Submitted by dsantos
Posted: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 1:50 AM.
With HRC cancelling her appearances tomorrow, Obama may lock up the nomination in less than 24 hours. The next question: Who will Obama tap for Veep?
Ny prediction: my own Governor Janet. She is a liberal governor from a Red state (Arizona), works well with Republicans, would provide the most diverse ticket ever, would lend experience points to the Obama package, provides a sharp and local contrast to McSame, and adds an illegal immigration piece to the puzzle.
I’d have to go with Governor Richardson
Posted: Wed, 05/07/2008 - 09:45.
All very good points you make for Arizona's Governor Janet, but personally I feel Governor Bill Richardson would be a better choice, based on his past experience and style, which complement's Senator Obama.
Works well with Republicans?
Posted: Wed, 05/07/2008 - 10:06.
The governor has vetoed more bills sent to her by the Conservative Legislature than any governor in state history. She has opposed making the property tax cut permanent because the teacher's union has lobbied to eliminate it due to fears it would reduce their funding. Meanwhile, that tax cut saves Arizona's citizens $250M annually. Arizona is facing a $1B deficit as well.
She has one thing going for her when it comes to bi-partisan support: Immigration Reform. She put the National Guard on her border. But, she opposed Proposition 200 which would have eliminated the ability for illegals to obtain welfare. So even in her best bi-partisan effort she's fatally flawed.
With McCain (or McSame as you so childishly put it) proving he can grab independents and Reagan Democrats, adding another liberal to the ticket lead by the most liberal US Senator is a recipie for disaster. Although, I would certainly welcome it.
Two Points
Posted: Thu, 05/08/2008 - 13:37.
Would you be so kind as to cite when Senator McCain has picked up the so-called Reagan Democrats in this election cycle?
Second, what will it take for Republicans to stop using the "most liberal Senator" line? Because I thought John Kerry was the most liberal Senator, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't gotten more conservative. Then again, wasn't Al Gore the most liberal senator? No, I seem to be mistaken again, that was Lyndon Johnson but only during those few hours after John Kennedy got out the nomination. Wait, I'm mistaken again, clearly Truman was the most liberal senator ...
I really respect what this site is trying to do, but that mission is eroded by both McSame and phony labels.
Not Phony
Posted: Thu, 05/08/2008 - 14:27.
The "most liberal Senator" label changes year to year based on voting record. When Kerry was running for President he was one of the most liberal Senators, based on voting record, in the Senate. Since then, Obama has taken the "crown" as most liberal.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/01/obama_ranked_most_liberal_sena_1.html
As for McCain picking up Reagan Democrats, polls have shown that 20% of Clinton voters would vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee. That 20% are the blue-collar white voters.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/the_specter_of_mccain_democrat.html
Not Not Phony :)
Posted: Thu, 05/08/2008 - 15:16.
That is all speculation about the so-called Reagan Democrats. Naturally people are going to claim to vote for the other guy if their candidate doesn't win. This is akin to those who claimed that they would move to Canada if President Bush won reelection. Fortunately, we did not see a mass exodus from the country.
The Most Liberal Senator rankings are from the National Journal and the methodology is questionable at best.
Taking a closer look at this year’s results, Obama and Joe Biden were both considered more liberal than Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders. This, alone, should make one wonder about the reliability of the rankings.
Better yet, National Journal’s press release on the rankings noted the criteria was based on 99 key roll-call votes last year: “Obama voted the liberal position on 65 of the 66 votes in which he participated, while Clinton voted the liberal position on 77 of 82 votes.” So, Clinton voted for the liberal position 77 times, Obama voted for it 65 times, which makes Obama the chamber’s single most liberal member. Got it.
What’s more, Obama was the 16th most liberal senator in 2005, and the 10th most liberal in 2006, before racing to the front of the pack in 2007. National Journal suggests this has something to do with Obama moving to the left to curry favor with Democratic primary voters.
But there’s a more logical explanation: Obama missed a whole lot of votes in 2007 — he’s been on the campaign trail — but was on the floor for many of the biggest, most consequential votes. In nearly every instance, he voted with the party. And with that, voila! The most liberal senator in America.
Except that’s not much of a standard. The rankings use an amorphous meaning of the word “liberal,” and the percentage doesn’t take missed votes into account at all (which also helps explain why Kerry nabbed the top spot four years ago).
(From The Carpebagger)
So you see that under the National Journal's methodology those running for President, and who miss all but the most crucial votes (where they will likely vote with their party), will always be ranked as the most liberal senator. Even if you thought the underlying votes that make up the ranking are a fair indicator of whether someone is liberal or conservative, then you should at least judge candidates by their non-campaign year rankings.
That is an absolutely
Posted: Fri, 05/09/2008 - 18:56.
That is an absolutely preposterous analysis of the ranking system.
It isn't based on total votes cast, but rather their amount of votes in which the candidate took the liberal position in relation to the total votes cast.
Are you seriously claiming that because Hillary voted more frequently she must be the more liberal, even though the overall percentage of her liberal votes is lower than Obama? What kind of fuzzy math is that?
And based on Obama's track record for voting liberal in the votes he chose to appear for, what makes you think that if he were to have voted more frequently his votes wouldn't consistently be on the liberal side of the issue?
It's absolutely absurd to claim you have to discount his election year votes because he wasn't around to cast more votes. And I thought Obama was supposed to bring all of Americans together as a uniter? Republicans, Democrats, Independents... if he votes down the party line almost exclusively how is that evidence he'll be able to work in a bi-partisan manner? There's no evidence to support that.
Your argument is so amazingly typical of a liberal who's shown facts and takes a highly nuanced position in order to discredit hard data.
Nuance
Posted: Fri, 05/09/2008 - 21:01.
I forget that nuanced opinions are a bad thing is this black and white world. And seriously, stop making arguments based on putting the other side down -- it only erodes your position.
You haven't been able to
Posted: Fri, 05/09/2008 - 22:21.
You haven't been able to offer me one concrete piece of evidence to dispute ANYTHING I've tried you on.
I'm sorry if I'm being a little tough on you. I figured it was only a matter of time before you pulled that card instead of responding to the questions. Typical.