I'm a registered Democrat. This is my first presidential election (I'm 20)!

I'm sorry.

i can finally vote this year, haven't decided which party to register with though (leaning towards Republican)

Ill probably register republican, but im very moderate. I have no clue who im going to vote for.

Oh hush. :rolleyes: :p


Despite popular belief, I'm definitely a Democrat. However, I vote conservatively on a handful of issues...In Europe that would make me a Christian Democrat. I wish we had the political party here, but I guess I'll just have to move to Switzerland. :shrug: Anywho, I'm a Dem though not entirely liberal and would have no trouble voting for a Republican if I thought s/he would do a better job.

They're called Christian Democrat, but they don't amount to anything more than socialists, honestly. The major "right" parties in Europe are mostly to the left of Democrats.

You don't know much about right wing politics in Europe!

Ditto for me.:)

The major parties (that get over 20% of the vote) are not right wing. However, parties like the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands in Germany, Le Pen's party in France (can't think of the name off the top of my head), Freedom Party in Austria, are extremelyy right wing, but more in the "nationalist racist" way, then in the free-market "classically liberal" way. Even then the NPD usually doesn't get more than 5% of the vote. Le Pen who went in the runoff for the Presidency only got like 15%.

I worked with the Freie Demokratische Partei in Germany for several months which is the only major classically liberal party in Germany and it generally garners less than 15% of the vote (in certain areas, far less than that). Furthermore, in terms of "classical liberalism" the FDP is something more akin to Republicans than actual Free Marketers.

The neofascists like Le Pen are indeed rather marginalized today, but that wasn't necessarily always the case in recent history. I just hesitate to say that the Front National is totally irrelevant... It is the third largest party. Even today, they poll significantly better in the first round elections than say the Communists, who used to be a more significant party in France. Although if you combined far left/revolutionary candidates I suppose it would be more than Le Pen or at least equal, but they're very disorganized obviously.

UMP is also more conservative (I think) than you're giving it credit for. It's Liberal-conservative/Gaullist. And Gaullism (I think) is a very conservative movement, although it doesn't always appear that way to Americans because Gaullism includes thumbing your nose at the US to some degree...

eh. I'll leave it there. I don't know enough about modern German politics to discuss it intelligently.

LOL. Just looking back on this.

I no longer consider myself a liberal democrat. I would now call myself (depending on who I'm talking to) a post-leftist, an anarchist, or a libertarian.

Grad school does that to you.

awesome.

I'm a post-modern situationist.

You're right, grown up politics are way more fun.

Helms is dead
 

RALEIGH, N.C. - Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86

"It's just incredible that he would die on July 4, the same day of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and he certainly is a patriot in the mold of those great men," said former North Carolina GOP Rep. Bill Cobey, the chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C.

Helms died at 1:15 a.m, the center said. He died in Raleigh of natural causes, said former chief of staff Jimmy Broughton.

"He was very comfortable," Broughton said.

Funeral arrangements were pending, the Helms center said.

"America lost a great public servant and true patriot today," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said few senators could match Helms' reputation.

"Today we lost a Senator whose stature in Congress had few equals. Senator Jesse Helms was a leading voice and courageous champion for the many causes he believed in," McConnell said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080704/..._us/obit_helms

tree-hugging, flag-burning, pinko commie LIBERAL!

Which pretty much means I vote with the Democratic party in major elections.

The funny thing is, growing up on the west side of Madison, Wisconsin, I thought I was a "moderate Republican," mainly because I supported the death penalty in some cases, and was bitter about affirmative action in college admissions. Those are really the only two issues I've changed my mind about, and now sometimes I feel like I'm off the liberal deep end. But it feels great!

Obama Biden 08!

and, of course, these are my own freely shared opinions, and do not represent opinions of GPB, etc...