And lol Ichigo - I agree, why isn't Nader in these polls? I heard that he had endorsed Edwards though.

Dangit, Hillary's shooting herself in the foot. How is the GOP supposed to win with Obama running for the dems?

Good thing only Americans can vote in America*

CR
*Unless you come to Washington, where the dead and criminals vote early and often.

Never worry, CR, there's a long way from here to there, and I expect to see every legal, political and criminal trick on display as Billary fight for their birthright. I don't understand why the Dems can't figure out that the Clintons are toxic at this date, but whatever.

I think some might just be realizing that the Clintons will pull every trick in the book to win. But its only a few faint whispers of realization - like, hey, Obama didn't really say that.

Anyways, I'm giving up on Romney and am throwing my support behind the true juggernaut candidate;
http://video.ap.org/v/Default.aspx?g...flmih&fg=email for President (yes, of the United States!). For Experiencing the Hopefulness of Change! And a clock.

And the great thing is he's a libertarian kind of guy:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dave Barry

For them, the question is always, "What kind of government intervention should we impose on the world?" They never think that maybe we shouldn't.

---

and:

Quote:

---

I don't think the press has done a very good job dealing with government spending. The Defense Department with the $9,500 toilet seat, that' s not the problem anymore. Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are the problem. That's us. That's our generation. There the press never says a word.

We certainly never require politicians to ever address those issues except really briefly sometimes during the New Hampshire primary, and then everybody falls asleep.

---

And that was back in 1994.

CR

Wow. What a great speech by Obama. Who wrote it - Mel Gibson?

Can't wait to get the DVD. Does he do Mel's 'freedoooom!' yell at the end?

Nicely tucked away sneers at the other Dem candidates too. Apparently Obama wants to end old political demonisation of opponents by, let me get this right, demonising his political opponents. Quite a refreshing change.

:zzz:

Wake me up when Obama starts to actually talk about policies, instead of simply channelling America's anger with Washington towards a pretty poster boy with deep coffers and great speech writers.*

*BTW, I thought Hollywood writers were still on strike? Our fairy tale prince charming isn't breaking any strikes, I hope?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Wake me up when Obama starts to actually talk about policies, instead of simply channelling America's anger with Washington towards a pretty poster boy with deep coffers and great speech writers.*

*BTW, I thought Hollywood writers were still on strike? Our fairy tale prince charming isn't breaking any strikes, I hope?

---

Have you watched any of the debates?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars

Have you watched any of the debates?

---

Yes, I saw one last week. The one in which Hillary and Obama kept lashing out at each other.

Next thing I see, is Obama speeching that 'that kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all'. All this, in a speech in which Obama does the very opposite of what he says he is doing. The first half is one big smear against Hillary. The second half is one big promise that he will rid politics from smear.

So I might have been impressed with the speech if Obama would've had the courtesy to put his money where his mouth is.

Obama has as much campaign money as Hillary, and he is as prepared to use dirty tricks. The difference is that Hillary is less hypocritical about it. She always fights with the gloves off, and, unlike Obama, doesn't have to pretend that she isn't just to keep her image up. That's why she'd be an excellent president, and Obama a major disappointment once the novelty has worn off.

1. Holy frijoles, I did not expect Obama to win by that much.

2. Louis, Most of Obama's policies are actually pretty similar to Hillary's. That's why you don't here him talk about them. Him and Hillary are trying to illustrate the differences between each other during the primaries.

3. Nice speech.

4. Hillary's campaign has been incredibly dirty. She can't use the "Republicans are going to tear him apart" excuse anymore. She didn't leave them any dirt to dig up on Obama.

Hillary will fall in the general election, Louis. She's used the excuse of how Bill isn't running to dodge any and all questions about him. But now he's back in the game, and the GOP will be giddy with what they can unleash. Especially if McCain is on the ticket.

CR

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caius

I wonder, is there going to be a thread for every state?

---

I don't think so, Caius. These state-by-state discussions are a product of how these nominating events are scheduled. Next week, we have Florida, and the following week "Super Tuesday", where 24 states all vote on the same day.

So, I think you'll see fewer US election-related threads after that, until late August, when the 2 major parties hold their actual nominating conventions.

And then again in November, when the REAL voting actually occurs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

Hillary will fall in the general election, Louis. She's used the excuse of how Bill isn't running to dodge any and all questions about him. But now he's back in the game, and the GOP will be giddy with what they can unleash. Especially if McCain is on the ticket.

CR

---

So are you favoring McCain now?

Rassmussen said Romney has a 6% lead in Florida today. He is out if he doesn't win this. America deserves a race between Romney and Obama.

I would be so dissapointed with a Hillary McCain race. Republicans would vote for McCain just to stop her, rather than because he should be pres (which he shouldn't). We all know how anti-campaigns go - especially with a candidate who has no business being president (Kerry '04). We have seen how fogies fare against young charisma and momentum (Dole '96 - in the case of McCain vs Obama).

McCain is obviously approaching senility a year away from the election at 71 years of age, Do you honestly believe that the oldest President in in history is what we need right now (not just directed to you CR)?

Also, McCain has a Bi-polar relationship with the G.O.P. - he is favored now, but just months ago he was hauling his own bags flying economy and delivering his speeches to 50 people. I will bet you that he fizzles more than any candidate closer to crunch time - and that he picks Huckabee as his running mate. We all know that McCain is adept at tearing into Republicans and their policies, but he hasn't shown me a reason to suggest that he can lead the party.

I'm thinking McCain as VP.

CR

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

I'm thinking McCain as VP.

CR

---

He would make a great VP electability wise.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

I'm thinking McCain as VP.

CR

---

Absolutely, but I think that McCain is blowing any chance of a partnership between the two, come what may.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Yes, I saw one last week. The one in which Hillary and Obama kept lashing out at each other.

Next thing I see, is Obama speeching that 'that kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all'. All this, in a speech in which Obama does the very opposite of what he says he is doing. The first half is one big smear against Hillary. The second half is one big promise that he will rid politics from smear.

So I might have been impressed with the speech if Obama would've had the courtesy to put his money where his mouth is.

Obama has as much campaign money as Hillary, and he is as prepared to use dirty tricks. The difference is that Hillary is less hypocritical about it. She always fights with the gloves off, and, unlike Obama, doesn't have to pretend that she isn't just to keep her image up. That's why she'd be an excellent president, and Obama a major disappointment once the novelty has worn off.

---

I completely agree. :yes:

I'm truly mystified by the rockstar awe people have of Obama. What has he done other than pull of a few good speeches? Big Deal. ~:handball: Has anyone taken the time to actually to go to his website and read up on the positions that he tries so hard not to talk about?

I don't like any of the candidates currently running. The only thing left to determine is which one I dislike the least.... I definitely have a lot of reservations about McCain but, at the moment, he's probably the least unpalatable of the bunch for me. If it were up to me, I'd disqualify all of them and ask for a new batch on both sides.

I swear, at this point, Ron Paul is starting to sound good... :sweatdrop:

So, Xiahou, are you waiting for the real candidates, or for the U.S. citizenry to say 'MULLIGAN! Start this over!' :laugh4:


What I want to know is if you think that everyone who supports a candidate doesn't know what they're supporting? I think that while there may be some who are still blank on the issue, they have a fair to good grasp on where the candidates stand. While they probably can't quote it like scripture, everyone has a general sense of the candidates. Besides, the Democrat candidates have some similar opinions, it's only how you choose to say it. It's your opinion, just like that was mine.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xiahou

I don't like any of the candidates currently running. The only thing left to determine is which one I dislike the least....

---

Xiahou seems to be channeling Homer Simpsons's epiphany: "When will people learn? Democracy doesn't work!"

Glad to hear you're ready to kiss and make up with Mac, BTW.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemur

Glad to hear you're ready to kiss and make up with Mac, BTW.

---

Ew. Not until there are no other options.

For the Dems:

Obama is getting all the buzz because SC was a notch higher than expected in his win column. He did better with older/more traditional dems than anyone expected and he picked up the "Camelot" crowd for whatever that is worth.

Obama has made great strides in funding and organization, and has a real chance to unseat Clinton during the first mega-Tuesday vote. His appeal among Democrat African-descent voters is strong and his appeal among the under 35 Dem voters is huge.

However, Clinton has had lots more funding for lot longer, has had more state party organizations behind her for longer, and is willing to be more politically ruthless than Obama has so far demonstrated.

This one is NOT over yet and will not be decided on the 5th. Perhaps a 60-40 win on 2/5 will create the snowball for one or the other, but I think it will be early March before the Dems wrap up their choice.

Either way, the Dems are far from unbeatable in November. Hillary, for all her wit and pelf, carries lots of negatives with voters. She is the most polarizing of Dems. Obama, while far more "likeable" and charming, carries his greatest level of support among those who show up at the polls in the fewest numbers. Remember, the activists who vote in primaries and caucuses (cauci?) are a small slice of the pie compared to the general voters. SC, which Obama seems to have won somewhere between "clear" and "heroic," has only voted for the Dem candidate in the General Election 4 times since the 2nd World War -- and three of those were during the last of the "machine" era "Dixiecrat" elections of 1952, 1956, adn 1960. The ONLY Dem to win in SC was the Georgian Jimmy Carter who had the advantage of Watergate going in.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Wow. What a great speech by Obama. Who wrote it - Mel Gibson?

Can't wait to get the DVD. Does he do Mel's 'freedoooom!' yell at the end?

Nicely tucked away sneers at the other Dem candidates too. Apparently Obama wants to end old political demonisation of opponents by, let me get this right, demonising his political opponents. Quite a refreshing change.

:zzz:

Wake me up when Obama starts to actually talk about policies, instead of simply channelling America's anger with Washington towards a pretty poster boy with deep coffers and great speech writers.*

*BTW, I thought Hollywood writers were still on strike? Our fairy tale prince charming isn't breaking any strikes, I hope?

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Thank you. :bow:

Full of sound and fury that one is. "Vice President" written all over him. Let's see how his "policies" change as he swings back toward the middle for the general election.

This is absurd.

Dr. Juan Hernandez, McCain's Hispanic outreach director: “We must not only have a free flow of goods and services, but also start working for a free flow of people.”

Juan Hernandez

Quote:

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TANCREDO: I had a great argument one time with a gentleman by the name of Juan Hernandez who was at that time the minister of that ministry that I just mentioned, the Ministry for Mexicans Living in the United States.

And I asked him that very question. What he told me the purpose of his ministry was to push people into the United States, it was to—by the way, it was also AFC work with them so that they did—he was with the community, he said. He was three days a week in the United States, four in Mexico.

By the way, he himself is a dual citizen born in Texas, university—teaching at the University of Texas and on the Vicente Fox cabinet. And he said, “I work with the community in the United States, the Mexican community because I don‘t want them essentially going native on us. We want them continually tied emotionally, linguistically, politically to Mexico, because then they‘ll continue to send money home.”

And I said to him, that does not sound like—you know, you‘re doing something that‘s actually the act of an unfriendly government.

CARLSON: Well, of course, it doesn‘t in any way serve American interests. It undermines our country in a pretty direct and direct and obvious way.

TANCREDO: Tucker, his response. Let me tell you his response.

CARLSON: Yes.

TANCREDO: At the end he goes, “Congressman,” in an incredibly condescending way. He goes, “Congressman, it‘s not two countries; it‘s just a region.”

CARLSON: That is not my view, to put it mildly.

TANCREDO: Not mine either.

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****Now, incredibly, Juan Hernandez is GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s Hispanic Outreach Director. He is, as my Nevada reader wrote, a sovereignty-undermining extremist who “whose views and interests are so clearly anti-security and not in the interest of the American people or for that matter us legal Hispanic immigrants.”

I repeat: Geraldo Rivera Republican John McCain has learned nothing from the shamnesty debacle.

Next stop for his friend Juan Hernandez: DHS Secretary?

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:shrug: Are you surprised?

As for me, I'll get the galleons seaworthy again. :titanic: :whip:

In other news: B

1)Billary decided to break its pledge not to campaign in Florida here

2) Sharpton tells Bill to shut his race baiting face here

3) Nader rips Hillary a new hole (funny word play comes to mind regarding Bill, but it is not PG-13 so it has been censored) here


Also, instead of running as the former President's wife, now she's trying to run as... Women in General! NOW NY supporters are claiming that Hillary has a right to be President because she is a woman. anyone who would stand in her way based on logic or ability is a traitor to women!

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“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

“And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

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You'll have to pardon me for kicking a man while he's down, but I just found out that Rudy thinks it would be great if you needed a Real ID card to get online.

Anyone who supported this muppet is how encouraged to insult themselves.

I'm 50% happy. Rudy is going down like the Lusitania, now all we need is for Billary to go down like the Batavia. Then I'll be a 100% happy lemur.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

You'll have to pardon me for kicking a man while he's down, but I just found out that Rudy thinks it would be great if you needed a Real ID card to get online.

Anyone who supported this muppet is how encouraged to insult themselves.

I'm 50% happy. Rudy is going down like the Lusitania, now all we need is for Billary to go down like the Batavia. Then I'll be a 100% happy lemur.

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Yea, that would be nice.