How the two parties view McCain

I'm still trying to figure out how he became the front-runner for the Republicans.

It's looking more and more like we're headed towards a Hillary vs. McCain election.

A. McCain
B. Hillary
C. Slit wrists

 

It appears to me that whichever Democrat wins their nomination would be the favorite to win the presidency. The press and the wealthy are supporting both candidates like has never happened in my lifetime.

Hillary's raised well over $100M through Jan. 1, and Obama close to that. Obama has 650,000 donors and all but 3% or so have given the $2300 limit. In contrast, McCain has raised about $40M. Ironic how money buys elections (supposedly) and it's McCain-Feingold that's killing McCain's own chances.

It's stunning how the media views both races. You have softball questions by debate moderators to the Democrats and you have questions about how many clowns you can fit in a car to the Republicans - just to make the latter look less meaningful. They hyped up Huckabee from the start, strategically aimed at having the Democrat nominee face the weakest opponent possible (Huckabee's raised... $6M or $8M total). Anderson Cooper's handling of the Republicans debate from California was downright shameful. CNN has become a 24/7 commercial for the Democrats - so much for McCain/Feingold

On the day that both Edwards and Giuliani dropped out, they ran this story (you compare the coverage, you decide):
Giuliani, Edwards drop out of presidential race

2008 Delegate Count
Republicans - 1,191 Needed
John McCain 97
Mitt Romney 74
Mike Huckabee 29
Ron Paul 6
Rudy Giuliani 2

Democrats - 2,025 Needed
Hillary Clinton (w/o MI) 232
Barack Obama 158
John Edwards 62

Includes Super Delegates
Source: CNN
Updated 1/29/08

Not that I'm particularly hopeful about this, but I do see a scenario where McCain (or Romney) can actually win the general election. The Republican primaries this coming Tuesday are all winner-take-all. If McCain gets 1 vote more than Romney in any of those states, he gets all the state's delegates. The Democrats run things quite differently - if you win 51% of the vote in a state, you get (roughly) 51% of the state's delegates. Both Hillary and Obama clearly have the money to stay in the race to the end, and they could split the vote so neither one gets the 2,025 needed by the convention.

The Democrat convention is at the end of August, leaving just 2 months for their general campaign. Should McCain dominate on Tuesday, he'll have 9 months as the only Republican raising money and to spend that money beating up the Democrats in general (and getting his message out). Historically, the party that settles its nomination process earliest wins the election.

Latest National Poll
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/20...t/national.html
John McCain vs. Hillary Clinton
McCain 46.8% / Clinton 45%, McCain +1.8% (McCain leads in 4 of the most recent 6 polls)
John McCain vs. Barack Obama
McCain 44.7% / Obama 43.2%, McCain +1.5% (McCain leads in 3 of the most recent 6 polls, tied in a 4th)

 

http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was the most liberal senator in 2007, according to National Journal's 27th annual vote ratings. The insurgent presidential candidate shifted further to the left last year in the run-up to the primaries, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the other front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, also shifted to the left last year. She ranked as the 16th-most-liberal senator in the 2007 ratings, a computer-assisted analysis that used 99 key Senate votes, selected by NJ reporters and editors, to place every senator on a liberal-to-conservative scale in each of three issue categories. In 2006, Clinton was the 32nd-most-liberal senator.

In their yearlong race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Clinton have had strikingly similar voting records. Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10. "The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter," said Richard Lau, a Rutgers University political scientist.

But differences define campaigns. The yeas and nays matter. And in a Senate in which party-line votes are the rule, the rare exceptions help to show how two senators who seemed like ideological twins in 2007 were not actually identical. Obama and Clinton were more like fraternal policy twins, NJ's vote ratings show.

As the battles for the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential nominations have raged, the candidates have blasted each other for taking positions that are out of line with party dogma. Obama has repeatedly challenged Clinton's 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war, labeling her foreign policy "Bush/Cheney-lite"; Clinton has pointed to Obama's "present" votes on the abortion issue in the Illinois Legislature to raise questions about his support for abortion rights. Meanwhile, Republicans have battled over the strength of their conservative credentials on taxes, immigration, and national security.

When the campaign shifts into the general election, however, the two nominees may each seek to cast their opponent as a party extremist. During the 2004 presidential campaign, for instance, Republicans attacked Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as an extreme liberal, including by pointing to his ranking as the most liberal senator in NJ's 2003 vote ratings.



More at the link...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Real @ Feb 1 2008, 05:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>What bothers me is how Republicans view McCain as "not as conservative" as the rest because he broke from the party on McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and believes in global warming.

That's such a losing attitude. I don't know how they expect to keep hold of the presidency with that attitude. I guess they'd rather sit back and watch Hillary or Obama run the country because the next Ronald Reagan hasn't come along yet.</div>

I've had this debate with people before... When push comes to shove, the Republicans have been very good about reading the polls and picking (and sticking with) the guy with the best chance to win. People were telling me McCain or Giuliani couldn't win the Republican primaries because they were too liberal. It's looking like that myth is about to be blown out of the water

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Real @ Feb 1 2008, 05:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (blackadder @ Jan 31 2008, 01:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I heard the same RR/BD comparison last night on MSNBC.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ Jan 31 2008, 01:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm still trying to figure out how he became the front-runner for the Republicans.

It's looking more and more like we're headed towards a Hillary vs. McCain election.

A. McCain
B. Hillary
C. Slit wrists</div>

D. Vote Libertarian
</div>

E. Ralph Nader.
</div>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-capitalism

Not that I particularly like their review of what the movement is all about.

This one's a little better:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/simon.tormey/...icapitalism.htm

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%">This book attempts to answer the question through examining the ideas of the various ‘molecules; that compose the movement: the anarchists and Marxists, the greens and environmentalists, the anti-corporate activists, the autonomists and situationists, the global social democrats and liberal interventionists, among many others. We also look in detail at the form of the movement: its use of the internet and communications technology, and also at the attempts of anti-capitalists to challenge neoliberalism in a direct way.</div>

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