Which of these candidates would you vote for in 2008 general election?

[joeprogressive]

Poll question: Which of these candidates would you vote for in 2008 general election?

Given these are your only three choices. I know the moderate repub against the war choice is a stretch but for grins let's say it happened. I would rather have dem congress with a president that is going to get our troops home now than one that supports this war of lies.

[AX10]

1. Wesley Clark!

;)

[skipos]

2. I am not a single issue voter so

I doubt I'd vote for the party that is spearheading everything that is wrong with America.

[joeprogressive]

7. I agree but I could do it if I knew they would be reigned in by

a Dem congress. Also I would want a guarantee they would get our troops home immediately.

[The Magistrate]

3. Given the Limited Set You Have Provided, Sir

Sen. Clinton is the only person any Democrat could vote for. Particularly since, as we all know, there will not be any phantasmagotical "moderate Republican" running on an anti-war platform.

[Chipper Chat]

4. You left out a fourth choice - "It doesn't matter"

Because if we do not take back at least one body of Congress this fall the Repuke will win no matter who the Dem Party puts up.

[Webster Green]

5. Republicans lie about everything...

They will say anything to get elected, and then do the exact opposite.

[peace13]

6. Hoping for a Democratic candidate that is not Hillary

[emulatorloo]

8. I wouldn't believe a repug ***IF HIS TONGUE CAME NOTARIZED***

Bush lied about all kinds of stuff -- anybody remember how he was against "nation building?"

[rusty_parts2001]

9. Russ Finegold

[TheCowsCameHome]

10. Anything on two legs that didn't have an (R) after his/her name.

[stevedeshazer]

11. Get Focused, Joe.

2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Just like '92.

Hold my nose & vote for Clinton.

A Puggy is still a Puggy, and a 3d party candidate is just a vote sink.

On an Australian ballot I'd do it a little different.

[robinlynne]

13. Those choices suck.

We want Gore.
or Feingold.

[joeprogressive]

14. So what I am hearing from many of you is there is a world of difference

b/w a moderate dem compared to a moderate repub and you really don't care that much about the war issue. I will tell you that we shouldn't get too wrapped up in (D)'s and (R)'s. Colin Powell is more liberal than Hillary. If we win in '06 I could support a moderate that guaranteed immediate troop removal. The war has become that big of an issue b/c it is destabilizing the entire region and turning the whole world against us. I will not support a pro war candidate against an anti-war candidate.

[Bucky]

27. Nice thought, but your Alda-Republican will owe THEM. Hillary will owe us

Politicians more or less dance with whoever brung 'em. Just ask Rehnquist. On a host of issues like environment, gun control, energy policy, labor policy, balancing the budget, working training, abortion, investing in real education initiatives, small business opportuntities, housing, and civil rights, Mrs Clinton would be better than a Republican. She gets better ratings on voting record than the most liberal Republican, Chaffee.

I know she's a panderer. I think that's going to be her undoing in the '08 primaries. Too often she flip flops on issues to insulate herself from the eventual attack machine smears that will come her way after the nomination. I think she goes too far trying to get people who hate her to play fair, but that's her strategy. Democrats as politicians tend to be open to persuavsion and lobbying from ordinary voters. Republicans aren't. Whoever is elected in '08--GOP or Dem--will have to pull our troops out of Iraq. There won't be any choice by then. Taht one issue really doesn't bother me. The script's already been written. If you can read Vietnamese, you can already read what's going to happen in two years.

[TayTay]

15. Terrible choices

The fourth choice is to stay home.

[joeprogressive]

16. I can't think of a worse choice than staying home.

n/t

[TayTay]

Neither can I

That's why we would need better ones than those that were presented in the poll above. We need a reason to vote.

[joeprogressive]

29. I agree;I will fight like hell for whoever opposes Hillary in the primary.

Let's make something perfectly clear. There are those dems that voted for IWR but opposed invading and there are those like Hillary that support the invasion. There is a big difference.

[bowens43]

17. Anyone who doesn't vote a straight Democratic ticket is a fool....

[Rowdyboy]

18. Anyone who doesn't vote Democratic isn't listening....

To the news, to their neighbors, to their conscience....We can't possibly afford 4 more years of any Republican after Bush. Its inconceivable to me.

[joeprogressive]

20. Let me get this straight, you would vote for Lieberman over a more

liberal third party candidate just so you could say you voted for all dems. Didn't we used to call repubs that voted straight ticket sheep because they couldn't critically evaluate the candidates. I am tired of labels. If you are progressive and do the right thing, you will get my vote against a DINO.

[The Magistrate]

24. My Preference, Sir

Has always been for people who vote the straight Democratic ticket; that is generally the product of a well informed grasp of the political and social realities of our country. Certainly, of course, persons who vote the straight Republican ticket are fools at best and knaves at worst, without a clue about the issues affecting the country and its people, including themselves. Persons who indulge in third party are mere political dillitantes,unable to engage seriously in the process at all.

[joeprogressive]

26. I agree that third party dabblers that gave us Bush in 2000 are dangerous

but I would not chastise someone that voted for a third party candidate because they were the only choice against the war. This is the issue. Our nation is paralyzed because of this war. My cousin is literally paralyzed because of this war. My son will not fight in this war if I have any say in it. And my say is to oppose Hillary. She must not win the primary.

[The Magistrate]

32. Nonesense, Sir

For that to be a serious action, there must be a reasonable prospect of the candidate the vote is cast for winning office. Otherwise the thing is profoundly unserious.

But you close on a note that never ceases to amaze and amuse me. A Republican administration conceived, planned, and executed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, operating with a functioning legislative majority in doing so. And yet somehow your idea of the proper place to pitch an all-out stand against the enterprise consists of opposition to a Democratic Senator. It is a puzzlement, Sir. Sen. Clinton did not cause the war, and it is not in her power to halt it. The position that the coinsequences of hurried withdrawl may well be worse than the consequences of a measured one, or even than sticking the thing out, is one for which sound arguments can be made, and is not quite the same as support for the thing. It is, as a matter of fact, a situation in which there are now no good choices available, and which of the various predictable disasterous and difficult outcomes one prefers to see cap the misadventure seems as much a matter of taste as anything.

[joeprogressive]

34. So, because a repub administration caused the war, you would condemn all

repubs; even the ones that opposed the war. Now that is crazy and closed minded. You actually sound more like them offering up their talking point about withdrawal causing more harm. The invasion caused the insurgency and our removal will make it subside. Will there be a mess left behind? Absolutely, but less of one than if we stay.

[The Magistrate]

36. Absolutely, Sir

And it surprises me anyone genuinely opposed to the thing would do anything else. Political parties are blocs, and all components of one contribute to the power of the whole, and are reponsible for the actions of the whole they are part of. A northeastern "moderate" Republican is every bit as responsible for the actions of a Republican administration as the most rabid creature elected from Mississippi or Oklahoma.

Whether the "mess" left behind will be greater or less than that produced by our remaining is open to debate, and that debate will be conditioned by what one thinks of greatest importance in the situation. There is no doubt at all the killing of Iraqis by Iraqis will continue after our departure, and it will probably escalate in intensity, though it may stabilize as one faction or another gains the upper hand decisively over its rivals.

But it remains of interest to me that you do not engage in any way the point of this discussion that most fascinates me, namely how you manage to turn a desire to end the war into an attack on a Democratic Party Senator rather than the Republican administration, and it intruiges me even more now that you have ventured instead to offer reasons why some theoretical Republucan or other should be given a pass and not held equally responsible with his or her colleagues in the government they dominate for the actions of the party they lend their allegiance to.

[joeprogressive]

38. Ahhh, that is where you are wrong.

If that were true about allegiance than Hillary and many other dems have betrayed the allegiance to their party by voting with the repubs.

As far as not attacking Bush et al. of the neocons; that goes without saying. That is just obvious rhetoric to throw around this sophisticated crowd. Of course I hold Bush and his buddies most accountable but that wasn't the point of the hypothetical. I wanted to know if party affiliation trumped desire to end this war. Now I have my answer. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But for you to insinuate I am a republican because I would vote for one under highly unlikely and unusual circumstances is absurd.

[The Magistrate]

41. Nothing Goes Without Saying, Sir

You have set up a thought experiment designed to urge people into saying they would prefer to vote for some theoretical Republican existing only in your imagination in preferrence to Sen. Clinton, a well-known and widely popular Democratic politician who may well be the Party's nominee for President two years hence.

The weakness of your attempt is the assumption that a Democratic administration would continue the plans and purposes of the present Republican one, once it came into office. That is certainly not going to occur. This ill-starred venture will be liquidated on the apparently best terms that can be got by whatever administration next holds office: there may some differences in the rhetorics and window-dressings employed to paper over the facts of defeat and retreat, and the schedules may differ a little, but the thing will be done. It is a failed policy, and an unpopular policy. No one will run on a platform of continuing it.

No one, and certainly not myself, has accused you of anything. You have caused some wonderment by doing something a number of people do on occassions, namely taking the occassion of the misdeeds of a Republican administration as a pretext to attack some prominent Democrat or other, while making no disparragement whatever of the Republican authgors of the misdeeds. It is a thing that fascinates me, and on occassion moves me to engage a person doing it. No one has yet offered a satisfactory explaination....

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[joeprogressive]

45. I apologize, it was mtnsnake that made that assertion

OK, here is the deal and I am sure you will disagree with at least the second premise. First of all, we have the best possible chance of taking congress and the presidency. However, I think Hillary can really F*** everything up. She is so despised by the right that the repubs that might have sat 2006 out might show up in droves just to keep a republican majority around that would paralyze Hillary in 2008. The more likely scenario is she just simply loses in 2008. That would be tragic. You see, dems often pick the best qualified person not the candidate that can win. Where the repubs do the opposite. Case in point: Bush You see, for as much as I hate Hillary's continued support for the war, I think she could be a great president. But I am not willing to gamble on her in the primary regardless of her stance on the war.

Second: I will not support someone that supports the war effort against someone that doesn't. Iraq has made me a one issue voter and health care has always been my baby. However, health care reform and everything else is paralyzed until we get out of Iraq.

So my scenario may be unrealistic. So what; it is not out of the realm of possibility. Anyway, I told you it was a question to see if people were more concerned with party affiliation or the war.

[The Magistrate]

49. She Might Well Not Be The Optimum Candidate, Sir

That is a far cry from being a "war-monger" or "not a real Democrat", or any of the ither variosu hyperbolic slurs employed on occassion.

Further, there is serious difference between not demanding immediate withdrawl and supporting the war. Current poll results on the matter are widely misinterperted by some. People want the war ended not because they oppose havinmg invaded Iraq but because they perceive the invasion to have been a bungklerd failure. Therefore the line serious politicians will pursue will be consonant with that popular perception.

Since the thought experiment you propose is absolutely beyond the realm of possibility, it cannot illuminate anything. It certainly does not illuminate any purported opposition of party loyalty to anti-war sentiment.

[mtnsnake]

50. mtnsnake made no such assertion

You just assumed something that didn't take place. By "you know what", I wasn't thinking "Republican". I was thinking more in lines of someone who was a vote waster, not a republican.

[joeprogressive]

51. I will give you the benefit of the doubt .

However, anyone reading "Amen, & anyone trying to talk us into voting for a Republican under any
circumstances is a you know what." would have a hard time not thinking that. And what would be my motive by trying to get you to waste your vote? Only two logical explanations: I am a republican or I really feel that strongly against the war. You decide.

[mtnsnake]

33. Amen, & anyone trying to talk us into voting for a Republican under any

circumstances is a you know what.

This propaganda that Hillary is nothing but a war candidate is utter bullshit.

[joeprogressive]

35. No, maybe I have evolved. I am more liberal today than I was yesterday.

And I grow more liberal by the day. But I will vote progressive issues, not party affiliation. This war may be the one issue for me currently that trumps everything else so under the parameters of my poll I will stick to my guns. You can call me what you will. Fine I am a republican. But I am an anti-war, pro choice, pro environment, progressive liberal republican and you are a war monger democrat. Now does that make sense? No, I didn't think so.

[mtnsnake]

39. Wrong

Fine I am a republican. But I am an anti-war, pro choice, pro environment, progressive liberal republican and you are a war monger democrat.

First of all, there is no such thing as a Republican who has that combination of qualities oozing from him or her.

Second of all, no one who votes for Hillary is voting for her because they're a "war monger Democrat". Nor is she a war monger Democrat herself. She's only a war monger Democrat because that false idea has been railroaded down so many people's throats on this forum it isn't even funny anymore. Granted, she comes off lately as being hawkish because she's against immediate withdrawal for sake of the Iraqi people and the mess we're in with that disgusting war, but she's not a war monger in the sense that Republicans are or in the sense that so many people on this forum make her out to be. Not by any stretch. It's amazing how most Democratic Senators voted for the IWR, yet Hillary gets singled out 99% of the time for doing it. Here are a few other Democratic Senators who voted for the IWR:

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Breaux (D-LA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carnahan (D-MO)
Carper (D-DE)
Cleland (D-GA)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Edwards (D-NC)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hollings (D-SC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Miller (D-GA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Torricelli (D-NJ)

[joeprogressive]

42. You don't think I have seen that list.

I also know there is a world of difference between someone like Edwards that admitted his vote was wrong and someone like Hillary who is completely unapologetic. Further, I would not vote for anyone on that list against an anti war candidate if they don't completely reverse their stance. Hillary is sticking by her vote and she will pay the price as Kerry did.

I guess you would have voted for Phil Gramm when he was a democrat.

[mtnsnake]

44. I guess you would have voted for Reagan

when he was a democrat. (Of course, that's for the Gramm remark.)

Yeah, Edwards is so perfect. That's why he's adamantly against impeaching Bush as he said a couple of Sundays ago on TV. I'm glad you're so impressed with him.

Anyway, I hope she admits her vote on the war was a mistake, too, which is something very few Democrats have actually done so far.

Peace

[joeprogressive]

48. You defy logic

You would have voted for Reagan b/c you are the one that is concerned more with party affiliation than the issues. And by the way, a lot of dems did vote for Reagan. That is why they coined the term reagan dems.. I guess they are no longer welcome back into the party. Bunch of traitors.

[mtnsnake]

52. Stop playing games

I already told you...the Reagan remark was in reciprocation for your Phil Gramm remark, nothing more nothing less. You seem to enjoy putting your words into other peoples mouths, though, don't you. I wouldn't have voted for Reagan if my life depended on it.

[joeprogressive]

55. Playing games?

Aren't you the one that was trashing me on another thread because I desired to move to a nice place? Therefore you made some pretty wild assumptions about what kind of person I was. If that wasn't you then I apologize. But I am going to bed, so goodnight.

[mtnsnake]

57. Are you sure you have the right guy?

Aren't you the one that was trashing me on another thread because I desired to move to a nice place?

:wtf:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. The only Senate Republican "nay" on the IWR was Chafee.

Ooh, that's a close call! :D

[joeprogressive]

22. How does his entire voting record stack up to Hillary's?

n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. To the right.

But few, if any, people died as a result of those moderate votes. Like I said, it's close.

I'd probably vote a 3rd party in this instance, knowing I couldn't win and the difference was negligble. I have never voted Republican and I wouldn't start here.

[The Sushi Bandit]

21. I see the COMEDY in your poll

I laffed for a full 30 seconds!

[joeprogressive]

23. I am dead f****** serious.

If you vote Hillary against an anti war candidate you are complicit.

[The Sushi Bandit]

31. Hillary will never make the cut

the only ones who want her are the republicans!

My vote is with Dennis Kucinich and his Department of Peace!

[flaminbats]

28. it depends on what the third-party candidate stands for..

and if this person is on the ballot in every state.

[joeprogressive]

30. Good point. I wouldn't want to throw away a vote for 3rd party

if the candidate wac completely inviable (like nader).

[flaminbats]

37. why not provide me with two specific examples..

an example for the Republican and another for the third party candidate?

[joeprogressive]

40. If someone that was moderate like Chaffee

promised to bring the troops home and I could feel safe that he wouldn't get his agenda through a dem congress I could vote that ticket. As far as 3rd party....Jeffords or a jilted Dem. I mean what if Gore decided to run as an independent because the DLC was throwing all their support behind Hillary?

[The Magistrate]

43. Unless Mr. Chafee Changes Parties, Sir

He must be taken as a leading object for attack by left and progressive persons genuinely interested in breaking the power of the worst elements of reaction in our national government. He makes a particularly good target because he is vulnerabe as a a Republican in a state that predominantly casts its PResidential vote for a Democrat. His situation is about the same as that of Democrat in a red state, in reverse. People will be pretty susceptible to the argument that by caucusing with the Republicans, he assists them in keeping a majority, and if you dislike what that majority does, which most who vote Democratic for President do, then he has to go. The calculation is that brutal and that simple. Almost anyone able to abide by traffic signals has the wit to make it and act on it.

[flaminbats]

53. if Jeffords was the independent..

he would need to be on the ballot on every state, then he would win my vote over Clinton and Chaffee.

[unkachuck]

46. hmmm....

....a warmonger Dem, hmmm, 4 more years of war....

....a slimey-liar repug, hmmm, 4 more years of war....

....a no-doubt fringy-useless 3rd party candidate, hmmm, 4 more years of war....

....let me consult my crystal ball....it says to cast my vote for Hillary, because we like our wars with a feminine-flair....

[IndianaGreen]

47. Let's make sure Hillary does not become the 2008 nominee!

She is so polarizing that she will lose to a repuke in a close election. Hillary's only hope is that the Republican nominee is as unpopular as Bush is now, and even then she has to pray that her support for the Long War does not prove fatal with antiwar voters.

[joeprogressive]

54. I am going to bed so let me close by saying this.

Although I disagree with A) those who would support Hillary in the primary and B) those who would support Hillary in general election against fictitious anti war candidate; I respect everyone here because I agree that 99.99999% of the time a dem is better than a repub and it is hard to evaluate a highly unlikely scenario.

However, as stated several times, it was an exercise to see how outraged dems are about Hillary's stance on the war.

Bottom line: I will do everything humanly possible to trash Hillary based on her war stance until she changes her tune because she is wrong on the most critical issue of our day and I do not want to take any chances in '08 when we have at least 6 candidates that can beat the best the repubs can put up against us. Goodnight and peace to all.

[Tiggeroshii]

56. AL GORE!!!!!!!!

[LynneSin]

58. Are those my only choices? Geez, that's a no-brainer - Clinton

what, am I some sort of dumbass that wants to ensure more republican control of the white house? Hillary on her absolutely worst day is still better than any republican candidate out there even if it was my own very moderate pro-choice,pro-environment repuke representative Mike Castle was running against her