Absentee ballot for the President of the United States

[Buddahaid]

No kidding, we should never have wasted all those billions on Iraq.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

No kidding, we should never have wasted all those billions on Iraq.

And who put us there.


Oh that's right.

[Onkel Neal]

Ok I got it

Originally Posted by Oberon

I still don't think Mitt has quite got what it takes, but it's certainly going to be close. If anything, for the GOPs sake I hope he fails, they need a shake-up and a revaluation to survive the 21st century.

Still, time will tell...it's what...less than three weeks now?

I'm interested in what you think the GOP should transform itself into to survive. (not being sarcastic here, really). I don't think the "socio-economic" landscape of the U.S.A. will support a real conservative any more. As it is, the Republicans have to adopt the religious voters to have any chance of winning a democratic vote against the growing hordes of entitlement voters. And it won't get any better from here. If the Republicans adapt, it will be to become a different variation of Democrats, I imagine.

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Cant afford 4 more years of this.

How about another 24 years? Can you really imagine people in this country accepting personal responsibility when all they have to do is vote in Democrats? And this didn't start with Obama. It's been happening for some time.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I'm interested in what you think the GOP should transform itself into to survive. (not being sarcastic here, really). I don't think the "socio-economic" landscape of the U.S.A. will support a real conservative any more. As it is, the Republicans have to adopt the religious voters to have any chance of winning a democratic vote against the growing hordes of entitlement voters. And it won't get any better from here. If the Republicans adapt, it will be to become a different variation of Democrats, I imagine.

I think the future is RINO, the more radical right wingers need to be culled and the parties spin machine needs to be overhauled to present a more positive image. Both parties, and I'm including the Dems in this as well, need to take a more centralist approach, and cut the partisanship and brinkmanship. There needs to be a figurehead on both parties that is willing to work with each other to reconnect with the people, and put aside the more petty differences.
When people look up and they see a bunch of squabbling rich men playing chicken with the economy, it doesn't inspire confidence in the system, which in turn doesn't inspire confidence in the political future and encourages extremism.
They need to disassociate themselves with people like Glenn Beck, and organisations Fox News, which just put the average person off with their rhetoric, and lose the Tea Party, which will probably take over the role of the party of the deep right.

Now, this is just a European point of view, and my view of what the Republican party is could be disjointed by a lack of understanding of the American viewpoint, but when I hear traditionally Conservative voters say that they don't have much confidence in Romney, or McCain, or that Sarah Palin confuses them and worries them, then I think that it has lost touch with the less radical of its powerbase, which has greater numbers than the radicals and which could help it get into power if it would just reform itself a bit and stop giving perfect ammunition to its critics.

That's my view anyway, what do you think?

[geetrue]

Seriously, where is the next republican canidate going to come from?

If Mitt Romney loses there is no one left to consider. Romney would take Paul Ryan down with him. McCain is too old four years from now.
They won't even let Palin talk about anything republican since way before the convention.

Sanatorium even agreed that Obama would make a better president (perhaps he knows something we don't know).

Who does that leave? Senator Hatch from Utah? I don't think so ...

This really could be the end of the republican party as history knows it.
They still control the US congress of course, as long as they court the tea party that is.

That power could change every two years.

I think Mrs Cliton will run in 2016 even though she says "no" to that idea, but you know how women and politicians lie, right?

She would have no one running against her that I can see, leaving the real possiablity that the democrats could own the white house for the next 12 years.

By that time some young republican could rise up to challenge the democrats.

These are indeed strange times with unaswered reasons

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by geetrue

Seriously, where is the next republican canidate going to come from?

If Mitt Romney loses there is no one left to consider. Romney would take Paul Ryan down with him. McCain is too old four years from now.
They won't even let Palin talk about anything republican since way before the convention.

Marco Rubio, Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal are three names right off the top of my head.

[GoldenRivet]

voting for president of the united states is like being on a bus about to plunge over a cliff and bickering about who gets to drive.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I think the future is RINO, the more radical right wingers need to be culled and the parties spin machine needs to be overhauled to present a more positive image. Both parties, and I'm including the Dems in this as well, need to take a more centralist approach, and cut the partisanship and brinkmanship. There needs to be a figurehead on both parties that is willing to work with each other to reconnect with the people, and put aside the more petty differences.
When people look up and they see a bunch of squabbling rich men playing chicken with the economy, it doesn't inspire confidence in the system, which in turn doesn't inspire confidence in the political future and encourages extremism.
They need to disassociate themselves with people like Glenn Beck, and organisations Fox News, which just put the average person off with their rhetoric, and lose the Tea Party, which will probably take over the role of the party of the deep right.

Now, this is just a European point of view, and my view of what the Republican party is could be disjointed by a lack of understanding of the American viewpoint, but when I hear traditionally Conservative voters say that they don't have much confidence in Romney, or McCain, or that Sarah Palin confuses them and worries them, then I think that it has lost touch with the less radical of its powerbase, which has greater numbers than the radicals and which could help it get into power if it would just reform itself a bit and stop giving perfect ammunition to its critics.

That's my view anyway, what do you think?

You understand quite well Oberon. A good film about what is going on in Washington, is called Patriocracy. You can see the trailer about it here, along with other clips of the film itself. It is really sad to see what we have become.

[Sailor Steve]

"We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate."
-Kin Hubbard

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate."
-Kin Hubbard

Sad, but true.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by eddie

You understand quite well Oberon. A good film about what is going on in Washington, is called Patriocracy. You can see the trailer about it here, along with other clips of the film itself. It is really sad to see what we have become.

An interesting film, I like the look of it, a pity that it will not become a mainstream thing, but I think more and more American people are becoming turned on to this kind of thing and that's good, so long as the frustration at the two main parties doesn't push them into a more radical third party, the American Communist Party and the Tea Party are two political entities that come to mind, certainly the mere fact that the Tea Party was able to start up and gain its notoriety is an indication of a growing frustration with standard Red/Blue politics.
The problem is, is that there is no easy answer, in the UK the Labour party tried to reinvent itself with 'New Labour', attempting to put its far left connections behind it and capture the centre ground of politics, certainly it can be argued that Tony Blairs government was more right wing than any of the Labour governments before it. For a while it worked, people loved the idea of a political party that wasn't run by either the big businesses (the Conservatives) or the Unions (Labour) but then it all began to fall apart, the gleaming New Labour was just old Labour with a hint of Tory, the problems that lie inheriently in the political system reared their heads, sleeze, spin, lies and broken promises, although Blair was clever enough to leave office and put Brown in charge so that he would be remembered as "not as bad as Brown".
Trying to capture the center ground doesn't work so long as the government considers itself as a seperate entity to the people, it may fool the public for a little while, but eventually it's a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" and you are back to square one.
Certainly there could be greater co-operation between parties on important issues affecting the whole country, and it certainly feels like the divide between left and right is bigger now in America than ever before, although the anger and hate of both parties of each other is nothing new and dates back to the early days of America and indeed, can be traced in many political parties around the globe. Some of the verbal smackdowns delivered by members of your Congress regarding their opposition in early American history are quite impressive.
However, in the short term, certainly between now and 2016, the Republican party does need to more back towards the center, and I think it realises that, Mitt Romney has transformed over the past three weeks from a right wing conservative into a more central conservative, his comments on foreign policy in the last debate streamline into the comments made by his opposition. He is desperately trying to be seen as non-radical, non-hawkish, and a more moderate person than perhaps he was during his run for nomination to be the leader of the Republicans. What Mitt Romney is trying to be is what I think more middle of the road Americans want to see, and it has reflected in his poll ratings, however the Republican party itself still has a lot of stigma behind it, and a lot of people out of touch with the current America, how was it Obama put it "A foreign policy from the 1980s, a domestic policy from the 1950s and an economic policy from the 1920s."
Obama won the last election on one word 'Change', this election the words he will be looking for are 'Not as bad as', he knows that he has done little to deserve the American vote, but he is hoping that people will consider him to be the lesser of two evils, and I think that this will be the case.
For 2016, the Republicans need to think of the word they need to use, and I am sure that they will, if all the soundbites from this campaign has proven one thing to me is that America has some of the best spin doctors in the world, your politicians know how to say things to raise a crowd...ours are wet blankets in comparison. So I am sure that the Republicans will reappear as the 'New Labour' of America ('New-Tory' perhaps?) and that will see them through 2016 for two terms before we come back to square one and you'll probably see the Democrats get back in as the New Republican image falls apart. Hopefully, though, this 'New Republic' (sounds like something from the Fallout universe) will be a more concilatory and workable party, certainly if the current comments on Foreign policy is anything to go by, Romney wants to be seen as a concilatory person, credit where it is due and all that, and this could be a signal to the rest of the party that this is the path they need to choose, particularly if he does as well in the elections as I think he will (but not well enough to win, of course) but we will see.
A truth that will remain in play throughout the next three elections and indeed into the foreseeable future, is the disconnection of politicians from their public. Unfortunately this seems to be the side effect of when human nature interacts with politics, but at least it is not taken to the extremes seen in dictatorships. Certainly there is no political party in the world that I would say truely connected to the people, all the people, because there are so many different voices and opinions that to represent every view would mean that nothing would ever happen. Communism showed us that even in a supposed leaderless society, the buck (or ruble) had to stop with someone, there had to be someone who set the general course for the country, and that someone would, as is human nature, not want his powers curtailed, and thus would actively work to increase them using all methods at his disposal (usually the intelligence services, the military and friends in the governing body) or at the very least stop himself from being relegated to a mere figurehead. Royal families, on the other hand, seem to be content for the most part to be mere figureheads in modern society...I think they are happy to be out of the firing line for national decisions, and still live a good life with amenities. Bowing out gracefully I think is the term here.
There is an old saying, which I think despite all the problems with modern democracy, still holds true...
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried throughout history."
Perhaps the 21st century will find a new form of government previously impossible due to technological limits, a form of cyber-democracy perhaps, but any new form of government will have in common one thing with all its predecessors, it will be flawed, because we are not perfect beings and thus all that we interact with contains our imperfections but we do the best that we can with it.

Lastly, I would like to apologise for the third of what can only be described as Skybird length postings, I blame this mainly on having too much time to think and too much caffeine in my system. I am now going to give my poor digits a break and go and do some dusting.

[eddie]

No apology needed Oberon!