Cynical Nation

There's still 11 long months to go Barry....I'm surprised it took this long for voters to get sick of the leading three contenders on each side.

A long campaign doesn't bode well for either Rudy or Hillary, because they're both very unlikable people.

It doesn't help Obama either because the more you see, and the more he says, the clearer it is how little he really knows...and NOTHING'S gonna help poor John Edwards.

On the Democrat side, I fully expect Hillary to grind out a victory over an empty suit (Edwards) and an inexperienced pup (Obama).

On the GOP side, it's a lot more open. Most Americans don't think at all like the MSM types around NY, they don't seem to trust former-Blue region leaders like Rudy and Romney...who knows, maybe John McCain WILL ultimately make a comeback.

There are, after all, ELEVEN looooong months to go.

Almost anything can happen.

You think voters are sick and tired of these guys BEFORE any primaries have occurred--just wait till the races are all but settled by mid-February and voters have 9 long months to experience buyers remorse, with little chance of changing the situation.
One prediction: in the weeks prior to each party's conventions next summer, there will be a media and unhappy-party- activists push (unsuccessfuly) for a new candidate to replace the soon-to-be-crowned nominee.

"...wait till the races are all but settled by mid-February and voters have 9 long months to experience buyers remorse, with little chance of changing the situation." (Fred)


Yeah, I think it only gets worse as well.

Anyone who hasn't seen Rudy up close can't know how insufferable a bastard that guy is.

Ditto for Hillary, who is damned close to Rosie O'Donnell in the "charm department."

Rudy lucked out in having a completely ineffectual Mayor (David Dinkins) before him in NYC.

Bill Bratton was an inspired choice for NYPD Commissioner (HE cleaned up NYC and brought crime levels to historic lows), but after that, it was all down hill for Rudy, culminating in the disastrous tenures of Bernie "the crook" Kerik and Tom "I see nothing, I know nothing" Von Essen.

I'm not saying that any of the others have anything close to sterling personalities, but those two are in a class by themselves.

Supporters will have to take their saving graces where they can find them, as in "At least he's been great on crime," or "She's really gotten a lot of cash for First Responders," because anyone with eyes and ears will know soon enough that both these people are such flawed personalities, so devoid of any human charm, that they're hard to take for more than a few minutes.

"One prediction: in the weeks prior to each party's conventions next summer, there will be a media and unhappy-party- activists push (unsuccessfuly) for a new candidate to replace the soon-to-be-crowned nominee." (Fred)


Agreed, I could easily see that happening, as well.

In fact, a lot of the Gore/Gingrich belatedly jumping into the race rumors were probably fueled by early dissatisfaction with the current crop of candidates on both sides.

I can't imagine that dissatisfaction getting anything other than worse as time goes on.

You know, I still think it'll be either McCain or Giuliani in the end for the Republicans, and I'm becoming more convinced that it will be HRC for the Democrats.

JMK - you might not like her, and she's not my favorite candidate, but I keep hearing that when people actually meet her? They like Hillary. That's how she won in New York. She went to just about everything and met and shook hands with everyone who turned up, and maybe it was just because she actually showed up, but she actually won people over. Again, I don't know if it was by default since Rick Lazio ran as poor a campaign as I think you can run without intending to run a poor campaign, but still, she did win people over. And for whatever reason, people seem convinced (or the media is convinced) that she is the most electable of the Democrats.

It's not really a matter of personal dislike K, in fact, just as I'll give Rudy credit for hiring Bill Bratton and changing NY's crime rate for the better, despite being an insuferable bastard, I give HRC credit for doing a lot for NY's First Responders and for supporting the Patriot Act, being pro-death penalty, pro-Free Trade, Supporting Workfare not welfare, saying that "We must stop Iran's nuclear programs and even use the threat of military force," and for opposing gay marriage, but supporting "civil unions" (the same stance as Rudy & Romney have on that issue).

If it weren't for her stances on gun control (in favor of disarming law-abding citizens and allowing thugs to use that to their advantage), supporting a "pathway to citizenship" (a/k/a "amnesty") for the illegal aliens already here and affirmative action (pro-race/gender preferences), she'd be about as appealing as Rudy &/or Romney.

Rudy and Hillary are two really flawed personalities. Both are bright, driven people, but neither could be described as anything close to "nice." They "don't particularly play well with others."

Autocratic? Yes, but "nice," not so much.

If anyone thinks I've mischaracterized Hillary's stands, here's a site that sizes them all up;

http://www.issuedictionary.com/Hillary_Clinton.cgi

>You know, I still think it'll be either McCain or Giuliani in the end for the Republicans...

Thanks for making me feel better, K. :-)

The prospect of a Guilliani administration just makes me ill. He has no limits and little morals. He acts first not thinking of the legality, then lets his lawyers fight in court. He would fill the administration with YesRudys who would have little regard for the competancy of those who might be an expert in any given field.

He could go to war with anyone. He would just do it, then defy Congress to stop him. He could start cheating on his wife, then say well who knows how the human heart works.

And if anyone dared to report on him.. first his people would threaten, then he would declare honest reporting to be the dirty tricks of a liberal press.

A Guilliani administration could make Dick Cheney look like an open and reasonable man in comparison.

I don't much care for Rudy's personality either PE, but Giuliani deserves credit for revitalizing New York, first by reining in out-of-control crime and then embarking on a plan of massive gentrification, via tax cuts, business-friendly policies and savings from combining many city services. Bringing Disney into the former "red light district" of Times Square was also an inspired bit of urban planning.

Even though Bill Bratton was the architect of that great crime reduction, Giuliani does get credit for bringing him in.

I don't like Rudy's personality any more than I do Hillary's. but he accomplished some incredible things in NYC, despite rankling a lot of feathers in the process. For one thing, he front loaded two consecutive contracts for NYC's cops and firefighters with zero percent raises (ostensibly to alleviate having to pay any "back-pay") and the result was that NY's first responders fell significantly behind the rest of the region's in terms of pay, BUT in terms of manpower, training and equipment, the budgets for those services were dramatically increased.

He became more and more autocratic as time went on, but that's a failing common to most leaders, both in business and government. People tend to begin to "believe their own press clippings."

He also bullied New York's press corps....and you have to admit that that was rich! New York's press corps is comprised of as much a bunch of insufferable bastards, every bit as tough to take as he is.

New York's press ceased being an "independent press" decades ago. Actually, it's the same with our national press corps as well.

The hallmark of an independent press is widespread disagreement and a wide diversity of opinions and beliefs within that group. When over 80% of the press are registered and admitted "partisan Democrats," with acknowledged Liberal positions on most issues, THAT'S not an "independent press."

So, I got a kick out of New York's "vaunted" press corps being bullied into submission like that. Unfortunately they've since shown that "discretion being the better part of valor" policy to be a staple of theirs, as they've since caved into the Islamists on the Danish "cartoon controversy," and a number of other issues.

I don't much LIKE Rudy, but aside from Romney there isn't another guy I can say I really like (personality-wise) on either side of the field (Huckerbee recently scored some points with me by supporting the Fair Tax, but "supporting" doesn't mean he won't waffle later...and he does at least have a real sense of humor), but "likability" isn't a prerequisite for my vote.

On the plus side, Rudy really "gets" the WoT....on the Democratic side only Hillary seems to get it, and she's had to tip-toe around her supporting the invasion of Iraq, her support for de-nuking Iran, even at the threat of military force, etc.

What's hurt Giuliani to date is, ironically enough, the successes of the Bush administration's terror agenda.

If terrorism either here or abroad becomes a front-burner issue and elevates America's concerns, then Rudy's stock rises.

Absent that, the flaws in his personality (ie. his "cutesy" phone call gag in front of the NRA) hurt him badly, because, like Hillary, the closer you look and the more you see of them, the less you tend to like.

Huckabee's candidacy may be throttled after this: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-12-08-huckabee_N.htm

Still, I agree with him on the point, if it was true, about AIDS getting a disproportionate amount of research dollars. I'm a bit pragmatic, and I think that heart disease, cancer, and diabetes should be funded in proportion to their numbers. Diseases like these should be funded more in total than they currently receive, rather than spending so much on terrorism, which claims fewer lives.

I still think Hillary would do a better job trying to get all Americans health insurance than any others, because it's a pet issue with her because of her previous experience with the attempts. And I do think health care is the most important issue.

"I still think Hillary would do a better job trying to get all Americans health insurance than any others, because it's a pet issue with her because of her previous experience with the attempts." (Tracy Miller)


I don't know how we can credit Ms Clinton over her previous failed attempts at overhauling America's healthcare.

She's now backed away from a government-run program to one that puts her squarely on the side of the major medical insurers.

Mitt Romney actually forged a state-wide healthcare plan that really worked in MA.

While I'm not all that high on Romney's methods in the Bay State, I acknowledge that they seemed to work.

There's little question we'll get some sort of healthcare change. On the plus side, the British, Canadian and French models seem to be out, while the Swiss and Dutch models seem to be in - the Swiss simply mandate private health insurance and individuals must pay. As a result, the Swiss government pays less than 25% of the Swiss healthcare burden, while the U.S. currently pays over 50%.