Santorum had a good run IMO, but doesn't have the money nor the campaign power to keep up the momentum he built in Iowa.

Paul shouldn't be counted out, Iowa usually goes with more socially conservative candidates. I think Romney will start separating himself from the pack very quickly though, I think the GOP sees him as the only one who can make the long haul and go against Obama.

santorum could never win a state actually representative of the us

santorum is disgusting

No such thing

true
i should rephrase to "santorum could never win"

Anal aftermath*

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?...um&defid=369371

http://www.theawl.com/2012/01/michele-bach...perfect-monster

good read even though she took herself out of the race, also worth it for the comment from her supposed goddaughter

I love when election time comes around everybody becomes an expert on politics

who cares

social conservatism should clearly be taken serious. its quite simple. anyone who wants to set todays standards to the standards of the papel-led dark ages should be seen as someone wanting to regress human advancement. our neverending goal should be to progress, clearly revert (this is about santorum). in short its sad that he is even being taken serious, though its certainly better than michelle bachman.

we need to remember that politicians of today are nothing but our american idol champs. they give us what we want to hear. its preciously why the entire gop field exists (minus ron paul who has managed to amass legitimate fan boys, basically unheard of in recent political climate). people want to believe that they are better than their neighbor, and nothing says "im better than you" than the atlas shrugged culture the current gop is pushing. iowa is a fucking joke, and the fact i was born and raised in basically rural illinois gives me a unique perspective of what its like. they dont represent america, they represent what the 187 page text book form 7th grade taught us america "should" be.

ron paul is probably the only legitimate "shake it up" politician. but so was obama, and he was fought every step of the way from day one (and ultimately started letting them dictate policy in the hopes of reelection); paul would also clash with the establishment and would probably be fought endlessly too.

romney will be a losing candidate. hes clearly president material. too carbon-copy of the gop stereotype of 10 years ago who tries to convert to the ultra-conservatism that is seemingly required today. the fact the entire gop is "beat obama" first and "get elected" second should tell you just how desperate they are, but also how lost they are from reality. obama is a dem who has hardly fought for the people, who has been reluctant to call out the gop for the "my way or the highway" attitude, and yet still will probably get elected because all the goldenboys of the gop are holding out for 2016.

because fuck you

where is paul ryan

gop side i can only legitimately see myself even considering voting for paul and only because there is absolutely zero chance his insane ideas get implemented while maybe his semi-reasonable ones go somewhere

but it will be a wash either way because someone other than romney will get the vp slot and paul is at least as old as mccain was right

Don't worry, your hero is being groomed for future service.

im clearly sure why anyone would be a fanboy of a politician though

He's politically saavy enough that he knew that Obama would be re-elected, so he said he would clearly seek the GOP nomination in order to focus on budget issues in the house. His heartthrob stock is plummeting and he's looking more like the class clown these days.

legalize drugs man, audit the fed and fuck fiat currency

He's so dreamy

santorum doesnt like that "black welfare" stuff

while i agree that our goal should be to progress, this doesn't mean we have to abandon our values simply because they're old. there are certain fundamentals that keep the system honest, which are laid out in the constitution. you can justify their change all you want by saying they can't adapt to the present etc, but that's a horseshit copout. the government NEEDS checks and balances, if the executive is slowly but surely given more power, it's a slippery slope to where we accept that it's "for our own good", until we get someone in office who isn't so benevolent.

i don't fully see obama as someone who was completely full of shit during his campaign, i just don't think he knew what he was getting into. you can criticize someone for being a career politician all you want, but it isn't quite as embarrassing as being overly ambitious then looking like a hypocrite once you're in office because you didn't know what to expect.

one of the biggest obstacles ron paul has is the image his supporters give off. this election it seems like it's mostly powered by a younger crowd (myself included) who believe that politics is extremely fucking simple, which is why it makes SO MUCH sense to them to see someone who campaigns to that idea. any president who campaigns like hes absolutely sure what to do and how easy it's gonna be to do it is lying tbh, because politics isn't just a disagreement of ideals and the role of government, if it was that simple we wouldn't have a lot of problems we have today.

i still think we solve the money problem with a fat tax

let's annex china

Santorum: "They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and regulations low, that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom or in cultural issues. That is clearly how traditional conservatives view the world."

Holy fuck, I can't believe he actually said that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gwwmm-cQxU (First minute)

i dont know exactly what values you think i implied we need to abandon, or which constitutional fundamentals you think i implied we need to abandon, or what you think im coping out on, or even which checks and balances you think i implied we need to abandon; i implied nothing other than social conservatism, as a core political stance, is regressive. it allows nothing that the bible does clearly state and ignores the fact the bible, when taken literally, leads to a westbro baptist mentality. most people cherry-pick which they want to adhere to and which they feel is just outdated and does clearly apply. to claim otherwise is just clearly being honest to oneself.

obama didnt lie per se, but he did do as all politicians do which is embellish what they "will do once in office". its what politicians do. and other than the transparency of government and the middle class he has actually followed through on foreign policy as he stated he would. but he has been fought every step of the way by the establishment (as will paul) because they dont play ball with everyone. obama was a constitutional expert, i doubt he is in over his head. he is certainly playing his cards for reelection (right or wrong).

one of the biggest obstacles ronnie has is his stance of "states rights", which is clearly applicable in the same manner today as it was pre-civil war. i dont care what the constitution said, its just used as fodder when the proposed topic is opposed. if the constitution was the core everyone wants to think it is then civil rights should be repealed and let states decide if seth needs his own drinking fountain and if he can ride the bus home from the welfare office (hi seth). we can also just cancel social security, income tax, federal subsidies, transportation spending, and basically anything else you can think of thats clearly directly tied to the military. in todays world this is just clearly applicable. and if you just cherry-pick which are and which are clearly applicable then you are no better than the current crop of GOP who choose when to whine about big government while actually depending on it.

with that said if i had to choose a GOP candidate id choose ronnie. i think he could do a lot of good. but i absolutely disagree with supply-side economics and the allusion of a free market that corrects its own mistakes (i wont even begin on the topic that the scope of a corporation of todays world is as inconceivable to the authors of the constitution as the internet would be).

lewis black

It's prejudice, and it's ignorance, on a level that is staggering at this point in time. But, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a group of gay banditos. They travel from village to dell. And as night falls, they travel to that cul-de-sac, where only one house stands. And in the window, you see a family, just setting down to their evening meal. And these queers... these queers... don their black hoods, and matching pumps, very tasteful. Sneak up to the house ever so slightly, open the door, and start... FUCKING EACH OTHER IN THE ASS! AND ANOTHER AMERICAN FAMILY... IS DESTROYED!

also
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/99240/...hMPo_2Q.twitter

lol

give out free waivers for people to get out of their cell phone contracts so they can afford to live

Life is so hard man.

pooping in politics toilet, without having anything to say about it

joe, i took the time to read yours and scotts essays, and i agree with you on the social conservatism, entirely.

on obama, i dont think his "changes" can take place in 4 years, and if he really wants to change things still, he will need 4 more

Doing the exact opposite of what you said you'd do isn't embellishing.

It doesn't matter if you disagree with something the Constitution says regarding the States, you don't amend the Constitution by acting like part of it doesn't exist.

im clearly sure if his "changes" could even take place. if they could it would take 6 years of previous grass-roots elections flushing congress first. which is about as likely as "change"

and you shouldnt pretend that obama is a constitution killer when every president since lbj (except carter) has been doing the same. its clearly right, but its how shit goes.

and you failed to have an accurate rebuttal to my obama stance, namely that he has clearly accomplished (or even tried) to push his domestic plan (other than the health care except he caved on single-payer) while he has accurately pushed his foreign plan (other than gitmo).

i dont like that he signed NDAA, but whats the point of a veto when it passed the senate 98-1? or are we clearly talking specifics, just talking points?

This post has been edited by blind_chief on Sat - Jan 7 2012 - 00:07:54

he said that he would get our troops out of iraq immediately. he procrastinated for 75% of his term and then said "yep, i totally did it"

just because it's been done in the past, doesn't mean it should be considered business as usual. if you give government the chance to expand, assume more power than it should, and spend more than it can afford, it will do it every time.

i believe he said "Bringing a responsible end" to the iraq war. he used the timeline set by bush. where/when did he say he would get out immediately?

more semantics. can we (and i really mean you) actually talk specifics, or even events, and clearly just talk about overly general ideas that are nearly impossible to uphold or refute because no real context is given to them?

ill even extend the olive branch. if your view is just a simple "big government" view, where and what should be up for cuts? is everything on the table? do you have any real events that illustrate your positions?

on the subject of spending cuts, our debt has increased $4.5 trillion since obama took office, and the debt ceiling raised six times, his latest request would be an extra $1.2 trillion raise. during bush's second term, obama campaigned against him, blaming him for high gas prices. since he took office, it has raised over a full dollar and hasn't changed much, and now he's saying that it's in fact a good thing because it forces people to be more responsible. that may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a hypocrite.

forgetting whether or clearly you think high taxes are good or w/e, do you think our government has a responsibility to address our debt?

before talking about the debt, we need to at least set a few definitions, or guidelines, or general rule-of-thumbs.
should the government run a debt at all?
if so how much? is this in terms of a flat amount? a percentage of gdp? just what the current president is responsible for?

.if we want to just blatantly talk about the debt then we have to look at what bush started and push that forward into today. 2 wars didnt start in the last 3 years. but abruptly ending 2 wars would have left a vacuum that would have conceivably done more harm than good. in short, are the obligations left to you from the previous administration taken into account?
.the bush tax cuts were an absurd thing, to fight 2 wars and cut taxes. who thinks fighting 2 wars on credit is a good thing? obama fucked up by extending those, but once a tax break in implemented if its clearly permanent it a future tax increase (insert payroll tax cut for current context).
.are we allowed to talk about the revenue problem in regards to the increases? is the starve the beast policy which has been the GOP goal since the 80s admissible?
.how do we take into account previous spending commitments into todays picture?
.should we consider that the debt ceiling can be automatically raised without a vote if we want it to, or just make it a prominent issue today?

no one thinks "debt" is a good thing, unless you are from a time where inflation covered your interest obligations (this is partially why people from the 70s-90s racked up the debt they did).

The debt limit is an important issue today because we are being downgraded by our creditors, and need to stop living in a fairy tale and get our spending in order. What will more taxes do when we are losing more taxpayers (high unemployment)? Doesn't that seem like a better issue to tackle if you want more money coming in?

How many jobs are created when taxes are raised?

We can't solve our debt problem simply by cutting, we also need to establish some plan to grow our economy, since realistically as you mentioned we do have certain obligations that we can't just immediately stop (as RP fans would like to think). However, simply raising taxes without a hard look at why this excessive spending is absolutely vital ultimately won't sustain us, because there simply won't be enough money to pay off what we're going to owe in the next 10-20 years.

I'm clearly saying that we shouldn't borrow money at all, but why the fuck would you even think of doing so without a serious plan of how you're going to pay it back (budget)?

when it comes down to it, it's between a douche bag and a turd sandwich. you just have to pick one.

im glad you realize revenue is an issue, but i never said the solution was one-sided either. and i never said we shouldnt look at repaying debt. we do repay debt. every day. and then we borrow more lol.

im clearly even sure where to take this discussion at this point, you reverted back to the grander ideas and less nuts and bolts. we both agree that spending is an issue, revenue is an issue, that money in politics is an issue etc. we certainly disagree which part we feel is more wrong, and i for one dont feel either party is right.

the "issue" is as you mentioned, we borrow more than we can afford. we need congress to make a budget that will start to lower our debt, and at the same time we need to create jobs to make that happen faster. the only way we can stop borrowing more than we spend is if we cut spending as a percentage of the amount of tax revenue our government takes in. if you're looking for specifics of where we should cut, i probably couldn't budget our government myself, but it's common sense that a substantial amount of money our government spends isn't absolutely vital, and we can do without. unless you'd like to get down to nuts and bolts and explain how every penny we spend is worth our rapidly increasing debt.

senator gore to the podium

dais

lectern

plinth