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2008 Presidential Thread

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  1. 1. Who are you voting for in 2008?

    • McCain
      15
    • Obama
      13
    • Barr
      3
    • Other
      6
    • Not voting
      30


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I'm abstaining, so I selected "other." I am hoping that the overwhelming majority of those who said they would not vote, are minors or are abstaining also, otherwise, that is truly awful. While I plan to abstain from voting for President, Senate, etc., I do plan to vote on local issues such as tax increases and this gawd-awful personhood amendment in Colorado. There are also some union-related issues I want to vote on. If you are seriously gonna sit on the sidelines, I urge you to reconsider, educate yourself on your local issues and go vote against the crap they're trying to push on you.

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Just to be clear, since the title of the post specifically referenced the presidential race, I selected "Not voting" to signify that I was abstaining from voting in the presidential race, but will still be casting votes in other races. I suspect many of the others who chose "Not voting" are doing likewise.

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Just to be clear, since the title of the post specifically referenced the presidential race, I selected "Not voting" to signify that I was abstaining from voting in the presidential race, but will still be casting votes in other races. I suspect many of the others who chose "Not voting" are doing likewise.

Craig beat me to it. I thought we were talking strictly presidential candidates. I still plan on voting for local issues.

Edited by West
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Some people think that not voting will make a point. How and to who though? Even if both are terrible choices, one has to be worse than the other. Define by your standards what you judge to be the better (or less worse) of the two and vote for them. Either that or start up a gulch in the mountains. If that latter is taken as your plan of action, send me an invitation.

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To paraphrase Mammon I think voting in this election is highly "irresponsible". Why sanction any form of evil?

@ Clockwork If I am correct and we are entering a depression and the government keeps responding the way it does, and especially if Obama is elected things are about to get very dark, very quick. It may soon be time to actually look for that gulch in the mountains.

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I can't vote this November, not being a US citizen and all, but what happens in america is of great import to everyone else. So my thoughts:

What I really want is to do over the primary elections and get the Giuliani vs Clinton matchup everyone else was expecting. Since that's not possible, I favor voting for Obama, plus voting for every possible Republican candidate for everythign else (House, Senate, state elections, local elections, dog catcher, etc).

Why? I intensely dislike both candidates. They're both statists, no question, and Obama is by far the worst. But politics in America these days are highly partisan. Meaning all but a few congressmen and senators vote for their party line, whatever it is. This means a not-so-statist McCain would rule with only very limmited opposition from the other party, as far as statism goes. Any opposition he faces would be for whatever token free-market and religious-right gestures he deigns to engage in to satisfy the GOP "base."

Obama, on the other hand, would face stiff opposition from the GOP. I know the Republicans will likely end up in the minority in Congress, but that doesn't limit them as much as it seems. They were very much the minority in 1992-94, yet managed to oppose Clinton quite effectively, including a complete scrapping of Hillary-care (Republican W. Bush did a lot more to socialize medicine with his prescription drug plan than Clinton ever could).

More later.

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McCain just proposed the following in tonight's debate:

"I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those payments and stay in their homes."

Excuse me, but is he absolutely, completely, and totally nuts? He's essentially nationalizing all of the bad home loans and giving people a free pass for their own stupidity. This election has truly become a choice between shit and garbage.

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McCain just proposed the following in tonight's debate:

"I would order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those payments and stay in their homes."

Excuse me, but is he absolutely, completely, and totally nuts? He's essentially nationalizing all of the bad home loans and giving people a free pass for their own stupidity. This election has truly become a choice between shit and garbage.

Yeah, really! How can I get my mortgage declared as "bad" so I can get my loan reduced by the $100,000 my house has lost in value? What's that? I can't because I can still make the payments??? Totally nuts.

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Or--geez, I only owe about half the value of my house, because of "sweat equity" (I built it mostly myself), but if that value declines some percentage, I expect my mortgage to go down by that same percentage. Why should the bank own a larger and larger share of my house just because the value goes down? Why should the sweat equity be the first thing that disappears? Are they valuing their brains more than my brawn? How dare they?

/sarcasm.

The falling real estate market penalizes everyone who owns a home, whether or not a mortgage is involved (my "sweat equity" from spending seven years of my life building this place IS actually shrinking), but only the irresponsible are not having to pay the price. Their banks are having to do so instead, which means the government will, because of the bailout, which means WE will, because the government's wealth is entirely taken from us. Wow, I not only get to see the value I paid seven years of my life for diminish, I get to pay for someone else too.

:dough: :dough: :dough: :dough: :dough: :dough: :dough: (one for each year of my life being punished)

Edited by Steve D'Ippolito
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Some people think that not voting will make a point. How and to who though?

I'm not sure if this answers your question (because I'm not sure if you mean people physically not going to the polling place, or people just abstaining?) If you mean people abstaining, those votes are counted, so it does send a message that those voters did not want any of the candidates presented. In addition, I think they're both evil and it really doesn't matter which one of them gets into office, so why torture myself by voting for either one?

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When I selected "not voting" I meant I am writing "abstain" on my absentee ballot. I think any other course of action constitutes supporting my destroyers. I still need to think this one over a bit but that is my current thinking.

I did not know you could do that. I have been wishing for a none of the above box. I think it is irresponsible not to vote but, I also can't vote for the lessor of two evils. Do they count all of the "abstain" write ins? Is that option only available on absentee ballots?

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I just wanted to say once again that I really like Sarah Palin despite her contradictions, I think she is a good person for the most part, and I don't think that I've ever thought about any politician (and by the way one of my uncle's used to be mayor of my home city, so that isn't an understatement). It would be nice if she was running for president. But that doesn't make up for McCain's major short-comings so I still can't vote for him in good conscience.

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As of the last election, our ballots were thick--almost cardstock--paper. You probably wouldn't want to wipe your ass with them; not very absorbent. Anyhow, you'd fill in the bubbles with a black ink pen, then feed the ballot into a machine--which read the ballot, count everything and tabulate its results onto a flash memory card, and presumably would kick it back out if you were to vote for two candidates by mistake.

You have the option of voting electronically (and if you vote early I think you have to), but I've heard too many stories (from people like Bruce Schneier, who is a computer security guru) of the machines being easily hacked to trust them.

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I'm abstaining, so I selected "other."

I've decided today, after finally looking into the election more, that I will also be abstaining, because of an article I had read from the latest issue of TOS. This was what I was looking for:

observe that these candidates are indistinguishable in terms of fundamentals.

So, if they are indistinguishable fundamentally, as the article goes on to show, then there is no "lesser of two evils" to really use in my self-defense against the worse of the two. While I wouldn't vote "for" one of the candidates, and since I can't vote against a candidate, since the two are fundamentally equalivalent - I'll thus take a different approach altogether - abstaining in the Presidential race.

If you are seriously gonna sit on the sidelines, I urge you to reconsider, educate yourself on your local issues and go vote against the crap they're trying to push on you.

I have never voted in a Presidential election before, so I really should take that into consideration, now while I'm sitting on the sidelines, I'll read up on the local issues, vote, then sit back down.

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Liberal Democrat & Obama supporter Steve Branchflower determined Sarah Palin abused her power with his finding:

The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in "official action" by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired

http://www.adn.com/troopergate/story/552799.html

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To paraphrase Mammon I think voting in this election is highly "irresponsible". Why sanction any form of evil?

I said not voting was irresponsible. I think K-Mac's idea of at least voting on local issues is the right idea, but only half right. You should vote on the President as well. A vote isn't a sanction. It's answering a question of which choice you'd prefer.

You have an ability to choice, even if you don't like the choices. You should apperciate that. It's more then what most civilizations ever had and a lot have today.

If either candidate got into office and made things as horrible as you guys think they will make things, what can you say if you abstained? You didn't put up a fight. You didn't make a choice. You let them walk in. You stood on the sidelines and said "I refuse to judge" and now your stuck with whatever the rest of the country gives you. If you vote, you can say you don't want it.

Looking at each candidate and deciding which one should be in the White House is only the first step in the descision making. There are so many other factors that each candidate brings with them.

There is a much bigger picture.

It may soon be time to actually look for that gulch in the mountains.

EC, you'd probably just be eaten by a mountain lion.

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