Sunday, January 06, 2008

Presidential Candidate Ranking

The word "CHANGE" now dominates the 2008 presidential election. On both sides of the aisle, the most recent debates found candidates working to craft themselves as agents for change. All but the most die hard Bush fanatics have reached the point where hearing the man speak causes them to wretch. The hatred towards the current administration continues to escalate.

No administration has inflicted so much damage to this country and its standing in the world. Under Clinton, it made sense to speak of United States hegemony on the planet, setting an example and showing other nations possibility and hope. Now we are regarded as evil, dishonest, and corrupt, fabricating evidence to justify invading sovereign nations, imprisoning anyone we please without habeas corpus in secret prisons where we torture them.

Not only evil, suppressing scientific research and outing CIA operatives, but hopelessly obsessed with creating an environment of blind obedience, the administration appointed sheer incompetence at levels staggering the mind, resulting in fiasco after fiasco from the prosecution of the war to the most pathetic Attorney General in history to Katrina. The list goes on.

The 2006 election was about change, except we couldn't vote the Eggplant out of office. Given the hideous context of the worst presidential administration in the nation's history, who would be the most desirable successor to enter the White House and start to repair the extensive damage inflicted at home and abroad?

The ranking of our presidential candidates in terms of their ability to right a wrong course, meet with the leaders of other nations, and generate progress on an extraordinary list of challenges.

1. Barack Obama
His presidency would produce change. He is young, energetic, and has shown himself capable of building consensus. The election of an African American as president would send electricity across the nation and the world. He is everything Eggplant is not. He listens, learns, and understands, verbs beyond the idiot in chief. His background and his record show that he is not a corporate whore.

2. John Edwards
No candidate has more directly addressed corporate greed, corporate welfare, and corruption. His election ties to the 2004 loss and like the election of Obama, would send a signal to the rest of the world that there's a new sheriff in town. I have liked his recent speeches and think his desire to contribute is authentic.

3. Ron Paul
Paul's election would be the equivalent of a Washington enema. Congress would have to work overtime, but Paul is no despot. I speculate he would succeed in pulling this country out of international messes and eliminating some wasteful spending. Congress must insure he does not cut bone, and unchecked he would. If Paul wins as a Republican, that means he won the GOP nomination, which cannot happen. If it does, he transforms the GOP into another party or it splits in two.

4. Hillary Clinton
She's not a republican.

5. John McCain
He's not Rudy Giuliani.

6. Mike Huckabee
I respect the man's integrity, but we require some cerebral horsepower the next go around.

7. Rudy Giuliani
Several months ago I thought this guy had it sewn up. Then we started learning more. At least he's not Mitt Romney.

8. Mitt Romney.
The only candidate less intelligent than Huckabee, and forget integrity. Romney is a liar and a fraud frighteningly out of touch with reality, declaring he's a lifelong hunter when he never had a license, stating that marriages in France last seven years, that he marched with Martin Luther King, the list goes on. He is Bush light, another rich kid born to a daddy with presidential ambitions. He couldn't fail if he failed. If born poor, Romney would be managing a pizza joint. Bush would be one of the cooks.

10 Comments:

Blogger James A. Bretney said...

Keep dreaming baby!

Bush's poll numbers keep going up. While Nan and Harry's go down. People think the country is going in thr wrong direction because you people control Congress.

1/06/2008 10:53 PM  
Blogger Dustin said...

Yes, clearly the country has gone down the shitter in the last year only. But have no fear, nan and harry aren't very popular amongst the dems either. Bush's poll numbers can only go one way in any case, especially after beating nixon's all time low.

I think that given even the best circumstances bush would have been a mediocre president. He really is the wrong guy at the wrong time.

1/07/2008 7:36 AM  
Blogger Liza said...

Hi, James,
This is your first time here, isn't it?

Dreaming is what it is all about, baby. If none of us dared to dream, then the whole world would be ruled by old, fat, white men with guns.

Great Britain tried it.

1/07/2008 8:35 AM  
Blogger Sirocco said...

James,

Of course, the sole reason for H&N's numbers being down is because Democrats are unhappy with them in historic numbers.

if they actually start managing their respective bodies in a manner Democrats would like to see, their numbers would go up substantially.

Bush, on the other hand ...

1/07/2008 8:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That people think the country is going in the wrong direction because Democrats control Congress is dreaming.

The face of the dog in that cartoon is very funny and says a lot.

I understand why you ranked Paul high, but no way. The GOP will not nominate him. If he runs as an Independent (what about Bloomberg?) or Libertarian, he won't win.

1/07/2008 9:48 AM  
Blogger Liza said...

The AP has these numbers this AM for a poll of New Hampshire voters:

DEMOCRATS
Barack Obama, 36 percent
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 28 percent
John Edwards, 22 percent
Bill Richardson, 7 percent

REPUBLICANS
John McCain, 35 percent
Mitt Romney, 31 percent
Mike Huckabee, 13 percent
Ron Paul, 8 percent
Rudy Giuliani, 5 percent

"The telephone poll, by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, was conducted Saturday and Sunday. It involved interviews with 636 likely Democratic primary voters and 477 likely Republican primary voters, and includes voters leaning toward a candidate."

McCain goes to the head of the class in NH, perhaps, and I'm not sure I understand that because I do not pay that much attention to Republican candidates. I'm a little surprised by Guiliani polling so low in the northeast. The Republicans may get to Super Tuesday without a clue as to who is the frontrunner if they take turns in the early primaries.

I hope that Obama looks as good as this poll suggests.

1/07/2008 10:46 AM  
Blogger Liza said...

Here is exactly what Hillary said at the NH debate:

"I want to make change, but I've already made change. I will continue to make change. I'm not just running on a promise of change. I'm running on 35 years of change. I'm running on having taken on the drug companies and the health insurance companies, taking on the oil companies. So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I've already made."

Can someone explain to me why no one appears to be holding her feet to the fire? What in the blazes could this ding bat be talking about? Bill was governor of Arkansas and Bill was the president. Does Hillary think she is Bill? How does she get 35 years? She was elected to the Senate in 2000 and the Democrats have not advanced much of anything since.

End of rant.

1/07/2008 12:09 PM  
Blogger x4mr said...

I really hope that Hillary does not get the blue nod. If she does, I will hold my nose and vote for her, but I won't like it.

I hope McCain gets the red nod, which would be slap to Swine Rove, who trashed both McCain and his wife to elevate Eggplant and Darth Vader.

It would be marvelous to see all three put in prison for the treason they have committed.

1/07/2008 12:55 PM  
Blogger Liza said...

If Hillary and McCain get the nominations then I think our next president is Bloomberg. He would be a fool not to run against those two.

I would vote for Hillary if I were being water boarded but that's about it.

1/07/2008 1:22 PM  
Blogger Liza said...

Oh, my gosh. Have you seen the latest? Hillary is crying in a restaurant in NH and there is a video of it.

Clinton said, "So as tired as I am – and I am – and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with what I try to do on the road like occasionally exercise and try to eat right – it's tough when the easiest food is pizza – I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation so I'm going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide.”

I am convinced at this point that her handlers are idiots. They were TOTALLY unprepared to lose Iowa. Actually, they were totally unprepared to lose anywhere.

They've got her attacking Obama one day in pit bull mode, now they've got her spilling her guts to strangers in a New Hampshire restaurant.

1/07/2008 2:03 PM  

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