One gentle reader reminds everyone to vote in Tuesday's presidential primary
By Rebel With A Cause
Because on Tuesday twenty states, including Utah, will be voting on each party's candidate for president of the U.S., let me diverge from the continuing mischief, etc. going on here and talk about the depressing prospect of the presidential election. Both of the Democrats' candidates are promising to reinstate all previous taxes, which is a sure ticket to a recession. They talk about bringing back the troops immediately, as in the Vietnam fiasco. While the Republican establishment and the media are foisting John McCain down our throats.
As an example consider the response Bill Crystal made when asked after the South Carolina and New Hampshire primaries in which McCain won, who he thought would be the eventual Republican winner? He answered "McCain. He has won 2 states. No one else has." Right. At that point Romney had won 3, Michigan, Wyoming, and Nevada, and had the greatest number of delegates. But those facts were not mentioned. Also, just before the voting in Florida, the governor and Congressman Martinez endorsed McCain, but nary a word was mentioned about Connie Mack's endorsement of Romney.( He is another congressman from Florida.)
The latest McCain TV ad promotes him as a war hero and a conservative. Untrue on both counts. According to the Vietnam Veterans Against McCain, he was a collaborator with the enemy to save his own skin, and he broke the rules of air combat procedure by returning to the same target, after missing it the first time,getting shot down as a result of poor judgment. That doesn't constitute a hero in my book. Then consider his McCain-Feingold Bill, his McCain- Kennedy (amnesty)Bill, and his McCain-Leiberman Bill, all bills he sponsored with Democrats, and recently stated that he would still sign the amnesty bill if he were president (Hardly a conservative position.)
Romney would oppose such bills, build a border fence, be smarter on the economy,save American sovereignty and the Constitution, like he saved the Olympics while in SLC. But not being a member of the Council On Foreign Relations and the One World Order crowd, like the Bushes and Clintons, he is marginalized by the press in a most unfair manner, and thus putting him at a great disadvantage. Depressing, isn't it?
Remember to vote on Tuesday, Feb.5
The candidate of your choice might not be on tne ballot in November.
Editorial note: The above article has been elevated from one of our lower comments sections. Although off-topic in the lower thread, we believe this article is sufficient in form and substance to stand as a main article. We'll also take the editorial liberty of adding a few links. We've had little discussion of presidential politics on Weber County Forum to date, and we thought this article presented the ideal opportunity to provoke such a conversation on on our normally non-party-partisan community blog. Please take additional note that this article does not necessarily represent the views of your blogmeister; and neither does it constitute an implied forum endorsement of any presidential candidate.
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27 comments:
Rebel:
You wrote: Both of the Democrat's candidates are promising to reinstate all previous taxes, which is a sure ticket to a recession.
Oh, give me a break. That is precisely, word for word, the prediction Republican congressmen made when Bill Clinton submitted his first budget, which included tax increases: that they would kill the recovery and pitch the nation into recession. What followed was one of the longest and strongest periods of economic growth in the nation's history... a level of sustained growth Pres. Bush has never come close to matching during his seven years of tax cutting on the way to doubling the national debt, and bringing us to the brink of another Bush Recession. Do a little homework before you blindly repeat Republican talking points.
There is no, repeat NO evidence that an increase in taxes necessarily, or even usually, leads to economic decline or recession. Not a scintilla.
Dear Rebel,
Your mention of John McCain being no Vietnam hero is reminiscent of the "Swift Boad Veterans for Crap" ability to turn John Kerry into an enemy of the state and George Bush into a national hero. Talk about turning truth on its ass.
You read McCain's bio and come to your own conclusion about his wartime status before you go spouting off about some right-wing pseudo Vietnam group
Hey Gas was $1.57 when Bush took office, and Exon just posted record profits $40.6 Billion this week. I think they are supplying most of the fuel to the government. At least the the Democrates aren't trying to scare us to death.
I have a suggestion for you as well, before you go and tap the touch screen on Tuesday...price a dollar against the Euro, or for that matter, a Canadian dollar, look at how much of our national debt is owned by China. Then, tell us all again how the tax cuts are helping us.
Your party's candidate had both houses of congress for six years of his administration. Point to one success they can claim compared to his predecessor. No Child Left Behind isn't working, the housing market fell on it's ass because of the things that happened on your party's watch, the dollar is worth less than a Canadian dollar! We've spent more time in Iraq than it took us to WIN WWII. Our Army is in rough shape and needs more people. This country is in debt up to it's eyeballs and it's getting worse.
Please explain to me how you can seriously defend a party who might as well change its motto to "NEVER HAVE SO FEW DONE SO MUCH TO SO MANY!"
Seriously, how can you claim to be the party that's fiscally conservative after what you're party's done the last six years. Under Clinton, he had the courage to deny the federal employees a raise because times were bad. He found a way to pay for the programs he wanted, and put this country's books in the black! Gasoline wasn't $3.50 a gallon when the democrats were in charge.
You talk about right to life, and still fight over something that's been SETTLED LAW for 35 years. (BTW, I'm against abortion, but I seriously think it's time to move on and quit wasting time on something that's been over for at least two decades!)
Your party has made a mess of this country's foreign policy and trade policy. They can't or won't share the burden of fighting this war with the general population (bought a WAR BOND lately?) and don't even think about using the word "DRAFT". We spent billions creating the department of Homeland Security, but can't secure a border with Mexico. We ignore illegal immigration, but continue to live in fear of an attack coming from this country? HUH?
Look, the Democrats aren't much better. They started us on the path to failed trade policies with NAFTA. But, let's be fair. The republicans claim they're against big government, but what have they done but make it bigger? A lot of people forget, but President Clinton actually had VP Gore reduce the number of supervisors in the government by requiring them to have a specific number of employees under them. He also denied the federal employees a pay raise one year because things were bad in the economy. It hurt, but it was a sacrifice made for the good of the country. So, while it's great to talk a good game, but the facts don't seem to support what you're trying to sell.
So, at the end of my rant, just a couple of questions: How are you going to fix the budget deficits when you had a chance to for six years and didn't? And: What's wrong with wanting affordable health care for everyone?
Just curious:
Bravo!
Anybody but Hillary!!!!!
Just what we need, a Mormon NeoCon Republican running the country. Jeeze, look what they do to us here in Utah with their endless inanities, moral legislation and arrogant anti citizen laws. How any one would want to have one of these self righteous clowns running the whole country is beyond me. Mit the Mo or Chris Buttars or any one else of their ilk in the White House gives me the whips and jangles!
Just a comment or two and of course questions, rebel. Your endorsement of the modified imatation Ken Doll will need to be backed up by some substance. First, please explain just what if anything Barbies' boy toy did to save the Olympics? By the time he entered the picture there was nothing left to do. Just be a plastic face, which is really all he's ever done.
As far as his business experience, do we need a person that played all the smelly little corporate loophole games to better no one but himself? Taking companies public, pocketing the windfall of cash from investors,(many mutual funds and 401 Ks) gutting all their assets then bailing.
As a politician, any way the wind blows, no conviction what so ever. Mr. what ever gets a vote, I'm for today.
I love the way the discussion about religion should not be used as a test or measure in this political race, but that's exactly what most seem to base their choice on here locally, or I should say in the Mormon dominated parts of the west. The least you could do would be, be honest. If religion is the basis of your selection, say it. Don't resort to the "return of the swift boat" tactics used by our current failure. I take pride in my independance, unfortunately that limits my choices, but that seems to be your fear, your choice might not make it.
Is all Republicans have left the politics of fear and abortion? Which Mitt has yet to decide on the latter.
Good buddy, welcome to the reallity, our system doesn't allow for the general population to make a good choice, but choose we must, and suffer the consequense.
Kinda off topic but, Tom Owens' letter to the editor provided a fun read this morning. I would only add that while Ogdens poor neglected infrastructure keeps crumbling leaving many without water, lying little matty is covorting with hookers, porn queens and the like, in the self indulgent capitol of th western hemispere, Las Vegas.
Last year he made a real coup, he got one diplay designer to relocate to Ogden, they were real high adventure because they did the work for Amersports. I wonder if they weren't moving here anyway for self preservation?
Bill
You are just too funny for your own good!
"covorting with hookers, porn queens and the like"
What an incredible mental picture! I would give a hundred bucks for a real photo of that! I doubt if it is literally true, but what an image!
Keep it up, I needed that laugh this morning.
The Vietnam Veterans Against McCain site is actually very interesting to me, as a Vietnam vet who served in an Army headquarters unit and around Saigon from 1968-70.
I've wondered for some time why John McCain fought so vigorously in the post war years to prevent the US looking into the missing war prisoner issue.
This site supplies some plausible answers.
John McCain is certainly no war hero to me.
I also think his recent public performances displays his encroaching senility.
McCain has no business even thinking about running this country as president.
Hopefully the people of the USA will get wise about his fairly obvious disabilities.
You cited three incidents in which Mcain sponsored major legislation with democrats. I'm sorry, but we need more people willing to compromise, not less. You also failed to note that Mcain's two sons are currently both in the military. One is a Lance Corporal in the Marines and the other is a Middie at the Navy Academy. While you're quick to repeat garbage about Mcain's military record, did Romney serve in the military? Did his son's serve?
Dear Rebel, please engage. We may at times appear to be vipers but, we can be reasonable vipers. I truely beg you to answer some of the questions that have been posed. It's not right to start a thread, then disappear.
As far as I can see, this whole discussion is merely academic.
One or the other of the democrats will obviously win the presidency in November.
Practical:
As a life-long Yellow Dog Democrat, I sometimes hear that from fellow Democrats, and it makes my [political] blood run cold. If that idea spreads far in Democratic circles, the results could be disastrous.
In campaigning, it is always wise to (a)assume nothing and (b) keep on campaigning flat out and full bore regardless of what polls say until the polls close on election day.
Nothing is obvious. No one knowns what will happen between now and election day. No one knows what the main issue will be by election day. [Who, one year ago, would have predicted that the war in Iraq would not be issue number one with most voters in the primaries today?]
Assume nothing. And once a candidate is chosen, start working and don't quit 'til the polls close.
To return to the thread topic, Charlie Trentelman has a column in Sunday's Standard Examiner on the problem of choosing the best candidate to vote for, Dem or Rep, in Tuesday's Utah primary [provided of course you can fight your way through the snow drifts to get to the polls]. He settles on two candidates, one for each party, and explains why. "Rebel With A Cause" will not be happy. Link here.
[Post driveway shoveling grumble]
Grumble, grumble, grumble. By god, it wouldn't be snowing this much down here in Ogden the if Gore and Van Hooser had won. I blame it on Bush and Godfrey. Grumble grumble grumble. Now where the hell did I put the horse linament....?
Bill C. On your request,I well atempt to answer some of the questions which arose out of my article yesterday.
Curmudgeon: You are convinced that tax cuts do not help the economy, even though economists, as well as Republicans believe they do. They encourage people to spend more and give entrepreneurs the confidence to start businesses. It may be true that Bill Clinton did well with a tax raise in his budget,but remember he had a Republican congress. Also, we were not in war then.
Jaxter: You need to read Mccain's biography on the links provided in my article. Read about his wife's, too, while you're at it.
What's it going to cost us: Encouraging and paying our companies to go overseas with their businesses is what is costing us the most in jobs and income. That and the expenses of the war are gigantic problems for this adminstration.
Just a curious bystander: Don't label me with "Your party's candidate," because I never have voted for George W. Bush. I had found out that his father was a "One World Order" enthusiast, and I knew his son would be the same. It's a sure scheme to cause America to lose it's sovereignty and I am against that. You and I agree on NAFTA being a bad thing. So I'm sure you are opposed to the planned NAFTA Super Highway which the "One World Order" crowd is planning to open up from Mexico City, through the middle of the U.S.A. into Canada.
I agree that the automatic pay raises for Congress are obscene, and the budget deficits need to be fixed. If anyone can do it,Romney can. He did that for the Olynpics which were in deep financial trouble before coming to Salt Lake. He made changes, to, and with the Olympic Committee which managed to get them financially successful and out of the red.(Please note, Bill.) Also,you need to read the links to my article.
Being Morman is not my deciding factor with Romney, although I believe it gives him an edge, because I happen to think most Mormans are good, honest people. And I want a candidate who is honest enough to change his mind when convinced he was wrong. Romney did that long before he ran for president. While governor of Massachusetts he never signed any permission applications for an abortian. I'm tired of all the accusations about flip-flopping his opponents put out about him. They all have made changes in their thinking, along the way.
Just recently, McCain has said he is for tax cuts, when everyone knows he voted against Bush's cuts every time.
Brent: Thank you for taking the time to to read the much-referred-to-links from my article yesterday and approving with my concern about McCain. I am afraid he will win because even with all the baggage he carries, the media and people who think he can beat Hillary (Republican establishment) are overwhelmingly endorsing what I call the "Manchurian Candidate."
Tired old runner: For your benefit, I admit, compromising with the Democrats may be desirable to some extent, but when one gives up his core standards, he must be careful that he doesn't end up with no principles at all.
And in regards to not serving in a war, Romney was serving in France on a mission for his church and regrets not having done so. His sons are fine looking young men who chose other careers than McCain's family have done. McCain's father and grand-father were both Admirals in the Navy. Of course, that life would be the one he would choose. He placed fourth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, though, I understand, and would have "washed out" of flight school because of gross mistakes, if he hadn't been an admiral's son. That has always given him advantages, especially in prison camp in Vietnam.
Have I answered enough questions, Bill? Too many, probably.
Six or seven years living in a caged hooch in the jungles of Viet Nam has got to give a guy a whole lot of soul. Something the current occupant seems to be in short supply of. Being so confined must also refine ones courage and perception of the meaning of life. Qualities that will be needed in the coming generations of US leaders in the confrontation with the Muslim terrorist.
I think of all the candidates, McCain has two of the most important qualities we will need at the helm. He doesn't seem to me to be a guy that can be pushed around or manipulated.
In any event he would be a better transitional President than any of the rest of the contenders. And there is definitely going to have to be a serious transitional period to get the US back on some kind of reasonable, moral and honorable track after the debacle of the NeoCon Bush years.
To those that subscribe to the silly notion of McCain being the "Manchurian Candidate", I would say you ought to get more of your information on this from the world of psychology than from the movies.
Even if that BS were true, it would mean what? That he is being controlled like a robot from Hanoi? Peking" Moscow? Hell, ain't none of them could screw it up more than the greedy and arrogant NeoCons of the Bush Administration! Besides that, China already has the US economy by the nuts!
Rebel:
I see you've changed your argument. First it was that increasing taxes will without doubt pitch us into a recession. Now you've retreated to "tax cuts stimulate the economy." As for economists: truly it is said that if you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
So, for verifiable data, not theory [like "supply side economics"] we're left with history. And there is no, repeat no, historical data on the economy that supports the idea that (a) tax cuts necessarily stimulate economies or that (b) tax increases necessarily cut economic growth. No data. What data there are cut the other way. For example, the Reagan administration implemented supply side economics [which theorized that tax cuts increase federal revenues because of the increased business activity they encourage]. And yet the deficit and national debt ballooned under Reagan. Just as it has ballooned under Bush II who tried to implement supply side economic theory yet again. There is no, repeat no, historic data indicating that it has ever worked as the right wing economists theorized that it would. You like theory, you are welcome to it. But I am a Democrat and so I prefer the lessons of experience.
As for Clinton, again, your history is a little off. He had a Democratic Congress when he submitted his first budget, and he had one until the mid-term elections two years into his first term. And, of course, he remains the only modern President who actually achieved a balanced budget and a surplus. Reagan didn't do it. Bush One didn't do it, and Bush Two sure as hell hasn't come close. [The national debt that doubled under the Reagan and Bush One administrations has doubled yet again under Bush II. And the federal deficit is completely off the charts, and will leave the next president, whoever he or she is, with a monumental fiscal problem to deal with. I hope the next one is a Democrat, though. We have lots of experience in cleaning up the economic messes Republican presidents and congresses create.]
Rebel, as far as the Olympics, you better check a little deeper than mitts own claims.
Robert Garff, a Mitt supporter and former chair of the SLC Olympic Organizing Committee was interviewed recently. When asked if Mitt saved the Olympics, his response was no.
As to Mitt's extrordinary claims in his campain advertizements, he responded that it's just a 20 second sound bite, no big deal.
Mitt's envolvement is best summed up by the former SLC Councilwoman, Fonnesbeck, Mitt just came in and took credit for collecting pledges that had all ready been made.
She did also note how Mitt alienated many of the folks that did so much and always tried to take all the credit.
One other thing , the really really big money, TV contract was done prior to Mitts arrival on the scene.
Bill:
Well, he may have overclaimed his role in "saving" the Olympics. But I don't think he played as small a role as you carved out for him. Following his appointment, two things happened: (a)the SLC arrangements, whoever made them, went off pretty much without a major hitch --- Mitt ran the show competently. And (b) following Mitt's appointment, there were no more scandals involving bribery by the SL Olympic Committee and such like, which had rocked the Olys previously. Neither one may justify Mitt's claim to have been a Zion Captain Marvel, arriving just in time to save the day, but neither accomplishment is exactly chopped liver either.
But those accomplishments do not qualify him to be president. "He didn't screw up the Olympics" is setting a pretty low bar for the highest office in the land. Of course, that's a bar the present occupant has consistently failed to clear while in office. Come to think of it, for a Republican nominee, maybe "he didn't screw up" does constitute raising the bar. Significantly.
My dear pal Curmudgeon, your response labeled B is basicly a senseless claim. The bribery was only required to gain the bid, that was accomplished, and quite cheaply by todays standards, not that I'm endorsing the ALL American way, and it seems, that of the global self indulgent as well. The point is the bribes worked and were no longer nessisary by Mitt's late arrival. Or should I refer to him as, a cheap imatation plastic replica of Barbies' boy toy play thing.
Do you think he subjects himself to a battery of toxic microbial injections?
Oh and Curm, just who do you suppose forked up most of the total money spent on the 2002 Winter Olympics? Taxpayers? Of course, the republican way. They'll spend your money on anything except common folk.
Bill:
If you're arguing that Utah should not have staged the winter Olympics, then you have indeed identified a point of disagreement. The evidence suggests that the Olympics served the state well, overall, I think.
As for Mitt, it takes managerial skill to take over something as complex as the Olys, even when it's well along, and to see it through to the end, without major glitches. He did that. And while, again, I don't think being a good manager of a major international sporting event necessarily qualifies one to be president, it isn't an insignificant thing either.
Well Curm, the final outcome may be OK, but alot of how it was accomplished is certainly questionable, not just the highly publicized Welch and Johnson stuff, as for public expectations down the road, I guess the jury is still out?
I am no supporter of McCain (I'd love to see Romney nominated, simply for the entertainment his crash and burn would provide), but I am even less a fan of wild hypocrisies in political debate. Much is being slung about McCain's "conservative record," which I believe is an important discourse for the Republicans to have, despite the fact their choices are fairly lacking in quality one way or another (Karma can be a bitch), and like it or not, any attack on McCain's military history is unjustified, petty, and a detriment to the credibility of Republican campaigns nationwide in the eyes of voters.
It would probably serve the conservatives well to look beyond this election in which failure has been orchestrated so well in the past 7 years by the fracturing of the party, and a divergence from traditional conservative values of small government and fiscal responsibility. The Republican Party is undergoing an identity crisis, and the hazing of history in clap-trap like you've "rescued" from the comments here does no service to the party's future.
McCain is no social-conservative, no doubt, and he may not embrace the insanity of the neo-con agenda, but his senate voting record is 90% true to the votes of every other Republican senator, and he would probably be a far cry more conservative than Reagan. As Jeff Jacoby (a staunch conservative columnist, without a doubt) has written in the Boston Globe:
"Conservatives bristle at the thought of a Republican president who might raise income and payroll taxes. Or enlarge the federal government instead of shrinking it. Or appoint Supreme Court justices who are anything but strict constructionists. Or grant a blanket amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Now, I don't believe that a President McCain would do any of those things. But President Reagan did all of them. Reagan also provided arms to the Khomeini theocracy in Iran, presided over skyrocketing budget deficits, and ordered US troops to cut and run in the face of Islamist terror in the Middle East. McCain would be unlikely to commit any of those sins, either."
I am supporting a Democrat in this election, as I have all others previous, but I am also a firm believer that a two party system is much more healthy than one (how can one not believe so, living in Utah?). For the good of our nation, we need the back and forth of opposing debates. But we need the dialog to occur in an honest, factual, and credible way. The Republican Party, evidenced most well in this post, cannot provide such a challenge to the Democrats. I enjoy that luxury today, as a Democrat, but acknowledge my own party will continue to better itself if challenged occasionally on the issues.
If the Republican Party continues the trend exhibited so far, no credible challenger shall exist. And that does no one any good.
Stick to reality. Embrace introspection. Consider your (unedited by Fox News history and agenda), and get back to Americans when you've come up with something substantial, rather than desperate attempt such as what I read in this post.
That's my advice, for what it's worth.
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