Not too early is it? 2008 Presidential fun
 

A lot of announcements have come out already on the Dem side, but I'm starting a thread to dicuss all nominees.

Hillary - too polarizing, I think. If the dems want to be sure of a huge republican turnout, then they should nominate her. I think she has problems with the far left as well.

Obama - Don't know much about him, except that he was educated in a Madras for four years. Will America vote for someone who was? This will surely become an issue in the dem primaries.

Edwards - This man makes my stomach turn. He is so smarmy, so fake, I literally can't stand to hear one word from his mouth.

Richardson - Don't know too much about him, but he wasn't a bad governor of New Mexico.

Rudy - Not quite conservative enough for me, but he gets it (when I say gets it, I mean he and I agree on a lot of it) on foreign policy and terrorism.

McCain - Would be hard for me to vote for him, but if he were the nominee, he would definitely be the lesser of two evils. Like Rudy, I think he gets it.

Most important issues to me are tax policy, border policy, and how they will handle the war on terror.

Your thoughts?

If you want to learn more about Obama, you should listen to his speech from the last Dem convention. I'm not sure if it's his time yet, but I want him to be president someday.

I agree. I quite like him. It may not be time for him to be pres yet. He may have to cook for four more years.

Honestly, I don't know much about the others. I'd like Hillary to be president solely because it would make me happy to have a woman president. I don't care too much who gets elected. I'm pretty sure none of these people will be half as bad as the current guy.

I don't think it will, and anybody who tries to make a big deal out of it will come off looking like a dickhead. He also spent 7 years at one of the top schools in the country (Punohou, meaning he has lost the vote of the Kamehameha High block; but could provide the country with a connection for really good malasadas).

I am very intrigued by Obama. I need to know more about him on various positions, but it would be nice to have a serious candidate that both isn't a retard and inspires people (Dean, in my opinion, failed on one of those counts).

So far, of the accounced and likely candidates he is the only one I have much interest in.

I agree, Hillary is way too polarizing. While I think there is much to admire about her and I fell she does have some chops, the thougt of all the mudslinging to come is already making my stomach turn. A woman president, yes, it's about time, will it be Hillary, I can't honestly say.

Obama has such charisma and is clearly can be a polarizing force, someone to rally behind. But I personally think he needs another term to get his feet wet.

Edwards, I don't know about him. He was the more appealing of the two on the Kerry ticket, but is this a reason for him to run now? I still don't know what his record is, frankly it's more because I've just not paid attention.

Richardson, not a clue about him.

Giuliani, McCain? Not for me, although I think McCain would be preferable.

I'm generalizing here and probably showing more about my ignorance than anything else, but I think whoever gets the White House in the next election is screwed before they even take the oath. There is so much mess to clean up, so much to try and fix, it's a no-win situation and whoever it is will be a single term election and get nothing but **** for whatever they do manage to accomplish.

Okay enough politics for me, time to consider the Oscar nominees ;)

I think you mean "madrassa".

If you do, that rumor, started by Insight Magazine, an organ of the same crazy bunch that runs the Washington Times, was debunked. That will not stop the republicans from trying to make it an issue in the dem primaries, so you are at least partially right.

If you're talking about the fabric, carry on.

I get all my political knowledge from SNL. ;)

They absolutely ripped apart Hillary last weekend. Seeing New York liberals say she has no principles of her own, and that she only does what polls tell her, was very intriguing indeed. I'd never vote for her anyway, but it's beginning to sound like the dems won't even try it.

After watching the sketch I realized that we are now in for nearly 2 years of campaigning. Ugh. I swear, it's like Xmas, getting longer and longer each time. There should be laws...

Hillary is actually one of the few prominent Democrats to stand by her position on Iraq. I respect her for that quite a bit.

Nobody seems to be bringing it up. But remember when people questioned Bill Clinton about whether the first lady was too involved in policy? It seems to me that issue is only magnified 1000x if the "first lady" is a former president. I also wonder if those on the left who criticized Bush simply for being a "dynasty presidency" will have similar qualms about Hillary (and if the the people on the right who didn't care about a dynasty presidency will resist having issue issue with it now).

I'm not really bothered by Obama's lack of experience. I don't think it is a job that really has much in the way of "ramp up" training (except maybe being a governor) and being a senator certainly doesn't provide any training except in the realm of political gamesmanship.

As far as whatever connection he has with Islam, the simple response to that is "I am not a Muslim, but with our current global situation doesn't it seem like a positive to have a president that knows something about it?"

I respect Guiliani but think he'd be a horrible president. I don't respect McCain but he might be decent at it (though I am unlikely to vote for him).

Hillary - too polarizing. Well said, scaeagles. She's also from the Northeast and the last two Dem presidential candidates from the Northeast didn't do well.

Edwards plays well in the Midwest. An Edwards/Obama ticket would be intriguing.

Obama is the most intriguing of them all, but I don't think he's got the experience and trust to win it. I actually can't choose one of the Dems to be a strong candidate - stong enough to win an election - and that is the most troubling aspect of the current crop. I do find myself actually liking what Hillary has to say. She's gotten a lot of air time over the past 2 weeks and she's been spot on about a lot of things. Still, I think she's got some big hurdles to overcome.