WHO should be elected in 2012?

[inked]

Given that Obama is trying to get Hillary out of the way as Secretary of State, who do you think should be elected in 2012? You can go for either party in the USA, or any party, because I'm sure that if Ralph Nader and Ron Paul are still kicking, they'll be running.

As an independent, I have to confess that Obama is doing a great job setting up his next run by trying to get Hillary out of the picture early. If she accepts the SoS position, she'll have to leave the Senate and be a lot more out of the public eye. If she doesn't take it and remains in the Senate, she looks like sour grapes and intending to run again in 2012, which makes her look less than perfect as an Obama supporter. Either way, Hillary loses, I think.

What think ye Democrats and Republicans and Greenies et alia ad infinitum?

And how about those Demo's NOT bailing out the auto industry? Is this a signal of the true meaning of "change" in the Obama administration? A president-elect with no suuasion over the democratic party? That would be a change! I wonder why Nancy Pelosi couldn't whip 'em into line to support the pres-elect's expressed desire? That's not looking too good. Congressional Democrats go with BIG Business - just not blue collar job types!

DID I MENTION THAT I LOVE BEING AN INDEPENDENT?

[Insidious Rex]

A little early to say isn’t it? lets see what he does as president first before we start writing his memoirs and looking to see who should overthrow him. And whats this about the democrats not bailing out the auto industry? Isn’t it the republicans who are staunchly against that? And they still have filibuster power until January 20 if Im not mistaken and may even have it after that. last I head the democrats said they were going to open that debate again after the new administration officially comes in and they have more seats.

Frankly I have no sympathy for the auto executives who have been bone headed and stubborn enough to run their companies into the ground based on a strategy of $1 a gallon gas and SUV worship. Pathetic American greed at its worst… So if we give them a bail out it better come with a TON of strings in regards to significant increases in gas mileage for their vehicles and a number of other things whose time has long come but have been ignored by the Bush administration.

DID I MENTION THAT I LOVE BEING AN INDEPENDENT?

Yer about as “independent” as I am inked and I am one too actually… So I guess we cancel each other out.

[inked]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Democratic Congress, unwilling or unable to approve a $25 billion bailout for Detroit's Big Three, appears ready to punt the automakers' fate to a lame-duck Republican president. Caught in the middle of a who-blinks-first standoff are legions of manufacturing firms and auto dealers—and millions of Americans' jobs—after Senate Democrats canceled a showdown vote that had been expected Thursday. ...

Ummm, IR, some facts rather than speculation from YOUR independent perspective, please!

No, I don't think it's too early to speculate on 2012 election because from MY INDEPENDENT perspective the O-man is positioning himself to do just that by this appointment. Did I not make that clear?

MEMO: Obama's offer of the Secretary of State position to Senator Hillary Clinton is a ploy to secure the 2012 Democratic nomination to himself REGARDLESS of how his 4 years of office-holding turn out. Is this good or bad? Depends on if your are Hillary.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

No one really knows if he's offered that position, you know, inked. There's a lot of speculation, but the principals haven't said, either way. I've read complaints (supposedly from people "in the know' on both sides) that say there's pressure TO ask her, NOT to ask her, that she's lobbying for the job.... It's fairly unclear, I think.

Not at all possible that the man is just trying to get ready for a big new job, is there? Or is it 'independence' that makes it certain he's scheming about something.

[OldHippie]

May as well toss my thought out there..................

Palin............2012

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by OldHippie

May as well toss my thought out there..................

Palin............2012

Really?
What kind of hippie were you?

[OldHippie]

LOL A rather Conservative one. We do things a bit different in Upper Michigan.

[Curufin]

As an independent, I have to confess that Obama is doing a great job setting up his next run by trying to get Hillary out of the picture early. If she accepts the SoS position, she'll have to leave the Senate and be a lot more out of the public eye. If she doesn't take it and remains in the Senate, she looks like sour grapes and intending to run again in 2012, which makes her look less than perfect as an Obama supporter. Either way, Hillary loses, I think.

Ok, sorry, but this is just silly. The democratic party is going to run the incumbent in 2012. Why? Because it is the incumbent who wins a huge majority of the time. In congress, I know, the statistic is 95%+. The democratic party is not going to run Hillary Clinton, no matter what. Look at American history. In all of history, here is the list of times the incumbent has not won:

Thomas Jefferson unseated John Adams (1800)

Andrew Jackson unseated JQ Adams (1828)

WH Harrison unseated Van Buren (1840)

Benjamin Harrison unseated Grover Cleveland (1888)

Grover Cleveland unseated B Harrison (1892)

Woodrow Wilson unseated WH Taft (1912)

FD Roosevelt unseated Hoover (1932) [depression]

Jimmy Carter unseated Gerald Ford (1976) [who was never actually elected, so 'incumbent' is an iffy term]

Ronald Reagan unseated J Carter (1980)

Bill Clinton unseated GHW Bush (1992)

That's it. That means, historically, the presidential incumbent has a 77.2% chance of winning. Hillary will not run in Obama's place, with all the baggage she carries and a 22.8% historical chance of winning.

[inked]

So, you automatically think the incumbent will be run?

Good thing he's moving Hillary, then. No nasty intra-party squabbling like this last cycle.

But I'm not sure Democratic feminists would agree that the "patriarchal history" of the election of US presidents should necessarily be determinant.

It'll be fun to watch again.

[Curufin]

So, you automatically think the incumbent will be run?

Yes, I do. But it's more than just party squabbling - if the Democratic party doesn't support its sitting president, how would that look? They certainly wouldn't win again if they looked like they felt the last four years were a huge mistake.

But I'm not sure Democratic feminists would agree that the "patriarchal history" of the election of US presidents should necessarily be determinant.

Whether it should be or not, it is, and shouldn't be ignored.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by OldHippie

LOL A rather Conservative one. We do things a bit different in Upper Michigan.

Yeah, I've spent time up there, although no one would classify my activities as 'conservative' in any sense.

But I doubt anyone in Michigan or anywhere else could combine the concepts of "hippie" and "Sarah palin" in a logical way. You might need to change your title to "Recovering hippie" or "former hippie" or "more like a hippie than Ted Kaczynski' to reduce my cognitive dissonance with this POV.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by inked

But I'm not sure Democratic feminists would agree that the "patriarchal history" of the election of US presidents should necessarily be determinant.

I'm not actually worried about that. Us old girls are pragmatists. Hillary worked HARD for Barack, and the party won.

It'll be fun to watch again.

Just how I feel about the cultural wars opening up in the republican party.

[Curufin]

But I doubt anyone in Michigan or anywhere else could combine the concepts of "hippie" and "Sarah palin" in a logical way. You might need to change your title to "Recovering hippie" or "former hippie" or "more like a hippie than Ted Kaczynski' to reduce my cognitive dissonance with this POV.

I don't know. I always felt there was a lot of difference between a "hippie" and a "radical." Hippies were the ones who smoked a lot of pot, listened to rock and roll, and had a lot of sex. Maybe on occasion they'd attend a protest rally, but god knew if they were ever sober enough to understand what was going on. Radicals were the ones who actually believed in what they were doing; the button-down-shirt people like Tom Hayden of the SDS who actually wanted to make a difference in the world and in large part eschewed the drug culture.

One was a fad, the other was a true set of beliefs. I count myself among the latter.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Tom Hayden was a &%*$&. Eschewed the drug culture, my pretty behind.

Look for the book "Personal Politics" by Sara Evans. It was a tough row to hoe.

[Curufin]

I'll admit, my knowledge of Tom Hayden is from research I did on the early 1960's, around the time of the writing of the Port Huron Statement. I'll admit that things could have changed.

Still doesn't change my basic point, though.

Just change the name to Howard Zinn, or someone you like better.

[shesabrandybuck]

Originally Posted by OldHippie

May as well toss my thought out there..................

Palin............2012

Yes! Michael Palin for president!!
haha, no I'm joking.

...or am I?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Curufin

I'll admit, my knowledge of Tom Hayden is from research I did on the early 1960's, around the time of the writing of the Port Huron Statement. I'll admit that things could have changed.

Still doesn't change my basic point, though.

Just change the name to Howard Zinn, or someone you like better.

Flo Kennedy?
Ti-Grace Atkinson?

I doubt you did the research that Sara did... he was a *random typing to preserve pg-13 rating* even then. Maybe especially then.

[Curufin]

Well, of course I didn't, I was a senior in high school, working on a history day project centered on Kent State, just doing background research... Now when it comes to Kent State, my research is pretty awesome. . .

Edit: And I'm also not a traditional feminist. . . Marxist feminists are a bit different.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Edit: And I'm also not a traditional feminist. . . Marxist feminists are a bit different.

If the difference is that you don't question whether the stories you get about members of the ruling class are skewed to make them look good, the difference is not an improvement.

Also look at this:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/hist...ts/ch34_02.htm

Generally, the people one has NOT heard about have stories at least as interesting as the ones who collect the goodies.

[Curufin]

If the difference is that you don't question whether the stories you get about members of the ruling class are skewed to make them look good, the difference is not an improvement.

Where did this criticism come from? Perhaps I was misinformed - as I said, this is research I did as a high school student, and was just thrown across as a flippant example. Use another one, I don't care. My point is getting trampled under semantics.

I'm only 30 years old, you know - it's not like I had the chance to meet any of these people personally. I can only depend on what I can read, and I have read widely. I know that the treatment of women within the early SDS often left a great deal to be desired (to put it mildly), but I also disagree with feminists who think that this negated the importance and the worth of the whole movement. Nobody's perfect, and you can't do everything at once. That doesn't mean that some good can't come out of it anyway.

And you don't know me at all if your claim (which I quoted) is that I think the upper classes and the "ruling classes" are somehow on pedestals and without fault.