I have a question, do you think that if Obama loses Texas and win the majority of the remaining states. do you think that he'll get the nomination?

I doubt that Obama will win Texas, because he's having trouble with the Latino votes. And of course, Texas has a lot of Latino voters.

Romney just quit.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

I'm sorry, but what a dweeb.

Well, the field is really narrowing down on both sides.

The field still sucks!

I don't know though... Obama has done really well in states that are traditionally very conservative, even with Latinos in those states. From what I can tell it is the blue-state-Latinos he has trouble with. With republican and independent Latinos, he does better. I paid attention in particular when Obama won a county in Idaho that is particularly known for having a high Latino population. He ended up winning that county by 76%.

Congratulations! Please keep posting about it - it's such an amazing process, and I can't possibly be the only one who will want to hear all about it!

I thought very much the same as I heard his speech.
I do not believe that anyone, at this time, would not and does not support the war on terrorism.

All he did was pick up on one of Bush's favorite comments.

Seems as if the party's gloves are now off. This is just the start of the mud slinging I fear.

On another note; the WSJ suggested a non-partisan web site to follow matters; including delegate counts.
It is:
http://realclearpolitics.com/

Really, guys? You think Obama and Clinton are as committed to the war on terror, including the war in Iraq, as McCain is?

I don't think they're pro-terror or at least see themselves in that sense, but I think there's a huge difference in their attitudes about military action and policy and that of McCain.

I'm not trying to get into which is actually the correct attitude to hold, but if you believe that McCain is correct about Iraq as I think Romney does, there is a big reason to think his victory in the general, over two candidates who basically said they'd pull out of Iraq quickly, is important.

I was simply stating that Romney is a dweeb to say that's why he's quitting when the real reason he's quitting is because he got his ass handed to him on a plate.

My thought too.

You know and I know he intends to run for office again. Better to quit now and make the GOP happy so they'll support him in a few years.

. . . and one thing about being that far behind is that continuing to push while having your "ass handed to [you]" is that it detracts from your party's chances of winning, which indirectly does all of the things he mentioned (in his mind).

So he's not really being all that disingenuous here - they're both the "reason" he's quitting. One is the general cause, the other is why he's specifically choosing this moment instead of 2 weeks from now.

But isn't the "why now" part all any of them really have to address when they get out at this point? We all know one of them will emerge as the delegate winner, and we also know how he did on Super Tuesday.

And Romney is the one candidate who could probably financially afford to stay in the race if he really wanted too. With Fred and Rudy, part of the problem beyond the early primaries was running out of cash.

I guess his speech didn't strike me as dweebish. I think from a GOP perspective it's a good answer. He doesn't think he's going to win it this time, and he wants the GOP to win the general. Getting out now does help McCain.

Thank you! I'm really excited for it but I need to do so much research first. I'm planning on introducing some resolutions too!

Am I the only one thinking Romney may have been offered a v-p place for withdrawing now?

I'm doubting the Romney as VP thing because a lot of right-wing-evangelicals aren't too jazzed about McCain and (rightly or wrongly) I think that putting a mormon on the ticket will make them even lessed jazzed.

I think Huckabee is a more likely VP candidate... or at least someone who doesn't irritate evangelicals so much.

I wouldn't have thought so yesterday - but it's just odd. Yesterday the news was all about Romney's strategy - and today he pulls out. Maybe he did have a change of heart, and I'm just too cynical.

A link on realclearpolitics ended up with this:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8386.html
Romney ends bid, eyeing 2012

And just who was it who said that we will be in Iraq for 100 years???

War on terror was NOT, as most people understand now, in Iraq.
Now it is.

Oh, god, Huckabee's on Colbert Report, trying to be funny and glib about how McCain shouldn't be assumed the party nominee. I love how this guy keeps trying to come off as "normal". He has a sense of humor, I'll give him that. But his views are way outside the "normal" mainstream, IMO.


ETA: they're playing air hockey with a cut-out puck that looks like Texas... what a guy's guy

This is what I used to think about Bush. "Oh, don't worry, the American people won't elect him just because he makes jokes and likes to chainsaw things on his "ranch" in Texas." But I was WRONG.

I worry big time about Huckabee being given the VP running mate job with McCain, in part because of McCain's age. By the time he takes office he would be 72; isn't the avg lifespan of an American male 76? Even if he lived out his first term, he would be a one-term President...leaving Huckabee or Romney to bombard us with campaigning again in 3-4 years.

I can't watch anything that has Huckabee speaking. His voice reminds me of the tele-evangelists my grandmother used to force me to watch on Sunday mornings when I would visit her. She was convinced I was going to hell and thought that watching these people would convert me.

And Huckabee sounds just like them. So I hear Huckabee and I have flashbacks to toxic grandma. 4 years of his voice might just be enough to put me in therapy!

With Mitt, it made me wonder to much about the money out of pocket to attain this position and scared the heck out of me.

He looks good and is very presentable but, there is/was a big but in my mind and evidently others as well.

Stiil on the list:

Demos:Hill and O

Repubs: Mac and Huck.

God where are we going to end up after this election finally gets over.:confused:

I also noticed in the posters link how the polls came out for both Bush and the legislature. Doesn't look good at any end of the spectrum.

... then we'd have a chance at alienating the last three countries that give a bleep about America anymore?

... then we could ensure that global warming plus paralyizing national emergency services turns more major cities into disaster areas like New Orleans?

... then we could line the pockets of energy CEOs with additional tax cuts that our grandchildren will have to pay for while they're already contributing half their paychecks because we depleted our social security funds and had shitty health care and so aren't well enough to work?

Right, McCain supports staying in Iraq. C and B do not, as near as I can tell based on what they seem to be saying right now.

And the war on terror including Iraq now isn't some Republican rhetorical trope; it's reality.

Do you imagine that the insurgents are legitimate combatants in a recognized civil war? Who wins if we leave Iraq today? I don't think it's the Iraqi people.

No doubt, we'd all decide not to go into Iraq if we knew then what we know now. But just pulling our forces out doesn't leave Iraq in the same situation it was in before we went in. I think we can all agree on that.

The GOP candidates all seem to hold that we've got an obligation to stay and more to lose if the terror networks presently in Iraq are allowed to win and continue to undermine the democratically elected government.

As near as I can tell the US Democratic position seems to be something like let's cut our losses; it was a mistake; let's quit spending good money after bad.

It's hard for me to not also see that the Democratic position either includes a little element of "It was W's bad, so it's not our problem, so f the Iraqis if it comes to that" or a denial that the newly elected pres. will in fact have to leave more forces in Iraq than the candidates want to admit.

ETA: the Democratic position also, of course, holds that war is bad. And it is, unless you're fighting something worse which is a much harder call to make e.g. most people's attitudes about Darfur where people seem to want military intervention, so they'll just go with war is bad and hope that Iraq isn't so destabilized that there's genocide if we pull out.

I'm not a Bush fan, but please, do you even understand how government in the US works? Only one of the three things you've listed really has anything to do with the executive branch. (ETA: Well, I guess they have something to do with the executive branch, but it's hard to see why they wouldn't really be something congress ought to address, seeing as Congress makes laws and all. )

One the other hand, surely SECDomination was joking, right?

100 more years in Iraq?????:confused:
Us being there is just one of the causes that the terrorist use in recruiting.
Perhaps it is NOW time for the people and Government of Iraq to step up to the plate and take over the running on their own country.
Name any other country that we have bases in that we are running the country.
Us being there just delays them from facing and doing something about the very hard chooses and decisions that they have to make.
They just put it off on us.
And as I pointed out, us being there just helps the criminals.
And as I pointed out, the war on terror was not in Iraq. They had very little if anything to do with it.
The political decisions made by our politicians caused the war to expand into Iraq. Thus, as you pointed out, it is now a reality.

Should we just pack out bags and leave in February? NO.
And IMVHO no one really believes or thinks that can or will happen.

I hope that nobody believes that we just up and leave Iraq, but it does seem like there should be a PLAN for us to get out. A timeline of some sort. It doesn't have to carved in stone, but at least some goals with tenative dates on when we should accomplish it. How many times are we going to send some of these guys back over there? Some are on their THIRD deployment there. Young men are going to be more wary of joining the military as long as the stop loss deal is extending on and on and on. We've depleted our own country of National Guard resources to the point that some states would be in very serious trouble if something monumental occured (like the Detroit riots of '67). There has to be some sort of timeline like.. "We will get them to point A by X/X/0X so that we can get them to point B by ... and get out of there by ... ". Don't people ever wonder if the insurgents would mellow out if we were gone because they are acting against US primarily? We've created a monster. I sure wouldn't want to inherit that mess...

On a totally different note, the Detroit Free Press reported today that the Democratic National Committee may encourage Michigan and Florida to hold caucuses which would actually count since the race is so close between Clinton and Obama, both are swing states in the national election and our primaries didn't count. What a joke this has become in some ways.

Agree-on all counts.

I don't think she's the one who doesn't understand how the US government works.

The President is the focal point of foreign relations and (unfortunately, in Bush's case) the "mouthpiece" of the US that other nations hear. The President's "interests" (big oil, the gun lobby, anti-everything groups) have, through him, unparalleled levels of access to power brokers around DC.

The President also appoints the head of each federal agency (so, the head of FEMA, for instance -- that would have a direct impact on that agency, its direction and its functioning)

Anyone who doesn't think (or doesn't know) that the bureaucracy creates and puts into play as many, if not more, policies than the Congress is believing what they're told and feeding the blindness most have about the system. Google books related to the bureaucracy and policy- or law-making to learn about what's sometimes referred to as the "4th branch of government." THAT, to me, is the most powerful part of who gets the top office. Sure, Supreme Court appointments are big, but they're out in the open. Everyone can follow Congress on C-Span all day. But who really tracks what's happening in the bowels of the Departments of Energy, Education, Labor, everyday? The # of political appointments in these organizations is astounding. And the effect these political appointments have on US policy is staggering. And for the most part, goes unnoticed and unchecked.

The Executive Branch is not just a 2-person + White House staff turnover. The tentacles go much, much deeper in the system. And this current bunch in DC definitely need their roots dug up and their tainted soil needs much tilling, IMO.

Agreed. Part of me has to wonder if this continues on much longer, how long before drafting has to start up again? One of my co-workers who's in the National Guard and is in his early 50s has done two tours. My sorority sister who was stationed in Germany for a few years went to Iraq so many times I quit counting.

Interesting how adament the DNC was that moving your primary would make it so that you "wouldn't count." And now, they're rethinking that....
I'm caucusing tomorrow here in Nebraska.

How do you implement a time line without telegraphing the same time line to the people you are fighting? And although we don't generally occupy countries, we did stay in Western Europe a mighty long time.

I would like us to get out too, but I think the positions that the Democratic candidates for President are advancing are delusional about how quickly we can really get out and about how committed we need to be to fixing what we screwed up in Iraq.

I don't think that withdrawing would produce fewer terrorists. As a matter of fact, I think leaving sends the message that they can expect to win and accomplish their goals with similar efforts elsewhere.

As far as the President, you're kind of nuts if you think that the President has the kind of power to single handedly addressed the issues listed in Skylark's post, exception of foreign policy, which I agree Bush has been especially bad at.

But global warming and hurricane Katrina? No. Were his FEMA appointments an issue, no doubt, were they the single most important element? No.

CEO pay? Really now.

I don't deny President shape congressional policy, but to suggest that Bush is responsible for some of the crap on the list is ridiculous.

Right, but bureaucracy isn't limited to the executive branch and the problems you bring up didn't start with Bush.

Does the Federal Government stink? Absolutely.

But you can't in any way absolve Congress or Presidents before Bush for the issues you bring up, nor can you reasonably expect that these issues are going to dry up and go away with the election of anyone still in the race (or anyone in the race at any point, really).

Do you really think that if we elect Clinton or Obama the issues you describe will go away? Really? You think government agencies were squeaky clean under Clinton? Really?

As I said before, I'm not even a Bush fan; I think he's one of least effective Presidents in a long time, but don't go nuts assigning blame to him for things that were only marginally within his control. He was President, not God.

I never said he "single handedly" addressed the issues, and hey, sister, I didn't call you names. If you re-read my post, my point is that saying that the Executive Branch has "nothing" to do with those things is patently incorrect. By structure, the appointments made from the Executive Branch into the bureaucratic branch absolutely have an impact on every area of policy.
But do his appointments and then their appointments within the EPA and FEMA shape and have an impact on US policy and progression toward or away from solutions or changes? YES.
I have no idea what this is in reference to, I'm assuming you're responding to someone else.
Then my suggestion is that you are misinformed.

I really didn't think I was calling you nuts as much as the position that Bush was single handedly responsible for the items of Skylarks list, but I apologize.

I don't really think Skylark is nuts either, but the list is.

And I think the suggestion that Bush serve another terms was either made in jest or reflects that SECDomination is nuts.

I don't deny that executive power could have been used better than Bush used it. But of the items on her list, with the original exception of foreign policy, most don't seem to me to be fundamentally issues that the executive controls, and the ones that were were not particularly better run pre-Bush, as near as I can tell.

I don't believe that had a hurricane like Katrina hit New Orleans during Clinton's term or had Gore been in office when it hit that the damage to New Orleans would have been significantly less and while I don't dispute the FEMA response was pathetic, I don't think it has been the critical factor in recovery.

But I sure hope I'm wrong. I'd love to look forward to years of no natural disasters, no government bureaucracy, economic prosperity and excellent health care for all as soon as Clinton or Obama is elected. I can, right?


ETA: In hindsight, Nittanyalum, I can see that I quoted you earlier when largely I'm still responding to Skylark's post. Read that post, and I think you'll see what I found over the top although I acknowledge that I overstated at first in my response to her, but you can see when the edit was made too.

Do you mean Skylark's reference about Bush lining the pockets of energy CEOs? Um, do a google search for "Bush tax cut" and oil companies. Originally passed back in his first term.

There is no way we are going to pull out of there without the insurgents knowing whether we publicize a timeline now or not. It's not like we can sneak out of there overnight and leave the Iraq military in charge. They are going to know. We aren't going to be able to rid the country of them. There are so many Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan that pretty soon, the majority of the population will be the insurgents. It makes sense to me that if the Iraqi's knew the timeline, then they would have to step up and do what they need to do to save their country instead of just being dependent on us. And, maybe the ones who are considering fleeing would stay because they would have hope that it would get better. The blogs I read of Iraqi's who have left for Syria and Jordan all say that they hope to go back home after we leave.

And, if we want to talk about the war on terror, then why is the Taliban gaining strength in Afghanistan and where the heck is Osamba Bin Laden? Why did Bhutto refer to someone in an interview as "the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden" and NOBODY from any "reliable" news source picked up on her saying that at the time and investigated it further? Yet, the interview is on YouTube.

This world frightens me.

As for the power of the Executive branch and who takes the blame.. ultimately, the CEO of the company takes the blame for what happens with company. Bush is our CEO. His veto pen has been swift. His insane addendums to bills that state that they do not apply to him are shocking. His refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty and the fact that he is in the back pocket of the oil companies do affect global warming. I would love to see a President put together a cabinet made up of people who are qualified to do the jobs rather than from their good ole boys network. I'm not saying he's the first president to do that, but it would be nice if he were the last (I know, that would be a utopia).

Yes. So be sure to vote for one of them.

:p
Got it, thanks.

I really don't think it's in the best interest of any political candidate to set up the standard of everything bad that happens during a President's terms is his or her fault. We may have that expectation, but it's a childlike and delusional one and I don't think that good executives are served by it either.

Bush could have provided better leadership. I don't think anyone seriously wants to see him in office even a minute longer than his present term.

But two of the three groupings on Skylark's list are an overstatement of what Bush had any kind of exclusive control over. And the Katrina one seems particularly nutty. I suspect had it not been on the list, I wouldn't have flipped out, but my God, people it was a hurricane! W may be a powerful guy but he doesn't make the weather.

Congress is at least as much to blame for the social security issue that's been looming for a long time and I'm old enough to remember the first time Hillary tried to fix health care. It's fundamentally kind of goofy to lay it all on Bush. (And again, kind of fundamentally shortsighted of the Democrats to so since we all know he's out.)

I'm sorry, but you are glossing over the real influence the Executive branch has over bureaucratic functioning and policy by continuing to tag it with "exclusive control." No one has said anything about "exclusive control" but you. But as AGDee said, the responsibility ultimately lies on the top dog. Or as I like to say, "A fish stinks at the head."

And you REALLY have to let this protestation about Katrina go. Did you miss this entire part of the awful, detestable ordeal? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1361404.shtml

I've got no well developed plan how to get us out of Iraq or to stop global terror, and I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be as easy as the political rhetoric in this campaign from either side make it out to be. I tend to think McCain's view is closer to reality although I sure hope it's not 100 years.

I'd love to see a better President too, and we're pretty much certain to get one if only because it's hard to imagine worse, and that's one thing that unites both ends of the political spectrum, albeit for different reasons.

But we're not going to get better government if we just allow scapegoating of lame ducks to carry the day. We have to try to hold all the elected officials, particularly the ones who can run again, presently influence policy, and most importantly control funding, responsible for the stuff they screw up and we have to press for better government, not just the "your guy sucks more than my guy" pep rally mentality we've got now.

To throw it all (the issues listed by Skylark, with the exception of other countries hating us) on Bush lets too many other people off the hook, in addition to being inaccurate in many cases and in regard to the complete vilification of Bush for Katrina, fundamentally unfair.