a flower in hell on 24/10/2008 at 19:51

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both of them supported making Hank Paulson the economic dictator of the US finanical system.

neither of them get my vote.

please for the love of all that is holy, SAVE THE FREE MARKET. Don't let these idiots remove our ability to succeed by removing any chance to fail.

Starrfall on 24/10/2008 at 21:17

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Sarah Palin doesn't know if an abortion clinic bomber is a terrorist

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hu1NeI4M1k)

heywood on 24/10/2008 at 23:32

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Perot was leading the polls before he dropped out of the race in 1992 citing some wild-ass conspiracy. He reluctantly got back in, and despite looking like a tin-foil hat wearing kook and only campaigning in a handful of states, he still ended up with 19% of the popular vote. Personally, I didn't support Perot but shit, at one point he was leading the fucking race! Don't dismiss 3rd parties. At one point, the Republican party was a 3rd party.



The lesser of two evils approach to voting is precisely why we have a dysfunctional political system that represents the interests of lobbyists, fundraisers, and donors over the public good. It guarantees that populist and reform candidates won't succeed. Vote for somebody, not against somebody.

Starrfall on 25/10/2008 at 15:04

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It's not happening this time around though. People are for Obama, and many have been for long to not want McCain, including his complete 180 from the kind of views he expresses in the last video I posted. But a better reason to not want McCain is because you think Obama is the better candidate. You're not for either, and that's fine, you shouldn't vote for either. But don't assume everyone else is just picking the lesser of two evils.

I think what Perot shows is that people are willing to consider third parties, but the third party needs to money to get themselves and their message out there. This isn't really different from what's going on now - a young black first term senator probably would never have gotten this far without being able to raise oodles of cash. But the other way to start getting known as a third option is to start small and move up: get some third parties in there as state legislators, as mayors, maybe as congressman. Get them known and see what you can do from there.

Not you personally, obviously. And I think it's good that there are 3rd parties on the presidential ballot, but it's just not going to happen. Their focus should be on down-ticket races they can win because it's easier to get exposure among smaller numbers of people when you don't have millions of dollars. I'd like 3rd parties to make some gains this election (and I think libertarians have a good shot) because republicans and democrats generally tend to take too much for granted, especially in the local, gerrymander-protected races. But voting blindly for a third party just because they're a third party isn't any better than voting blindly for a democrat or republican just because they're a democrat or republican.

(That's probably a lot of rambling without a coherent point because I'm not really awake yet, so don't try to make TOO much sense of it)

Starrfall on 25/10/2008 at 15:17

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Right, and io is wrong (and/or is being sarcastic, he probably doesn't really think we're all going to die in nuclear war if McCain wins) which is why I said if you don't support either you shouldn't vote for either. But that still doesn't mean everyone else is picking the lesser of two evils. Obama had gotten millions of dollars in small donations from hundreds of thousands of supporters before anyone knew who the republican candidate would be. Those aren't people picking the best of the worst, those are people who picked the best (for them) from the beginning.

As a tangent, if you've heard about the McCain campaigner who was attacked by a black man who carved a "B" into her face, it turns out she (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/24/mccain.sticker/?iref=hpmostpop) wasn't (which everyone on the internet knew as soon as the picture went up.) What she IS is being charged with a misdemeanor for wasting the cops' time. I think the most interesting thing about this is that the McCain campaign didn't jump all over this story or try to use her as a poster child, which if nothing else shows that they've learned to check these people out before trying to ride their plumber's cracks to victory.

The unanswered question is who in the hell she thought she was going to fool. Anyone who's seen a knife wound knows they don't look like that, and that's only one of the holes in her story. I've done more damage to myself while cooking. (The original picture can be seen (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/3250760/John-McCain-supporter-has-letter-B-scratched-into-face-by-attacker.html) here)

edit: Ok it may not be so unanswered anymore, apparently she has "mental health issues"