Presidential Candidates .. Who Do You Like?

Rick Santorum seems to be dominating in CO and MN right now.

This is like saying it's smart to spend your entire paycheck, then rack up a huge credit card bill.

A balanced budget is only the first step to correcting a budget and deficit spiraling out of control.

You can actually watch our deficit get bigger in real time here: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Now when you look at the richest people in america, you can get a picture of how big our deficit really is. http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/

Even if you robbed all of the top 100 richest people of all of their money, it would only be a couple of hundred billion. The deficit is about 16 trillion and growing.

You can't start paying off the deficit until you have a surplus and that is only going to happen when you have a balanced budget + more money. It's also going to take a long long time. We are headed toward a point where the interest on the amount borrowed will get so big, that we might never be able to pay it off.

Yet he still has no chance at the Presidency. Not in his current state.

Santorum is great at churning up his base of born again christians, blue-collar workers and those who find themselves leaning to the hard right but his appeal to the middle doesn't exist and that is what would doom him. He's made a niche for himself as the "true conservative" and you can only undermine yourself once you take such a hardline position on issues.

Gingrich for all his Reagan name-dropping isn't as far to the right as Rick Santorum. Gingrich may be an arrogant hypocritical blowhard but even he is willing to make concessions on certain topics that Santorum simply refuses to budge on. Gingrich and Romney would both shift to the left if elected, Santorum would break the scale to the right.

If Ron Paul is the "out there" candidate then Santorum is putting in his best effort to take that slot.

Santorum is the candidate that would send us into a religious war in the ME, eviscerate women's rights beyond just mere abortions, has very little to say on the economy other than "yeah, teh free market will sort this" and represents the atypical politican that the Tea Party seems to loathe yet love.

All this shows really is how weak Romney is as a candidate that the party is seriously considering candidates of Santorum's calibur. It means very little though since Romney still has this locked up given he's most balanced candidate.

Looks like it's going to be Obama again since Paul can't win a state.

No one is talking about paying off the national debt when we're talking about deficit spending >_> The national debt will never be paid off. Having a balanced budget on the other hand is completely separate to that..

For instance by your analogy, I could be $30k in the hole, but as long as I use my paycheck each month responsibly (ie not spending more than I make), I can maintain my debt, which is to say not get further in debt. I'll probably be $30k in the hole for the rest of my life, but it's better than $35k in the hole next year and $40k the year after that.. governments much like people cannot sustain this kind of spending without eventuating in bankruptcy.

A balanced budget is not only practical and possible but essential.

There's only one way to get rid of the the mess we're in and that's through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In that economy, production would be owned by society itself and should be set up in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a proper standard of living. The education of the individual would develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

I move for a vote of no confidence in all candidates. :x

'Colbert Report' Mysteriously Suspends Taping

Rumor has it that is has something to do with Maine caucus voter fraud. They had some two part video about it or something.

Maine GOP Commits Massive Election Fraud in State Caucuses; Paul Supporters Justifiably Outraged

That story about Maine has to be BS.

It is insinuating that not everyones vote counted, & I have read several times on these boards that everyone's vote always counts.

Like I've said in several other threads, and possibly this one. Our candidates are chosen for us.

Your vote doesnt matter when all of the options are just puppets of the current system.

When a guy comes along who MIGHT be a threat, things mysteriously get rigged.

It sounds more like stupidity and media sensationalism than anything.

The state made a mistake by announcing the winner before two of the counties had their votes tallied. One is scheduled for two days from now and the other doesn't have a date set yet.

Now if those votes once cast don't count, then there will be a major problem.

Also consider how close the race is:

Romney: 2,190 (39.21%)
Paul: 1,996 (35.74%)
Santorum: 989 (17.71%)
Gingrich: 349 (6.25%)
Other: 61 (1.09%)

A conspiracy theory that makes it so that you don't have to go out and vote? How convenient.

All politicians don't want you to vote. It's very simple why. It's much easier to sell yourself to a small specific pool of people than a large group of people. So you are doing exactly what they want you to do.

Or you could believe that there is a massive conspiracy involving a small circle of people who decide who our president is going to be.

Should be easy enough to figure out. Just trace and see who benefited from every president/senator/state rep that ever got elected and then you'll know who it is. Let me know who it is so we can expose those ***!

OK? I still don't see what the big deal is.

Sure they made a mistake by announcing who the winner is prematurely.

Now if those two counties remaining vote and Ron Paul is the winner and it doesn't change, there will be a serious problem. But I highly doubt this will happen.

No one is stupid enough to even take a chance to get in trouble to get a small state like Maine rigged for a presidential primary. I mean come on.

It's been more apparent than ever after the 2010 mid-terms how far some politicians will go to suppress votes. You'd have daft not to have heard one of the stories all around the country of new Republican-led legislation making it more difficult to vote in the next election. The majority of these laws specify that you need a document previously not required to be eligible to vote. The aim of the laws is suppress minority voters because they are much more active than white voters and tend to vote overwhelming Democrat. I'd dare say they'd feel less inclined to try to suppress voters if more white voters weren't always coming up with some reason to not vote. At any rate some of the laws are already being challenged by the federal government anyway.

A mistake that cannot happen under any circumstance... ever.

Its not difficult to realize that 3 out of 16 counties have not reported.

Especially when we are talking about caucuses. The whole point of these things is that if you win one, you gain momentum going into the next. Changing a result after the fact doesn't do a damn thing to the states that followed Maine that have already finished their caucus.


In the article the GOP leader is quoted as saying "Their results will not be factored into this announcement after the fact". So unless this is out of context, it sure appears as if they are completely ignoring those votes.


You really want to challenge the limits of human stupidity? Really?

You guys really should take this test. It's quick and easy and tells you where exactly you stand. http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

Obviously it doesn't tell you who to vote for. But it might let you know which candidates you most fully agree with on basic ideas.

This picture is my personal compass, based on the test. It was kind of a surprise to me that according to that site, my results are very, very close to that of Gandi. I haven't studied Gandhi so I don't know what he was all about, but maybe I should take a look at him. ^^



So what this means is that I'm a center-left social libertarian. I prefer to know where I stand, but continue to vote for the candidate which I feel is best for the job as opposed to the party that I feel most comfortable with.

We've taken this test before, but here's mine again, it's around the same:

My first go at it. Far different than how I considered myself. But then again, I'm for and against a lot of key issues from all opposing sides. A bit irritated that I'm so blah.



.e for abortion, and for death penalty. Kind of thing.

considering that they can just pick whoever they want at end with nonbinding electoral votes and super delegates, I don't see why the have to commit obvious fraud to choose a candidate.

Obama has the best chance of being reelected in my opinion. I don't think he did that great of a job, but he's DEFINATLY WITHOUT QUESTION the lesser of 2 evils so to speak. All the other canidates want to elliminate your freedoms. Yuck... typical republican christians bs.

Sweet baby jesus on a peanut butter cracker, please tell me Santorum isn't being seriously considered to run our country. ~.~

So I took that political test thingy and here is where I stand.



Apparently I'm smack dab right where the Dalai Llama is.

You're pretty close to my results too Arte! That's kinda cool. Everyone who's taken it and posted results is in the green square so far except Galvaya. (No worries Galvaya!)

It's obviously far too small of a subject pool for any real results, but I wonder if gamers in general are more likely to be left libertarian. And since that's a generally peaceful outlook on life, I wonder what kind of wrench it would throw into the notion that games make people violent. Too small to tell, but interesting to think about I suppose.

Well after the travesty that has been the Republican primary, I think its getting pretty safe to say that Obama is going to get reelected.

I think that has more to do with those that a grip on discerning the differences between reality and a video game. Obviously running in first person with a gun in your hand is going to go to the head to some more so than others. Luckily it's fair to say most gamers would have a generally decent grasp on what is real and what is simply an entertainment medium.

Cant post it from my phone, but I'm 4.5 squares left and 4.5 squares down.

So nearly the same as you guys.

In way I'm glad, but at the same time disappointed because the candidate that reached out to my ideals the most was Ron Paul, and sadly his affiliation with the GOP and the partisanship division between those that support Obama and those that have high hopes for the GOP is so heavily divided, I feel a vote for Ron Paul as much as it would be a slap to the more insane candidates in the GOP, would be a thrown away vote that would pale in comparison to the traction and higher ground Obama's campaign.

Agree wholeheartedly. Really wish that Ron Paul was going to be the one going against Obama.

His biggest problem is that he doesnt have the support of the established GOP leadership so he doesnt get the $ and the backing of Fox.

When I talk to my dad about it (which is a pretty good way to judge the loopey right wing stance on things) he hates Paul for basically no reason. He even sides with Paul on many issues, but that becomes irrelevant when the GOP media machine says he should think otherwise.