The Democratic candidates have been trotting out their plans for tax relief and health care reform, but that doesn’t change the fact that Iraq will be the central issue of the 2008 election.
On that point, it’s interesting to note that the latest Gallup poll has Sen. John McCain edging back up in popularity to third place among Republican voters, only 4 points behind Fred Thompson and 10 points ahead of Mitt Romney.
McCain, with his rock-solid support for the surge, probably remains the candidate who can most credibly sell the party’s position on Iraq — stay the course.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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29 Comments
If I have to have a Republican president, I want McCain over any others…even though I’m thoroughly disgusted with him right now being up BUSH’s asscrack.
I have hope that it’s all campaign bs that he’s doing and will come to be more moderate if elected.
In the meantime, I’ve gone from being fully pro-Hillary to being half-Hillary, half- Obama.
Probably leaning more Obama at this time.
John has a BIG problem. He’s sold out his integrity too many times to win too many crossover votes. Grudging support he might get from Libertarians has been blown to hell by his recent support of numerous scary administration positions.
Despite his recent attempts at ass-kissing, the religious right remains distrustful of him, and for good reason. In the regard, though, THE other candidates are a –hehe!–godsend to him.
And lasting anger of the immigration fiasco have him struggling even to hold onto his lead in AZ.
He could still win the nomination by default, I suppose (we’ll see what Thompson actually does), but there’s no denying the man is in trouble.
Hey look at the bright side… He has more chance than Brownback!Though I am not sure what many mean by he is better at explaining our being in Iraq? He just keeps repeating the same old things that ring so hollow. “The front in the fight with Al-Qeada and the like.
Iraq will be a major issue but it will not be “the issue”. Other domestic issues such as health care will weigh on peoples minds too. Most of us are not directly affected by the Iraq war and whether it goes on for 10 more years or 1 more year is not going to change our lives a bit. Domestic issues like skyrocketing health insurance rates and big increases in crime rates do affect us more.
McCain is an ass. I used to have a bit of respect for the man when he stood up to Pat Robertson and Co. But then he went back and kissed the ass of the religious nutcases. I honestly agree with Bush on McCain- he is a mental case.
McCain is too old and his time has passed.
Since McCain is all for the Iraq surge, will he also be for the invasion of Iran when George W. Bush, the ‘decider’, takes us there next?
The drumbeat for the war against Iran is already being heard. I do not think that the American voters will stand for the war against Iran and anyone even remotely connected to George W. Bush will feel the consequences come election time.
“2008 election will come down to Iraq”
Duh. Ya think?
McCain’s rise in the polls says more about Fredrick of Hollywood’s dismal failure as an official candidate, Mitt Romney’s AC/DC approach to gay rights, and bumper stickers that say, “Honk if you’ve married Rudy Giuliani!”
Alan Keyes’ entry into the race will one day be revealed to be financed by Giuliani’s backers. Huckabee has made big inroads into the twice-born Republics, Sam Brownback still has a segment of the self-righteous Christianists… the addition of yet another so-called “values” candidate is designed to further dilute the fundamentalist “Christian” vote.
There’s so much behind-the-scenes right-wing money buying off corrupt candidates (the Koch money, the Richard Mellon-Scaife money, the Stauffer money that’s financing Sam the Sham, etc.), it’s absurd to see the grassroots Republic Party faithful on this forum who seem to actually believe any of the GOP’s candidates.
I may be naive, but I think posters such as “Kansas” and “ksgrm” and “Nathan” and maybe even “Max” might be sincere believers in the opinions they share here. But the only-est thing that keeps the Republic Party viable is the Big Money from behind the scenes.
Eagle Editorial writers:
Read Podhoretz new book.
I don’t expect that you will change your minds, but you might quit saying stupid things that can be proven wrong.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2007/09/21/the_podhoretz_cavalry
There was no real alternative to removing Saddam.
Sure, it is hard work.
It would have been a bigger mess to leave Saddam in power.
Dems have more trouble than Republicans.
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdWqNEboJe4
Sad, but likely…to bad though since there are many issues that actually need addressed.
This little pissant war is solely a polcitical issue and deserves little attention.
If it was the loss of life the antis were really concerned about, they would be out confiscating your car. We kill TEN TMES as many people EVERY YEAR in autos as this war has over some 4-5 years. So the loss of life is a complete BS bogus nonsensical trump card.
The anti war left are the same as they have always been. They are simply anti US and anti capitalist crowd and the few libs that use it to bash conservatives around etc.
Groups like ANSWER are still funded by the communists just as the anti war was during Viet Nam. Yes the were, read some of the recent KGB papers coming to light currently. Who do you think funded all those rallys and put a lot of article in the papers. Especially through the likes of the NYT and the Walter Durantys of the world.
For craps sake the concept of “Multiculturalism” came from the Soviets back in the early 60’s to get it into Academia. The KGB knew their economic system was bogus and could never take on the West since we were so “homogeneous” in our life. They knew the only way to weaken the US was to get it to fracture from the inside.
So now you have “multi-culti” coming from the Academic left and it has been a terrible experience and has now infested most companies and especially the media.
They actually believe that all cultures are equal….which is complete utter nonsense. Just look around you.
“We kill TEN TMES as many people EVERY YEAR in autos as this war has over some 4-5 years.”
FALSE STATEMENT. Estimates of war dead are in the hundreds of thousands.
I never understand the comparisons of this (fill in the blank) causes these numbers of deaths, when talking about war. How does war affect deaths from auto accidents? Would those deaths happen anyway? But stopping war will completely eliminate deaths from that cause. Deaths from war aren’t less horrible when compared to deaths from any other cause, not are they less preventable.
Linda”Stopping war” will INCREASE death from:
SlaveryTerrorism
FascismCommunism
And many other evils, throughout history, which war has stopped!
Well, I’m not going to live my life in fear! If any of those boogeymen you list “get me,” it will be while I’m am busy with life because not one second is going to be spent in worrying about what you list! I think you need a check-up, your ability to reason seems to need adjustment.
linda
You can enjoy those things, and live in your care-free la-la land, because others were willing to die, and kill, for you.
Econ:
In your 5:50 PM post, you’re making it sound as though world events unfold the way numbers are managed on a balance sheet: debit this, credit that. One thing cancels out another, or one thing automatically breeds another. Don’t people retain the option to choose the wiser course of action? Do we have no free will after all? Please explain your case. I do not understand it.
I don’t need anyone to die in Iraq for me. bush’s war of choice can’t be compared to wars fought for a good cause. There is no reason to be in Iraq and no way to get out now that we are there. bush is a madman. Don’t bother responding. On this subject there is nothing possible but agreeing to disagree. No amount of your kind of reasoning will ever sound reasonable to me and I’m sure you feel the same about what I think and say.
FALSE STATEMENT. Estimates of war dead are in the hundreds of thousands.
Posted by: Ben | September 21, 2007 at 03:47 PM
Source Ben?
The real estimates are like 60,000 Iraqi’s dead and everyone already knows the American numbers.
The 600,000 dead done by survey was proven false and wildly inaccurate long ago.
TR
My point is only this:
Evil does not respond well to pacifism.
Evil is only defeated by use of force.
Econ:
If governments must go to war every time “evil” is perceived, then governments will do nothing but go to war. And that is a bottomless pit.
Car accidents can be brought up as an issue too. The Republicans have cut highway funding to pay for their war and now we have bridges falling down, roads crumbling and too few police on our highways. And now they let all the Mexican truckers in. Yep, we can talk about that too.
“”"Linda”Stopping war” will INCREASE death from:
SlaveryTerrorism
FascismCommunism
And many other evils, throughout history, which war has stopped!”"”"
The United States does not go to war because somebody is “evil” and on the evil scale there are many that rank lower than Saddam did. I am not a pacifist. There are evil people and they sometimes have to be dealt with using guns. That was not the case here however.
Kansas – even using your low-ball 60,000 numbers makes your claim false.
Car accidents can be brought up as an issue too. The Republicans have cut highway funding to pay for their war and now we have bridges falling down, roads crumbling and too few police on our highways. And now they let all the Mexican truckers in. Yep, we can talk about that too.
Posted by: Kev
Bridges and roads are falling apart because the states and locals have not been keeping them up. How much fed money over the last 40+ years was given for this purpose and used for something else. The MN bridge was 40 years old and it did not collapse overnight. It was years in the making, like the bridge on south broadway. The city knew about it but until someone went to the media it was ignored. It was waiting to collapse if they had not closed it down.
The truckers issue is part of the stupid NAFTA deal my union supported.
Too few police on our highways? I do not know numbers, but we have been having steady increases in law enforcement for years. Some areas chose not to take advantage of Clinton’s 100K extra cops because their match kept getting higher. Our country worked great with a lower per capita police ratio for a long time and crime was low. Someone should do a study to compare when things started getting out of hand with crime and what was happening in the law and justice fields. I chose the two fields because they are the reason for the changes.
I do not want the Mexican truckers any here because it is too easy to smuggle illegals, drugs, terrorists, politicians, and other undesirable things.
I want to see the feds require the states and locals to spend money for what it was given and not whatever they feel like. If they do not spend it like they were supposed to, they have to repay and lose the money next year.
We have been at war with Iraq under 3 Presidents.
How do you propose that we should have ended that war?
Saddam agreed to a cease-fire and then violated that cease-fire agreement, repeatedly.
If we had let that continue,, no tyrant, anywhere, would fear the US.
If an armistice or cease fire is not enforced, the side that does not enforce the agreement is defeated.
—And the chance that anyone will ever respect a cease-fire, in the future, is diminished.
The Clinton Administration called Iraq a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
The Veterans Administration considers everyone who served in the military, under Clinton, to have served during wartime.
When was that state of war going to end, if not by removing Saddam?
boo!
Iraq will diminish down to either no talk at all, or no promises for a quick end to the war.
If the war is going well, troops are being drawn down by next summer, the Democrats will become very quiet on the Iraq issue.
If the war isn’t going well, then as we get closer to November 2008, Hillary will realize that she can’t promise quick fixes, and she may in fact try to minimalize the war, as some posters are doing here today even!
Hillary will still blame Bush for everything of course, but no longer will there be promises of quickly ending the war – not when it’s under Hillary’s responsibility.
And even Hillary is smart enough to know that she can’t just pull all the troops out in a month or two without the Mideast blowing up completely into a Regional War, risking the flow of 30% of the Worlds oil thru the 20 mile wide Straight of Hormuz.
Econ:
I pulled my copy of Sun-tzu’s “The Art of War” off the shelf just for you. I’ll quote from chapter three, Strategic Offensive:
“Ultimate excellence liesNot in winningEvery battleBut in defeating the enemyWithout ever fighting.”
Also:
“The skillful strategistDefeats the enemyWithout doing battle,Captures the cityWithout laying siege,Overthrows the enemy stateWithout protracted war.”
Peace,
TR Taliaferro