I know this is a Mrs. Bill Clinton thread, but I want to touch on Thompson delaying his announcement.

It's Genius!

Fred Thompson knows that the current group of Republicans are going to start weeding themselves out. McCain is the 1st big name that burns out early. Romney is burning out also. You would think that because of this Guiliani would have a huge bump in the polls. Well that is not happening. Boom! Here comes Thompson to energize the party. In the meantime Newt Gingrich is also waiting in the wings to see what effect Thompson has. If Thompson comes out sluggish, BOOM! Here comes Newt!

I believe it will come down to Thompson and Gingrich for the Republican nomination. The winner will defeat Mrs. Bill Clinton who already has the Democrat nomination sewed up.

Of course America is ready to elect a woman. Especially if that woman was a war hero.

Is America ready to elect Hillary Clinton? That is the question. To that I say, no. While she definitely has solid support (for now), more people dislike/distrust her than any other candidate on either side of the aisle. I believe that small but very telling fact is being downplayed by the mainstream press. Afterall, they (the establishment) have already annointed Hillary the nominee.

Conservative,
you could be right in your prediction. I think the way you said things might unfold could be correct. I just don't agree with reasons behind it.
Thanks for posting.

Actually, Fred has delayed his entry in to the race because he's trying to spin a few things from his past that have...come up all of a sudden. Chief among these would be the fact that before he entered Congress, he was a lobbyist for a pro-abortion group. That's really not going to hurt him all that much ,but he does have to answer for it. He also needs to be totally honest with his advisors about his past. All of that clean up will take take.

Dubbya is taking the Presidency, wrapping it up in some very expensive wrapping paper, tieing it up with a big pretty bow and attaching a lovely Congrats Hallmark card with a personal note:
"Dear Future President Mrs. Clinton and her VP Mr. Obama,
Enjoy!
I only ask that you please keep me and Dick out of jail when the time comes.
OK, well, all my best and good luck screwing the peeps, it was great fun for me.
Regards,
George 2 and Dick"
and this is from a former conservative that stayed up all night to make sure that man won the 2nd election, I feel so stupid.

I understand that a lot of registered Republicans have turned. I don't balme them for it. I've been in the city clerk's office a few times with pen in hand and that voter registration form right in front of me. I have a feeling that the next time I do that, I'll actually follow through and change my party affiliation to Indy.

Having said that, I feel the need to keep talking about the values that my party once held near and dear. Those would be small government and fiscal responsibility. I may not get my way, but I am stubborn. I'll keep choosing my words with some care and I'll stay in the fight until somebody decides that they've have enough of me.

Changing party. The Democrats do 60% of the things I’d like to see done. The GOP does 10%. And that not well done. The Libertarians do 1%. America is a 2 party country. It was in 1792, the second election and the 1st with political parties. The only 3rd party candidate to win the presidency was Abraham Lincoln. The only 3rd party candidate to make a difference in the 20th century was the 1912 Progressive Party of Teddy Roosevelt who was himself known as the Bull Moose for completing a speech after being shot. He made Woodrow Wilson president. Like it or not, if you want to be active in politics and to make your efforts count, you have to be in one of the 2 major parties. (Like even Ron Paul).

Small government. A trip to nostalgia-land. Denial is not a river in Egypt. America: 300 million people, 3.6 million square miles over 6 time zones, stronger armed forces in the world, greatest economy, still a beacon for the world and a major player in the world economy, CANNOT reclaim the 19th century’s hallmark of small government. Why not make it a goal, GOOD government?

Fiscal responsibility. Last demonstrated by the Democrats under that icon of the recent past, Bill Clinton. Let us restore the 1993 tax code. Let us assume the burden of paying as we go and not shifting the burden to future generations. All this is true and should be the mantra of every adult right thinking person, all the more knowing we are entering into a 30 yeas period of short-fall in social security income versus baby boomer outgo.

But despite knowing all that in '04, 53 million Americans voted for Bush43. Live now, pay later! Or die first and don’t pay at all! Taxes? Who pays taxes! We're Reagan/Bush Republicans. ***** the future generations.

Whoever wanted to fight a genuine WAR on credit? I keep reminding all you good folks that the top bracket tax rate for World War 2, the Greatest Generation, was 91%. I don’t know if you believe me or not, but I tell you it is true. 55% corporate tax rate. Plus an EXCESS profits tax. Encouraged to save 10% of wages, we finished the war with money in the bank! We are still coasting off that experience in fiscal sanity. Thank you Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. You did right by us. You saved America.

[edit on 7/10/2007 by donwhite]

I say government is too big. When I was on the payroll, I saw as many as six people doing the job of one. when I say that government is too big, that's what my opniion is based on. The Federal work force should be a small but elite professional group that can do more with less. Even ifwe have to pay them more as individuals to do it, fewer bodies on site would require a higher degree of efficience than we current receive.

Good government is something that all generations should be calling out for. I'm not for soaking the rich, but I am for a proportionately fair tax. I could be alked in to a flat rate tax, assuming there were no deductions. Bill Clinton was quite smart to leave office on a budgetary surplus. Again, its that political skill that I keep talking about. He shopped for his legacy early and it (still) shows.

I was watching John mcCain on the CBS news tonight, and I don't think I've seen him looking quite so forlorne and pathetic...ever. I sympathize with his point of view, but he's trying to hold the ethical high ground while the sands of morality shift from beneath his feet. I'm for the war on many levels, but even I know that it will not end well.

Ya know what tho? Im one of those people that criticized the drawdown of US forces back in the early 90s. I saw it as counterproductive. For two reasons: it kicked alot of people out of gainful employment and weakened us militarily.

Is the government efficient? After seeing what privitization has done to our armed forces and the situation we now face in war, I would say, I think the government does a better job of doing the job.

And I'm a lifelong Republican who is for the market. And a robust national defense.



Fairness (towards the middle class) is rescinding Bush's reckless tax cuts ( in a time of war, no less).



McCain's candidacy is OVER.

[edit on 7/10/07 by EastCoastKid]

The GOP Convention is being held in St Paul MN on Sept 1 to Sept 4.
The Dems Convention is being held in Denver CO on Aug 25 to Aug 28.



1) Government is unique. It is not a for-profit enterprise. When we have an urgent need for it’s services, we need trained people at the ready. Today, and not 2-3 years later. Look at the 2005 Katrina episode. It is now 2 years - in August - and still NO is in ruins. The POOR parts of town, not the R&Fs. For them, it’s money in the pocket and business as usual. Is this a subtle form of ethnic cleansing? Regardless, that natural disaster showed the US was not ready for a sizeable destructive event of any origin. Lacking leadership, I doubt if it is in any better shape today.

I submit the Federal bureaucracy is no more overstaffed than corporate America. Large organizations find it more economic to overstaff than to run short. Demands vary. Work loads are seasonal. So where do you park your excess staff while waiting for the worst? The British used to put senior workers on half pay to stay at home for a couple years before retiring them. Sort of like a national guard on stand-by.

2) The simplicity of a flat tax is indeed appealing. 110,000 experienced and highly paid IRS workers could be let go. The Tax Court shut down. A whole industry of CPAs and JDs conjuring legal tax avoidance schemes could rejoin the productive labor force. Google, Yahoo or Microsoft could process the post-card tax returns. CitiBank or Wachovia could handle the money flow. 1000s of trees would be saved when publishing of tax avoidance books ends. TV time rates would go down because late-nite “sponsored” info-mercials on taxes would end. Assuming we could keep Halliburton (and Cheney) out of the loop, it sounds too good to be true.

Reagan almost attained a “flat tax” in his first tax “reform.” There were just 2 brackets. But by the mid-80s, even the Reaganites had to ask for more money. It just costs money to run a government. And a lot of money to run a big one. Ideology was driving fiscal policy and dinning it insane. B41 and B43 have both operated on that same policy.

17% is the oft-spoken flat tax rate. If half our GDP is subject to the flat tax then simple math shows it will not work. Half of 12 is 6 times point 17 equals just over $1 t. We are spending $3 t. this year. To raise sufficient funds, a flat tax of 54% will not be well received. Persons making minimum wage - about $13,000 a year - would have that socially inadequate remuneration reduced to $10,500. Flat tax advocates, realizing but not admitting the inherent unfairness in the flat tax, offer an exemption to low wage earners. I frequently hear the first $25,000 in family income is to be exempted. That compromises the ‘simplicity claim’ ballyhooed by flat tax advocates. No matter how you slice it, the 1993 tax code comes out on top.

3) John McCain is on to something but he is coming from a different perspective. America is not equipped to win a ideologically driven uprising. Not in Vietnam, not in Iraq. And maybe not in Afghan. As much as I hate B43 and want to see him end in the garbage can of history, “we” have mucked up the Middle East and laid it wide open to Iran, China, Russia, Turkey and Israel to exploit. Not to even mention the ages old conflict between Shia and Sunni. The delicate balance of power and interests that had evolved there especially since the 1890s when Europeans began to come there for oil, was upset on March 18, 2003, by a thoughtless bunch of bumbling ideologues. So now we have to clean up their mess? And the figurehead leader of that hapless Gang of Four - add Rummy and Condo - is still wanting more time to see his failed policies contineut to fail? Wow! How many more Americans will die uselessly on the B43 Watch? Or who will be the last man to die in Iraq? Hello, John McCain, please answer that question.

CNN says we are spending $12 b. a month in Iraq. We continue asserting, say claiming to know what Iraqis will do should we leave precipitously, yet we have not proved to know much if anything about what the rank and file Iraqi thinks about anything. We are dealing with the Chiluba types who are sycophants sucking our treasury dry. We are projecting ourselves onto the Iraqis. I OTOH, believe the Iraqis are 100% capable now, today, to deal with the mess we created if we will begin to withdraw our forces. Perhaps at a rate that would put all but 30,000 out of the country by the end of 2008. Then announce the last remaining troops would be OUT by 2010.

Whatever we do, we must keep the blunders of George W Bush in the forefront. Designated by the Supreme Court to be president, we got off to a bad start. And it never got better. We must never elect an MBA who was AWOL from the National Guard and who PRAYS to God every morning. There is no person worse than an illiterate nincompoop thinking he is in touch with GOD. Faith will get you killed in the real world.

[edit on 7/11/2007 by donwhite]

I have no doubt that the folks over in Hillary's camp are scrambling to make use of all the mistakes made by the Bush administration. I can hear them chatting around the water cooler now, "so many options, so little time." Ouch. then again, I'm sure Custer must have thought he could handle it, right up until the very end.

B43 looked like he was a man who knew what he was doing today. He is so remote from real life that he mayactually believe what he is saying.



[edit on 7/12/2007 by donwhite]

This is not directly related to Hillery but it does show that the money is still going to the Dem.

sorce

I had a chance to watch part of the CNN/Youtube debate yesterday. I thought many of the answers given by the various Dems sounded quite "Republican." I point this out becuase it seems clear to me that the GOP can't carry its own water just now. "The right thing" doesn't belong to one political party.

Somebody has been coaching Hillary. She came off with more of that Presidential posture, again. I'm glad to see that there is an establishment candidate, and a populist option in Democratic ranks. I'm really sorry to see that the GOP can't manage that. I liked the YouTube concept, and I hope to see it used against in the future.

Well after been away from this post for a while, I will say that Mrs. Hillary will be the next Democrat candidate for president of the USA and she will be pushed to have Obama as running mate.

Because he will help her win the elections with his popularity among the Blacks.

After watching the debates last night I will say that she will be the next president.

She exude confidence you can tell that she knows she got the presidency in her hands.

Republicans stand no chance with the candidates they have.

Occurs This just an opinion base of what I have seen and perceive about the primaries candidates.

My personal choice will be not to vote for any democrat or republican, because the problems of this nation and the agenda on the middle east will be the same not matter what.

Hello marg, good to see you here again. Hope all is well.

I think we saw something truly new last night. You know they screened the questions, but even so, we did see history in the making. I like the idea that anyone could use their cell phone camera to knock off a thirty second video question for any politician.

Go populism!

Thanks Justin, I am all over as you know.

Yes I did like the new concept, but as usual I bet it was screened to the max.

Still you can tell who got the bull by the horns in this campaign.

It's true that Obama has the coin just now, but he does trail Hillary by 15-18 points in the polls. I don't know who is giving him political advice, but they need to be severely beaten with a wet noodle and then fired. Hillary is playing t owin, and there's no doubt about that. I wish the Republicans would be so engaged.

Justin,
that reminds me of what I think it was Bucanann said one time. That we have a one party system masquerading as two parties. There has been several pieces of information to back that up.

But I also think that shows the importance of the third party. If forces change in the one party masquerading as two parties.

Yikes, but I'm sure Don will have a lot to say about that when he gets back from his current trip. In the mean time...I don't think you're wrong. the worst of the trouble we face is that both parties want the same degree of unfettered power. They may differ in their methods, but they both want the same things...in this one bad respect.