GOP Primaries/Candidates thread

[mr_genius]

outside of his wife and kids?

 

Duke Cunningham maybe?

[Rex Kickass]

He talks about how he's really out for the working class and against corporate greed , but was bribed by hedge funds (by far one of his largest donors) and always returns the favor with his voting records. Thats fine if he is for hedge funds and stuff, but spare us the "I'm really out for the little guy" bs. Also his record on the Iraq war is legendary in it's contradiction. He' a total bulls***ter basically.

 

Oh, I also just saw him on Meet the Press, and he really sucked. So thats probably the main reason I put him in that group

 

Chris Dodd is also the only elected official running for President whose putting his money where his mouth is right now.

[Rex Kickass]

The firefighters union is supporting a Dem over Giuliani? shocking

 

It shouldn't be shocking at all. Ask a city firefighter how they were treated by the Mayor's office before 9/11 and after 9/11... and you'll hear a very different story than what Rudy wants to believe.

[Texsox]

The firefighters union is supporting a Dem over Giuliani? shocking

 

mr_genius agreeing with the liberal media over the brave men and women of the NYPD, shocking.

[southsider2k5]

 

It seems the Repubs are going to import a candidate to try to knock off John Murtha.

 

http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/loca..._301003334.html

 

Career Army man to challenge Murtha

 

BY MIKE FAHER

The Tribune-Democrat

 

After nearly three decades in the military, William T. Russell’s latest mission has brought him to Johnstown.

 

The career Army man, just two years short of retirement, has left the service and moved to the Flood City in order to mount a political campaign against veteran Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha.

 

As a Republican and first-time candidate facing a powerful congressman in the sprawling, Democrat-dominated 12th Congressional District, Russell faces a tough challenge.

 

But he is determined to press ahead and will formally announce his candidacy within weeks.

 

“I recognize this is an uphill battle,” Russell said in an interview last week at The Tribune-Democrat.

 

“But it’s one that must be fought.”

 

Murtha, who declined any comment on Russell’s candidacy when contacted through a spokesman last week, has served in the House since 1974.

 

The 75-year-old is known for bringing money and jobs – especially in the defense sector – to his district, and last year he became chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

 

But Murtha’s repeated calls for a military withdrawal from Iraq and his criticism of the Bush administration have spurred a backlash among conservatives.

 

Republican Diana Irey, a Washington County commissioner, tried to capitalize on that sentiment during her 2006 campaign against Murtha. But the congressman cruised to victory.

 

Russell, 45, is betting on a different result next year. He readily acknowledges that he moved to Johnstown from the Washington, D.C., area specifically so that he could run in the 12th District.

 

Murtha is a decorated Vietnam War veteran. But Russell also has extensive military credentials.

 

Born on an Air Force base in Newfoundland, Canada, Russell’s long Army and Army Reserve career includes duty in the Balkans and in both Iraq wars.

 

Russell and his wife, Kasia, were in the Pentagon when a hijacked jetliner crashed into the building on Sept. 11, 2001. They escaped unharmed.

 

While Murtha’s encounters with wounded soldiers have solidified his stance on Iraq, Russell said a similar encounter left him with the opposite impression: To withdraw from Iraq, he argues, would render the sacrifices of those soldiers pointless.

 

“I think Mr. Murtha is just flat-out wrong,” Russell said.

 

The Republican also cites, as Irey did, Murtha’s public accusation that U.S. Marines murdered innocent civilians in the Iraq town of Haditha in 2005.

 

The congressman, Russell contends, is “playing right into the hands of this enemy.”

 

On his Web site, Russell takes that line of thought a step further and attempts to raise the stakes for next year’s election.

 

“In this war against Islamic radicalism, the political battle of the 2008 election in the Pennsylvania 12th Congressional District is a critical turning point,” he said.

 

Russell’s platform is not limited to the Iraq issue.

 

He seeks to turn a long history of substantial economic clout against Murtha, arguing that the congressman is an “extreme practitioner of cronyism” who has not created long-term, sustainable jobs in this area.

 

As a small-business owner who operates an ATM company, Russell says he wants to help create a local economy that is more dependent on the free market – while also acknowledging that some jobs may be lost if governmental contracts disappear.

 

“A lot of folks have gotten very, very dependent on this ‘pork’ structure,” Russell said.

 

Russell still has significant hurdles to clear before he can legitimately challenge Murtha. Political support is one issue.

 

It is not yet clear whether Russell will have any primary-election opposition from within his party. Irey last week would say only that she is focused on her current campaign for Washington County commissioner.

 

Russell has met with local Republican leaders, who are not wading into the Murtha race just yet.

 

“Right now, we’re focused on the Nov. 6 election,” said Ann Wilson, Cambria County Republican Committee executive director. “It’s too early to comment on the 2008 election.”

 

Adequate fundraising also is a concern, though Russell said he hopes to buttress campaign cash with significant grassroots support.

 

“There’s a lot of folks who might not have a whole lot of money to throw at a campaign but can donate some time and effort,” he said. “And I’m getting a lot of those types of promises.”

[BigSqwert]

It seems the Repubs are going to import a candidate to try to knock off John Murtha.

 

http://www.tribune-democrat.com/local/loca..._301003334.html

I would be surprised, as would many others, if this guy beats Murtha.

[Texsox]

Didn't the Dems try this the past cycle? I guess it must have been successful. He seems like a good candidate and anything that brings better candidates into the mix is a good thing.

[mr_genius]

mr_genius agreeing with the liberal media over the brave men and women of the NYPD, shocking.

 

 

I have decided to now vote for who Rosie O'donnell and Al Gore endorse. I've seen the light, my friend.

[mr_genius]

Chris Dodd is also the only elected official running for President whose putting his money where his mouth is right now.

 

Oh definitely. Don't leave out John Edwards just because he's not an elected official. he's the real deal, i hope he wins.

[Texsox]

[southsider2k5]

More Ron Paul love...

 

 

 

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/...=rss-topstories

 

It sometimes seems as if someone is playing a cruel practical joke on Ron Paul. He goes to a college and delivers the same speech he's given for the past 30 years of his political career, the one espousing the Austrian school of economics. Only now the audience is packed with hundreds of kids in RON PAUL REVOLUTION T shirts who go nuts — giving standing ovations when he drones on about getting rid of the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard. After a speech at Iowa State last month, when nearly half the crowd had to stand because there were only 400 seats, a hipster-looking student worked his way through the half-hour-long line to shake Paul's hand. This was surely it — the moment when the straight faces would break and Paul would be wedgied up the flagpole. "When you see Bernanke," the kid said, "will you tell him to stop cutting rates when gold hits 1,000?"

 

Politics might be rock 'n' roll for nerds, but the nerds aren't supposed to be quite this nerdy. The leader of the disaffected in next year's presidential election — the Howard Dean, the Ross Perot, the Pat Buchanan — is a kindly great-grandfather and obstetrician whose passion is monetary policy. Paul, a 72-year-old hard-core libertarian Republican Congressman who is against foreign intervention, subsidies and the federal income tax, is not only drawing impressive crowds (more than 2,000 at a postdebate rally at the University of Michigan last month) but also raising tons of cash. In the third quarter of 2007, Paul took in $5.3 million (just slightly less than GOP rival John McCain), mostly in small, individual donations. On Oct. 22, he aired his first TV ads, $1.1 million worth in New Hampshire.

 

The numbers are even more impressive considering that as of early October, 72% of GOP voters told Gallup pollsters they didn't know enough about Paul to form an opinion. He has been able to attract followers in the debates, where he's presented a clear, simple philosophy of personal freedom and responsibility. He bluntly refers to the U.S. as an empire. And the nerdiness lends Paul's simple message an aura of credibility, especially on a stage with more polished politicians and their nuanced positions. "He's about something that American nerd culture can get on board with: really knowing one subject and going all out on it," says Ben Darrington, a Ron Paul supporter at Yale. "For some people, it's Star Wars. For some people, it's Japanese cartoons. For Ron Paul, it's free-market commodity money."

 

The libertarian's traction is most apparent on the Internet, where his presence far outstrips that of any candidate from either party. His name is the most searched, his YouTube videos the most watched, his campaign the topic of songs by at least 14 bands. "The last thing I would listen to is rap," Paul says. "But there's something going on when there's a rap song about the Fed." On Tuesday, both Paul and Tom Cruise were guests on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The actor went to Paul's dressing room to thank him for his work on a bill fighting the forced mental screening of grade-school kids. "Go. Go. Go. Go hard," Cruise said. Paul turned to an aide and asked, "What movies has he been in?"

 

Paul's fans — and there were more than 100 of them in Leno's audience, many of whom had flown in from out of town — are entranced by a man who responds to surprising information with "Wowee" and a jaw-dropped smile not often seen apart from 5-year-old boys and Muppets. "It's the message. Ron isn't that exciting as himself," says Andre Marrou, who was Paul's running mate when he ran as a Libertarian in 1988. "I saw him referred to in print as semi-eccentric. He's maybe 10% eccentric. It's his ideas that are eccentric. But it's basic Americanism." Paul is such a strict constructionist that he autographs pocket Constitutions more often than Tommy Lee signs breasts.

 

But Paul's popularity can't necessarily be explained by a previously undetected craving for gold-standard debates on college campuses. His message, even if packaged in obscure economic lectures, is that there is something very corrupt, very Halliburton-Blackwatery going on with our military-industrial complex, and that can attract some pretty weird followers. At the Iowa State event, a student stood outside in a tricornered hat and Revolutionary War–era suit, ringing a bell. Representative Tom Tancredo, another long-shot GOP candidate, tells me that after a debate in New Hampshire, one of his staffers walked up to a guy in a shark costume and asked him if he was a Ron Paul supporter. "No. They're all nuts," replied the shark. "I'm just a guy in a shark suit." There is a subset of Paul supporters who believe 9/11 was an inside job by the U.S. government. And there are anarchists as well: they've picked Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day, for a fund-raising drive.

 

"His supporters are the equivalent of crabgrass," says GOP consultant Frank Luntz. "It's not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff. They just like him because he's the most anti-Establishment of all the candidates, the most likely to look at the camera during the debates and say, 'Hey, Washington, f____ you.'"

 

The one place Paul hasn't become a major player is where it counts: in the polls, where he hasn't broken above 5% and has yet to pass Mike Huckabee. Paul realizes he's not a favorite among the pro-war, pro-Bush Republicans. "A lot of times at my rally, I say, 'We're diverse. We even have some Republicans,'" he jokes. (His largest Meetup.com group gathers in liberal Austin, Texas; another sizable one is in San Francisco.) And he isn't sure where all this sudden support will lead.

 

Paul doesn't expect that he will win the nomination, and he has no interest in running as an independent again. But he also doesn't see himself endorsing one of the other Republicans in the general election. "Those people who support me wouldn't believe it," he says. "If I said, 'Giuliani's a great guy, and he'll reduce subsidies and bring the troops home'? I couldn't do that." Even nerd revolutions don't surrender.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Fred Thompson might have been a prosecutor in Law & Order, but really seems to like hanging out with criminals in real life. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

Republican presidential candidate Fred D. Thompson has been crisscrossing the country since early this summer on a private jet lent to him by a businessman and close adviser who has a criminal record for drug dealing.

 

Thompson selected the businessman, Philip Martin, to raise seed money for his White House bid. Martin is one of four campaign co-chairmen and the head of a group called the "first day founders." Campaign aides jokingly began to refer to Martin, who has been friends with Thompson since the early 1990s, as the head of "Thompson's Airforce."

 

Thompson's frequent flights aboard Martin's twin-engine Cessna 560 Citation have saved him more than $100,000, because until the law changed in September, campaign-finance rules allowed presidential candidates to reimburse private jet owners for just a fraction of the true cost of flights.

 

Martin entered a plea of guilty to the sale of 11 pounds of marijuana in 1979; the court withheld judgment pending completion of his probation. He was charged in 1983 with violating his probation and with multiple counts of felony bookmaking, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy. He pleaded no contest to the cocaine-trafficking and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from a plan to sell $30,000 worth of the drug, and was continued on probation.

 

Thompson's campaign said the candidate was not aware of the multiple criminal cases, for which Martin served no jail time. All are described in public court records.

 

Karen Hanretty, Thompson's deputy communications director, said yesterday that "Senator Thompson was unaware of the information until this afternoon. Phil Martin has been a friend of the senator since the mid-1990s and remains so today." Thompson communications director Todd Harris added that Martin was not subjected to the campaign's standard vetting process because "he's a longtime friend."

 

So Thompson isn't aware that his campaign chairs are convicted drug traffickers, he isn't aware of high level defections within his campaign, and apparently didnt turn his hearing aid up enough to understand the difference between Civil Unions and the Soviet Union. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7102901455.html

 

Edward Paul, an employee of the Delta Dental Plans Association, asked the question Monday, but had trouble being understood.

 

"I'm proud to say that in January 2008 New Hampshire has passed a law facilitating civil unions here. ... What is your belief for federal civil unions to be passed?" Paul asked.

 

"Soviet Union?" Thompson responded.

 

"No, civil unions," Paul said.

 

I understand wanting someone from outside Washington running, but I don't understand why this guy is running.

[Texsox]

It worked out pretty well the last time the GOP had an actor-politician

 

McCain '08 When the GOP wakes up and realizes the best canddate out there, that declared, is right under their noses, all will be good.

[EvilMonkey]

Fred Thompson might have been a prosecutor in Law & Order, but really seems to like hanging out with criminals in real life. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=topnews

So Thompson isn't aware that his campaign chairs are convicted drug traffickers, he isn't aware of high level defections within his campaign, and apparently didnt turn his hearing aid up enough to understand the difference between Civil Unions and the Soviet Union. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7102901455.html

I understand wanting someone from outside Washington running, but I don't understand why this guy is running.

Is that all you got? He doesn't hear a question fully, and now he is in need of hearing aids and senile? He actually associates with someone who has had a criminal past, and now he is tainted too? Might as well wipe the whole damn field of candidates from both sides then if that is the case.

[Texsox]

Is that all you got? He doesn't hear a question fully, and now he is in need of hearing aids and senile? He actually associates with someone who has had a criminal past, and now he is tainted too? Might as well wipe the whole damn field of candidates from both sides then if that is the case.

 

Shall we apply the same standard here that we would if it was someone like Hillary Clinton?

[EvilMonkey]

Shall we apply the same standard here that we would if it was someone like Hillary Clinton?

The difference being Hill's associates are committing the crimes now (HU) as opposed to a decade or two ago. I see Obama's association with Rezko hasn't hurt him too much yet.

[Texsox]

The difference being Hill's associates are committing the crimes now (HU) as opposed to a decade or two ago. I see Obama's association with Rezko hasn't hurt him too much yet.

 

Well as long as other candidates are doing it, I guess it is ok.

[Rex Kickass]

Is that all you got? He doesn't hear a question fully, and now he is in need of hearing aids and senile? He actually associates with someone who has had a criminal past, and now he is tainted too? Might as well wipe the whole damn field of candidates from both sides then if that is the case.

 

What should concern you is that he didn't bother to even put his campaign chairs through a vetting process.

 

He isn't aware when high level straegists, and the guy running his Iowa campaign leaves his campaign.

 

He's just out of touch... and running a horrible campaign.

 

The best proof of this are the state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

 

He's in danger of falling into fifth place in Iowa behind Huckabee, and in NH, some polls show him finishing behind Ron Paul. His poll numbers in other states (SC, NJ and FL) have plummeted since he entered the race. So apparently, I'm not the only one who seems to feel this way.

[NorthSideSox72]

What should concern you is that he didn't bother to even put his campaign chairs through a vetting process.

 

He isn't aware when high level straegists, and the guy running his Iowa campaign leaves his campaign.

 

He's just out of touch... and running a horrible campaign.

 

The best proof of this are the state polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

 

He's in danger of falling into fifth place in Iowa behind Huckabee, and in NH, some polls show him finishing behind Ron Paul. His poll numbers in other states (SC, NJ and FL) have plummeted since he entered the race. So apparently, I'm not the only one who seems to feel this way.

He seems to have picked a close staff that just doesn't know how to campaign and how to market him. And I think its taken him from a possible top tier candidate, down to someone who just isn't going to compete.

 

[kapkomet]

He seems to have picked a close staff that just doesn't know how to campaign and how to market him. And I think its taken him from a possible top tier candidate, down to someone who just isn't going to compete.

Based on his positions, I was excited to see him enter the race. Since then, his campaign has totally been useless and he is totally out of touch. He has no shot, and I'm EXTREMELY surprised by this. The guy thought his "conservative" background would win it for him by itself. Sorry, Freddy, it doesn't work that way. Show us that you want to win, not just have it handed to you.

[Texsox]

IIRC he was a very skilled campaigner before leaving office. I wonder if this is an example of the big step it takes in going national. I had never really thought about it before but going from local to county to state to national are all big jumps. If we consider this is part of a job interview and what we do as voters is "hire" someone, he is not looking good from a preperation stand point.

[southsider2k5]

Its funny because if you get past the quad-rennial "idiot Republician" media slash-job, the positions he has on lots of the major issues, are by far my favorite. His SSI and Illegal Immigration plans are not only both intelligent compromises, they also promise the least disruption to day to day lives for the most people. But its easier to buy the all-too-predictable "idiot" label...

[NorthSideSox72]

Its funny because if you get past the quad-rennial "idiot Republician" media slash-job, the positions he has on lots of the major issues, are by far my favorite. His SSI and Illegal Immigration plans are not only both intelligent compromises, they also promise the least disruption to day to day lives for the most people. But its easier to buy the all-too-predictable "idiot" label...

I really don't see him being cast as an "idiot". Its more he seems lazy and uninterested, which is different. I like some of his ideas too. But he seems to almost dislike the idea of the job.

 

[Texsox]

Its funny because if you get past the quad-rennial "idiot Republician" media slash-job, the positions he has on lots of the major issues, are by far my favorite. His SSI and Illegal Immigration plans are not only both intelligent compromises, they also promise the least disruption to day to day lives for the most people. But its easier to buy the all-too-predictable "idiot" label...

 

Exactly. It's like there is a formula or script that has to be followed and he got stuck with that role.

[EvilMonkey]

Actually, it is more like he is NOt following the script. Just because he doesn't act like he has an expresso machine IV'ed into his arm, he seems uninterested. Just because he doesn't orate like a southern preacher,he is uninspiring. I don't watch every speech or talk he gives, but the ones I do see, he talks like he is talkign to the person sitting in front of him, like a person, not a soundbite. I agree that his campaign doesn't seem to have the 'energy' that others do, and in the short term (the primaries) that might hurt him. But like SS2K, I like his positions on alot of the major issues, and hope that people can see above the forced exhuberance of the candidates to see the actual issues. I know, I am dreaming, but hey, it's my dream.