2008 elections today!

so who's it going to be?


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Been watching commander in chief? :)

Hah, a friend of mine claims that he voted donald duck last time when we had elections here, or atleast thats what he says. Well I know H.clinton is like the rest of her kind.. A politician, and usually the most powerhungry end up sitting on the president's chair, I'm simply curious if anything could change there, probably nothing big :)
 
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I didn't like Bill Clinton, but readily acknowledge (and did back then as well) that he did mix in some really good stuff in terms of streamlining and efficiency changes to the government. In fact, I liked Gore back in '88 and would have been much more supportive of him had it not been for 'Clinton fatigue'. I stuck with the Libertarian nutjobs on that one.

I don't think Hillary is electable, and if she is I don't think she would be good for the country. I say that not because I don't think she could do a good job. Quite the contrary, I think that she has proven an effective leader and I've actually enjoyed watching some of her live stuff. I just think she is the most divisive person out there. She is like a lightning rod for all of the right-wingnuts!

I'm not sure about Obama either, because he seems like the the really cool guy that will unravel mid-campaign - but I really hate the 'Obama as Muslin' smear campaign that is sucking in computer-n00bs like my parents and scaring them away from actually looking at him objectively.

Edwards is yesterday's loser-news.

On the Republican side, McCain has lost everything that made him attractive 8 years ago. I have no interest in him. Guiliani I just don't know about ... he seems like he's trying to court conservatives despite having a pretty moderate history, then back-pedaling and flip-flopping all over the place trying to justify himself.

I have historically liked Mitt Romney - he was our Governor and did a great job there after doing a great job of handling (rescuing, some say) the Salt Lake City Olympics. But when it was clear he was heading for Washington, he started pulling 'I'm a conservative' crap. I don't know if you know Massachusetts politics, but we are so liberal that we were the only non-Reagan state in '84! I think it has been good check-n-balance having Republican governors and democratic legislatures for 16 years, but now I wonder - who is the *real* Mitt Romney? That thought alone after he has been my governor for 4 years tells me 'no vote 4 u'!
 
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Unless something goes terribly wrong, Hillary Clinton will get her party's nomination. She has all the qualifications for President -- well educated, smart, experienced, and the Democrats just put another woman into the #3 spot.

But the name "Clinton" embodies so much. It's a mixed bag with gems inside. Immediately her name represents success and achievement. But there's that cigar thing too, and all those lucky folks that got pardoned by her husband in his final act as President.

She's handling the war-vote question the same way Bill would. She's dancing. Sometimes the truth just won't do, apparently, not when you're trying to get people's votes.

The Republicans who stand the best chance against her are Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Republicans still have their edge for being tough when they have to be, and that's the card they're both playing.

If he can make it into the deep water, the edge goes to McCain, IMO, because he'll stand up well to the close scrutiny of a nationwide election. Like Reagan, he's a sincere guy who's been saying the same thing forever. He's a genuine hero, and he has more experience than all the Democratic front-runners combined.
 
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You bring up Reagan, which made me think of something. I voted for Reagan twice, but while I think he was perfect back then, I don't think he would be appropriate now. Similarly, I think that despite being very popular back then and also through nostalgia, Clinton wouldn't be the right one now. Things have changed and we need to move forward, not back. I don't think that *any* Republican has a chance of forward motion, and don't see Clinton doing it either. But, like I said, not because she lacks ability - she is much smarter than her husband and while she'll never have his charisma, she is working on her character and trying to be more personable.
 
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In my opinion, it's time to get a woman in charge - that way, women in general can finally stop going "if only we had a woman in charge".

On a more serious note, I personally hope for Hillary as I think she might be the right one to fix relations across the world that have been weakened in recent years. She seems good at that sort of thing. Her husband, Bill, is currently occupied trying to stop global warming, which is a cause I support a lot. In general, I feel the two could do a good job (let's face it, Bill would definetly be in the picture) as far as world politics go. I don't know enough about domestic poletics in the US to say whether or not anyone would do well at home.
 
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I would vote for Ron Paul. He is so different from most other republicans. He was great on the Bill Maher show on May 26th. You can find that full episode on YouTube if you're interested in seeing it(though you can also find small clips of it that leave out important parts). The thing I did not like though, is Ben Affleck was one of the guests, and he said that Mitt Romney will beat Ron Paul and get the republican nomination. Even Bill Maher himself who hates Bush and usually hates other republicans seems to genuinely like Ron Paul. He would be great to move the republican party back in a positive direction, instead of the disastrous direction Bush has been pushing the republican party. Bush and Paul may both be republicans, but they disagree on so much, its hard to believe they are both in the same party. There really is somewhat of a republican rebellion going on lately with Bush's strong and incomprehensible support for the senate bill entitled S. 1348(unfortunately Obama and Hilary both seem to basically support most aspects of it, and McCain is fully in favor of it and they have poor records in supporting legislation that would stop ilelgal immigration so for that reason alone I could not vote for them), telling people it does not include amnesty, and the lame security provisions in it that would not secure our borders to further illegal immigration. The last amnesty bill we had in 1986 under president Reagan was very similar to the S. 1348 bill, and that was a failure and only caused illegal immigration to increase. For the record, I have no problem with legal immigration in reasonable and racially balanced numbers(and our legal and illegal immigration is not racially balanced at all, but has been massively favoring hispanics over all other races for the past several decades, see this link for more info http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4703307
but I'm against illegal immigration. Conservative journalists, talk show hosts and t.v. show hosts have been really slamming Bush on this(and other politicians who support it) and for good reason. Most polls taken in the U.S. show that both democrat and republican U.S. citizens feel there is already too much immigration and it needs to be lowered, and much more could be done to secure our borders to prevent illegal immigration and most also want a law passed to make english the official language of the U.S. The citizenship clause of the 14th amendment is being abused like never before and it was never intended to give automatic citizenship to children of illegal aliens(but the courts have been wrongly interpreting it that way for a long time now), and one of the authors of the amendment even said as much on the floor of the senate back in the 1800's. We need to get the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment back to its original meaning and that woul help alot with discouraging future illegal immigration and Ron Paul would do that if elected. We need a president as well as senators and representatives who will carry out the will of the people and not ignore them. The only 3 candidates who are really serious about stopping illegal immigration without granting amnesty to all the illegals who are here are Paul, Tancredo and Hunter. Check out this link for more info
http://www.betterimmigration.com/
You might ask, well if not amnesty, then what should be done with all the illegal aliens currently in the U.S.? Attrition through enforcement. If we finally get serious about enforcing immigration laws(instead of just making token efforts to enforce immigration laws like every president post-Eisenhower)such as preventing employers from illegaly employing illegal aliens and reserving welfare benefits for only those in the country legally, most illegal aliens would eventually leave the country over time on their own and then go to the back of the line and apply to legally immigrate instead of trying to get in illegally again. The few who don't could eventually be deported.
Some say the main reason Bush is doing this is because he is a globalist like his father who thinks a one world government(governments across the world combining until there is eventually only one big government left)is what we should be aiming for in the future, and thats why he is quietly and stealthily setting the stage for the future formation of a North American Union(Connie Fogal of the Canadian Action Party has been making light of this in Canada and speaking out about it, and in the U.S. Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo have come out against it, but no other presidential candidates that I know of have spoken out against the idea), whether American citizens like it or not. O_O
 
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The top politicians are typically soulless, middling nothings. I agree with Dez.
 
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Soulless middling nothingness pretty much describes every candidate's position on immigration reform during yesterday's Democratic Party candidate debate. We'll soon see if the Republican candidates can do any better.

Politicians are particularly ill suited to address this problem, because taking real action means losing a lot of (hispanic) votes; and that's why it remains unsolved. If it were up to a bunch of plumbers, shoe salesmen or engineers, it would have been solved a long time ago.
 
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If it were up to a bunch of plumbers, shoe salesmen or engineers, it would have been solved a long time ago.

It is funny that you put 'engineers' in there, because while the number of visas for skilled technical workers has been too low to meet demand, there have been unskilled *illegal* immigrants streaming across the borders taking from the system and giving nothing or very little back.
 
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If it were up to a bunch of ... engineers, it would have been solved a long time ago.
Goes without saying, and applicable to most any problem... ;)
 
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Goes without saying, and applicable to most any problem... ;)

And even if the outcome wasn't particularly efficient it would be exciting to watch ;)
 
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Rube Goldberg, eat your heart out! :D
 
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Same here, Corwin, but 'luckily' I have to work on that day , so nog obligated vote for me.

Since I switched firm, I do have to vote tomorrow. Ah well, at least I don't have to work.

Btw, a little while ago some American political news slipped in to our seven o'clock news. I don't know exactly who it was that said, only that it was a republican: countries with two or more main languages simply don't work!
I'll bet he never heard of Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and most likely some others.
 
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There's a great deal of stupidity going on around Montreal due to friction between the French and English speakers. I would venture to say it isn't working all that well there. I believe you have pointed out in the past that there's friction in your country as the dominant language seeks to push out the culture of your part of the country, yes?
 
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There are disturbances, but no more then in another country where only language would be spoken.
The dominant language is rather undecided: Dutch could be viewed as the dominant cause of a 6.5 to 4 milion majority. Still Belgium is often viewed as a French speaking country and as I already pointed out: they still have much more power then the Dutch speaking part. Some people want to split up the country, I'd say devide the things where there's a difference of opinion (because of another cultural herritage) and keep one for the rest. The people who want to either split up or want to 'push out the culture of the other part' are in fact minorities. Important minorities, but minorities nevertheless.
 
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.... Some people want to split up the country, I'd say devide the things where there's a difference of opinion (because of another cultural herritage) and keep one for the rest. The people who want to either split up or want to 'push out the culture of the other part' are in fact minorities. Important minorities, but minorities nevertheless.

Same here. But there's something about language that hardens the cultural division. U.S. has had wave after wave of immigration from all nations, but having one official language which immigrants learn is part of identifying with and becoming part of the country.
Those who don't wish to do so are identifying more completely with their old country, and while that is their right, perhaps it would be more appropriate for them to stay and improve that country rather than coming here and absorbing all the benefits of the existing culture while expecting to be treated as foreign nationals as well.

My two cents.
 
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Same here. But there's something about language that hardens the cultural division. U.S. has had wave after wave of immigration from all nations, but having one official language which immigrants learn is part of identifying with and becoming part of the country.
Those who don't wish to do so are identifying more completely with their old country, and while that is their right, perhaps it would be more appropriate for them to stay and improve that country rather than coming here and absorbing all the benefits of the existing culture while expecting to be treated as foreign nationals as well.

My two cents.

I understand your point. Through history however it wasn't always so clear what the main language was in America. Ex:Columbus -> Spannish all the way it would seem. Another example is that of New Orleans -> Orleance is a city in France and it was a (rather small one, but still..) possibility that the US would change language to French. I believe they fought together with the US against the UK and the statue of liberty a gift from France was.
I don't say that you have to accept what's happening now, not at all, just that it wasn't always so clear for the US which language would be the one.

My point however was something different: It was for me a ridiculous thing to say that countries with more than one official language don't work. If the (I believe it was a presidential candidate for the Republicans, but I'm not sure.) politician would have just said what you just wrote, hell, I'd just concur with him.
It would be the same like the AEL proposed in Belgium to make Arabic an official language.
 
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Oh yeah, a part of the results are already known for the elections in my country. It seems that CD&V (the Christians) / NVA have won the elections on the Flemmish side. Lijst Dedecker, the vote from titus (if he still voted like he said here), has reached the election limit of 5% and therefore a reprensentative in the senate.
In the other part of Belgium, it seems that it's even more suprising: PS (socialists) may have lost their majority and for the first time in history not be the largetst party in the Southern Part.
 
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English is the language of the United States, and that's obvious to all of us over here. What's less obvious is the value of helping children of immigrants learn their parents' first language.

My mother spoke Russian as a child and would often translate for her grandmother whose English was poor. She remembers how proud her grandmother was for having three sons and a grandson fighting for the US in World War II, how proudly she signified that by posted four US flags outside her home and how she once marched in a local parade honoring the war effort, carrying and waving a US flag.

She translated her brother's letters, because he wrote them in English. He was killed shortly before the war ended.

My mother looks back with regret, remembering how she never wanted anyone she knew to hear her speaking Russian. Like any young person, she wanted to fit in, and that meant speaking English. Today she can't remember or speak a word of Russian.

My mother's family would have been better off if their children had been encouraged to embrace and preserve their heritage. Many families in the US are in that same position now, only worse, because of well-meaning school policies that put so much emphasis on English.

Countries with more than one official language are challenged because of it (sorry, Bartacus). But they're also better off, because they have more culture and heritage.
 
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Canada is interesting!! The french minority (mainly Quebec ) have wanted to seperate for more years than even I can remember. Much of the rest of the country would be happy to see them go!! :)

Language is a problem, even though everything has to be printed in both English and French. In the schools, we learnt 'Parisian' french, which is not quite the same as what is spoken in Quebec. When I trotted out my schoolboy french on a visit to Montreal, I was laughed at (not pleasantly). Shall we see, that in Canada, there's an uneasy truce between the 2 cultures. Perhaps some of our members who still live there could give more recent examples, but I know some hostilities still exist!! :)
 
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