Huffy Flounce

Hilary Clinton really really wants to be President.

You know how I know this? Well, she was willing to put up with decades of sexual humiliation at the hands of her husband-- a warmonger, liar, and possible rapist-- in order to see this through. Oh, and she voted in favour of the Iraq War. Not the cool 1991 war that looked good on tv(which her husband was also in favour of), but the nasty 2003 sequel. You want more Americans flying home in bodybags, perhaps this time from Iran? Vote Hilary!

Rahm Emanuel strikes me as something of a nutter as well. Besides his support for repressive police state measures in the face of peaceful protest, he also supported the Iraq War as well as Israel's ongoing heavy-handedness. Rahm-Bomb jokes are way too obvious here.

Oh, but wait-- President Joe Biden!! Doesn't that just roll off the tongue......

Rahm's rumored to run? You're breaking news to me here, Spacey.

I could easily see him running for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat that'll be up for grabs, but president? Nah. He'd never even win the nomination and he knows it.

Rahm would cream the competition.

Adam54 wrote:Rahm's rumored to run? You're breaking news to me here, Spacey.

I could easily see him running for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat that'll be up for grabs, but president? Nah. He'd never even win the nomination and he knows it.

I have heard rumours to that effect...

Huh. Yeah, I did Google it after I read your post and there were a couple (both right-leaning) sites I saw with rumors to that effect. Guess we'll see, but I hope he knows better. Mayors never even get close to sniffing the party nomination, let alone the general. Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Guiliani would attest to that.

Rahm's too busy spending a shit-ton of money to get re-elected mayor here in Chicago. It's a big war chest for a mayoral campaign, but he's nowhere near ready to go national.

So Senate it is then, probably? Or does he have a serious primary challenge for mayor?

And I'll get my endorsement fully out of the way here in case I haven't made it obvious yet. I think he'd be a phenomenal candidate against Mark Kirk in 2016 and I really hope he runs.

The Swollen Goiter of God wrote:Rahm would cream the competition.

I've been waiting for Jubbers or Mal to roll their eyes at the stupidity of this one and explain it to the non-German speakers, but I guess they're not gonna.

Ah, well. It's what I get. IT'S WHAT I GET!

Wait.

WAIT.

Sweet Cock of Christ. Are you punning in foreign languages now?!

Vielleicht.

I just want to feel liked.

Adam54 wrote:Are you punning in foreign languages now?!

He does it a lot. I'm growing numb to it.

It's a thing I've been doing (admittedly rather poorly) since the fall of 1995.

To be fair, you haven't been doing it for as long as you've been delivering free gas to the masses (Gasses to the masses?).

It's true.

It was mostly bilingual punning (primarily English-Spanish) until 1997. I've added some languages since. I credit James Joyce with encouraging me to become a punning polyglot.

Adam54 wrote:So Senate it is then, probably? Or does he have a serious primary challenge for mayor?

No primary, just a few candidates running. The one that would have provided a real challenge, the former president of the Chicago Teachers' Union, dropped out because of illness. There are still so,e challengers, but no one with the war chest Rahm has.

Gotcha. He's following the Hillary playbook to the letter then. As I recall she raised something like $70-80 million dollars for her Senate race in 2006 against token opposition just to load up for her run at higher office.

Cu........... nning!

Lincoln Chafee: Hilary's Iraq vote "disqualifies" her: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... alify-her/

Well, I quite agree. Between him and Jim Webb, I don't think she's got this one as locked up as some might hope...

It's gonna be a battle, as it should be. Well...to an extent. Ask President Romney how much intraparty squabbling can damage a candidate in the general election.

All I want is for Bernie Sanders to run, simply to pull her to the left. Is that too much to ask?

It's probably a lot to ask... about as much as my desire to see someone pull the Republicans back to their anti-militaristic roots. Probably more so.

From what I have read in your posts over the years, Adam, I think it may be time for you to consider the fact that the Dems simply are not a left-wing party. Centrist, yes. Progressive, even. But by the standards of Europeans and even Canadians, they are simply another machine that answers to the big money.

These days, I usually vote Green. Not because I agree with each and every single part of their platform, but because I believe that the big guys need to know they have competition. There is at least a percentage of us out there whose vote cannot be taken for granted.

That said, there are Democrats I would back, if I were an American, and Webb is certainly one of them.

Oh, no, I'm aware of that. They're a left wing party solely by the American definition of left wing party. But they're not truly left wing by any means.

I've evolved to the point where I vote as a realist. We've got two parties who can realistically win in any given election (my state of Minnesota does have a third generally viable party whose candidate I've once voted for Governor. That candidate was NOT Jesse Ventura. Ugh.)

Nationally though, one of the major parties is a bunch of science denying, anti-women, anti-minority, anti-pretty much everybody, religious extremists.

The other is the Democrats.

My votes for them are pretty much always to do my part to keep the other guys out. I hate that that's our system and I hate that I have to vote that cynically, but I feel like that's just where we're at for the foreseeable future.

I don't know how familiar you are with Bernie Sanders though, but you may want to look into him. I don't know how he falls on the scale of Europeans or Canadians, but he's awfully left wing for an American. To the left of Hillary, at very least.

Jim Webb is one I'm looking at as well though. I don't know a lot about him, but I've very much liked what I've seen so far.

As I'm sure I've said in other threads in the past too though, I'm centrist enough by nature that can be won over. If a Republican were to stop attacking the poor and instead look at cutting our biggest source of extravagant spending (the military, of course) WHILE ALSO preaching sane ideas on science, medicine and tolerance, I'd easily be won over by that. Rand Paul is probably the closest yet, but he's still pretty far off.

I feel like I may be talking circles around myself, so to just break it down: Fiscally I'm pretty moderate and moving more to the right as I get older. Socially, I'm liberal as can be. Or I'm at that point on the far left where it almost crosses over with the far libertarian right. The debates we're still having on social "issues" in this country drive me fucking crazy. Just let everybody do what they want with their lives so long as it's not endangering others. Not that difficult.

I'm part radical humanist, part misanthropic cynic.

People are poor because of Republicans, not because of anything else.