GOP Primaries/Candidates thread

[mr_genius]

Ask a firefighter.

 

don't need to, i know why they don't like him.

 

OK, so I think he's a wee bit slimey because of his rampant affairs, the way he has treated spouses, the way he handled fire, EMS and police after (and even before) 9/11, and his business dealings.

 

well, i'm not sure he handled the whole fire fighter thing correctly. as far as the other stuff, you could say the same thing for all the other major candidates.

 

Well, McCain sounded pretty good at the forum I was at today. He made some promises that I would like to see if he would actually deliver on.

- He talked about shutting down Guantanomo Bay, Cuba to help with how we are viewed around the world.

- To go with that, he stated that there will be absolutely no torture no matter what with prisoners (It is always the non-military people who want that, not the military).

- Stated that Global warming is true, and needs to be dealt with, but we will not join Koyoto protocol without China and India.

- Stated that the tax code needs to be written because it is too messy and complicated. Americans spend $140 million(billion?) each year on getting taxes prepared.

- He will cut the pork out of bills that come through. In the 50s a heavily porked bill had 200 tags on it. Now there are bills coming through with 6,000.

- Health Care needs to be looked at and fixed. He did not seem to favor a universal health care, but more of a competition between health care providers.

- No Child Left Behind started out on a good track, but needs to be fixed now that we know what some of its flaws are.

- The war in Iraq has been mismanaged.

 

Those were the main points that I took away from it anyhow.

 

McCain should have been the nominee in 2000. he's too old now IMO

Edited April 27, 2007 by mr_genius

[BigSqwert]

as far as the other stuff, you could say the same thing for all the other major candidates.

 

A bit of an exaggeration don't you think?

 

McCain should have been the nominee in 2000. he's too old now IMO

Agreed on both counts.

[mr_genius]

A bit of an exaggeration don't you think?

 

Hillary? I could name the same type of 'slimey' activity.

 

Obama? Could name the same type of 'slimey' activity, except for marital issues. His list of 'shady dealings' wouldn't be as long a Hillary's, but thats like saying "Konerko will never have more career homeruns than Barry Bonds."

 

Edwards? Could name the same type of 'slimey' activity, except for marital issues.

 

McCain? Ok, you might have me on this one.

[EvilMonkey]

. Plus, if he's elected we would have the hottest first lady ever (I wasn't alive when Jackie O was the 1st lady ).

You obviously haven't seen Fred Thompson's arm candy.

[BigSqwert]

You obviously haven't seen Fred Thompson's arm candy.

Care to share?

 

EDIT: Just looked her up. I'd take Kucinich's wife over her. She's more my type. A natural beauty.

Edited April 30, 2007 by BigSqwert

[mr_genius]

You obviously haven't seen Fred Thompson's arm candy.

 

wow, that old man did pretty good for himself.

 

 

 

EDIT: Just looked her up. I'd take Kucinich's wife over her. She's more my type. A natural beauty.

 

Kucinich's wife is kinda creepy looking. Super tall, skinny, pale ,with orange hair.

 

Finally, we are discussing the political matters that are important.

[NorthSideSox72]

Just in inject a little fun, the AP got to ask seven candidates from each party about some of their personal side. Favorite foods, alternate career path, etc. This is part 1 of the series, and apparently there will be follow-up articles.

 

My favorites...

 

--Dennis Kucinich's alternate career choice: Astronaut

--Duncan Hunter's alternate career choice: Outdoor writer

[Texsox]

Just in inject a little fun, the AP got to ask seven candidates from each party about some of their personal side. Favorite foods, alternate career path, etc. This is part 1 of the series, and apparently there will be follow-up articles.

 

Fun article. I also see why campaign managers hate this kind of unscripted, untested, stuff.

[Balta1701]

Mitt Romney's favorite novel?

 

Battlefield Earth.

 

Yes, that one.

[southsider2k5]

Mitt Romney's favorite novel?

 

Battlefield Earth.

 

Yes, that one.

 

Battlefield Earth was an excellent Sci-Fi book, and surprisingly L Ron Hubbard was an awesome Sci-Fi writer. The Mission Earth Series was the best I ever read. Looking back I think the reason he was so good at the genre was that he was a little wee bit out in space himself.

 

Now the John Travolta movie just gives me yet another reason, after Grease and Saturday Night Fever, to dispise the man.

[Texsox]

Battlefield Earth was an excellent Sci-Fi book, and surprisingly L Ron Hubbard was an awesome Sci-Fi writer. The Mission Earth Series was the best I ever read. Looking back I think the reason he was so good at the genre was that he was a little wee bit out in space himself.

 

Now the John Travolta movie just gives me yet another reason, after Grease and Saturday Night Fever, to dispise the man.

.

 

I've come to like Grease for what it is. Just a sappy, light weight musical. Not many musicals hit the big screen. I've wasted a couple hours on a lot worse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And come on, Olivia in the leather at the end

[southsider2k5]

.

 

I've come to like Grease for what it is. Just a sappy, light weight musical. Not many musicals hit the big screen. I've wasted a couple hours on a lot worse.

And come on, Olivia in the leather at the end

 

I can't watch that without thinking that she is my mom's age... :puke

[Balta1701]

HANNITY: You have kind words for the president, considering the challenging times that we live in. Even though he has low approval ratings. You believe this was still the right thing. If you had to make the decision, based on what we know now, if you were the president there, do you think you would have done the same thing?

 

M. ROMNEY: Well, it’s almost a null set. Which is if we knew that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and if he had complied with the United Nations resolutions to allow IAEA inspectors into his country, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We wouldn’t have been having the U.N. sanction him. We wouldn’t have had the U.S. angry. So it’s kind of a null set. It’s impossible.

 

HANNITY: Am I the only one here thinking that in all the build- up to the war that those weapons of mass destruction got moved to Syria?

 

M. ROMNEY: It’s possible. It’s entirely possible.

Link with video.

[kapkomet]

Link with video.

ok, so what's the point?

[Texsox]

ok, so what's the point?

 

It's Hannity, there probably isn't one.

[NorthSideSox72]

ok, so what's the point?

I assume the Syria link was what was considered notable. Like maybe a hint at things to come.

[StrangeSox]

I assume the Syria link was what was considered notable. Like maybe a hint at things to come.

 

They've been using that excuse since May 2003, though.

[Balta1701]

They've been using that excuse since May 2003, though.

Yes, but no one either smart or in any sort of official position has been using that dodge. It's been confined to the dark reaches of Hannity and Limbaugh for the most part, even the majority of the Fox News folks don't push it any more because they know there's just no evidence at all for it. But yet, one of the Republican Pres. Candidates just alleged that exact thing with no evidence. I find that noteworthy.

[kapkomet]

Yes, but no one either smart or in any sort of official position has been using that dodge. It's been confined to the dark reaches of Hannity and Limbaugh for the most part, even the majority of the Fox News folks don't push it any more because they know there's just no evidence at all for it. But yet, one of the Republican Pres. Candidates just alleged that exact thing with no evidence. I find that noteworthy.

Ah, ok got your point now.

 

Listen... it amazes me as late as LATE in 2000, Clinton was saying EXACTLY the same thing Bush did on the WMD's. So what happened to them? Balta, I know you've drummed up 1,000's of articles telling us that Saddam had to of destroyed them, but come on... why would you believe that, in reality?

[StrangeSox]

Ah, ok got your point now.

 

Listen... it amazes me as late as LATE in 2000, Clinton was saying EXACTLY the same thing Bush did on the WMD's. So what happened to them? Balta, I know you've drummed up 1,000's of articles telling us that Saddam had to of destroyed them, but come on... why would you believe that, in reality?

 

Why would you believe that a borderline-insane, tyrannical, power-hungry dictator would just "give away" his weapons to a foreign country instead of using them to defend his own?

 

A lot of the evidence that the Bush administration presented has turned out to be flat-out wrong or completely unreliable. There never was any solid evidence that he had them. It doesn't matter how many people on either side of the aisle believed bad intelligence.

[Balta1701]

Listen... it amazes me as late as LATE in 2000, Clinton was saying EXACTLY the same thing Bush did on the WMD's. So what happened to them? Balta, I know you've drummed up 1,000's of articles telling us that Saddam had to of destroyed them, but come on... why would you believe that, in reality?

My reasoning, and this was back before the war, was fairly simple, I think. The UNSCOM team was able to account for over 95% of the materials Saddam made. They destroyed a huge amount of it, and they were able to track where things were moved to and what happened to most of them (a lot of them were simply dumped after the first war or bombed during that war). The rest...well, the place was a warzone.

 

Now, that was by no means proof that Saddam was disarmed. And had Saddam refused to allow the inspections regime to resume, or had he interfered with the inspections regime when it resumed, that would have been justification for a war. But in 2002, Saddam agreed to allow the UN inspections teams back in under the UNMOVIC team. When they went in, they found the equipment that would have been needed to manufacture additional weapons covered with 3 years of dust. They found the facilities they had sealed off still sealed off. They took some of the intel the U.S. had about where the weapons were supposed to be, went to those places, and wound up calling the U.S. intel "Garbage". Up and down the list, they basically couldn't find a single sign of an active weapons program. Every single thing they saw was consistent with Saddam having shut down the programs and with UNSCOM having dismantled the remaining fragments.

 

If the U.S. had let the inspectors do their jobs to their conclusion, no matter what anyone in the U.S. believed, no matter what Mr. Clinton believed, they would have found Saddam to be disarmed. The evidence was right on the table in early 03 for anyone who cared to look.

[Balta1701]

Link.

Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin.

 

Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused.

 

Prosecutors say "in the process scores died."

 

Drug Enforcement Administration officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com Giuliani personally met with the head of the DEA when the DEA's drug diversion office began a criminal investigation into the company.

 

According to the book "Painkiller," by New York Times reporter Barry Meier, both Giuliani and his then-partner Bernard Kerik "were in direct contact with Asa Hutchinson, the administrator of DEA."

 

Hutchinson told the Blotter on ABCNews.com today that Giuliani asked for a meeting, "and we gave him a meeting." Hutchinson says he was aware the company was under investigation at the time, and "any time a company is under investigation I like to give them a chance to make their case."

 

Kerik told New York Magazine at the time that Giuliani had raised $15,000 in donations for a "traveling museum operated by the DEA."

 

Some officials told ABC News there were questions inside the agency of whether the donations were an attempt to influence the DEA.

 

Meier wrote that "with Giuliani now in the mix, the pace of DEA's investigation into Purdue's OxyContin plant in New Jersey slowed as Hutchinson repeatedly summoned division officials to his office to explain themselves and their reasons for continuing the inquiry."

 

Giuliani publicly praised the company, Purdue Frederick, when it hired him in May 2002 for an undisclosed amount. "Purdue has demonstrated its commitment to fighting this problem," he said, referring to the issue of drug addiction.

[Balta1701]

It seems like today is "Bad press for Rudy" day.

Last weekend Deb and Jerry VonSprecken of Olin received a call from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign office asking them if they would be interested in holding a campaign rally on May 4, after she had donated to his campaign.

 

“We thought it would be an honor and agreed,” said Jerry.

 

The campaign office continued to contact the VonSpreckens throughout last weekend and were told a security check would be needed. The couple passed the security check and began putting plans in place.

 

“We started making phone calls. We got the sheriff and fire department and Olin school was going to let out early. We were also expecting kids from the Anamosa school,” Jerry explained. “Deb even went around and personally invited people.”

 

On Tuesday Deb received a call from Giuliani’s Des Monies office and was asked to call New York.

 

“They wanted to know our assets,” she revealed, and added that she and Jerry have a modest 80 acre farm and raise cattle.

 

Later she received a call from Tony Delgado at the Des Monies location.

 

“Tony said, ‘I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.’ then he said they weren’t going to be able to come,” Deb continued.

 

The Death Tax is a federal version of the Iowa Inheritance Tax.

 

The VonSpreckens then called Delgado back and told him how upset they were that the event had been cancelled, how much work they had done and that they had been expecting 75-100 people at their farm.

 

“I invited him into my home,” Deb said of Giuliani, fighting back tears.

 

She said she then got a call from New York later the same day asking her to introduce Giuliani at a rally in Cedar Rapids, also scheduled for May 4. They offered her one-on-one time with Giuliani and to have her photo taken with him.

 

“My feeling is that they’re trying to cover their butts,” said Jerry.

 

“I may go and give him a piece of my mind, but I’m not going to introduce him,” Deb included.

[NorthSideSox72]

It seems like today is "Bad press for Rudy" day.

Hm. Not a good way to befriend the voters of Jones County, Iowa. I'm guessing that most people there are not millionaires.

[Balta1701]

Rudy also may have accepted, while he was serving as mayor, a couple of $200,000 or so world series rings from the Yankees without reporting them.