Best Presidential Candidate, Democrats

This story is to discuss the remaining democratic candidates for president. Please keep discussions limited to talk about Hillary and Obama. Keep discussions of the other party in the other story.

I personally

[Aurisor (932566)]

support whomever posts first.

Re:I personally

[by Anonymous Coward]

Obama has certainly taken the crown in the Democratic campaign as "the candidate making best use of the internet." Take, for example, this clip I saw yesterday. Not sure exactly who is behind it, but the message is inspiring and - frankly - can melt through the icy cynicism of the Grinchiest Clintonite.

I would have liked more singing from Scarlett Johansson.

Watch and enjoy.

http://www.dipdive.com/ [dipdive.com]

For once my vote counts!

[FuzzyDaddy (584528)]

I live in DC. We get three electoral votes for president, but since we are overwhelmingly democratic, our general election vote always goes to the democrat. Our primary is after super Tuesday, at which point there is usually a clear "winner" for the democratic nominee.

My political friends from both camps assure me that super Tuesday is NOT going to seal the democratic nomination one way or another. Unlike the general election, delegates are not assigned all to one candidate based on the state total (for the democrats, anyway. Republican rules are different). The exact formula varies by state, but the delegate assignment is roughly proportional to the number of votes.

Personally, I'm leaning towards Obama myself. He seems principled and energetic, and I like his principles. Clinton seems a bit more cynical. I think he'd have a better chance against McCain. McCain won't bring out the republican base; Hillary Clinton will.

Policy wise, though, I think they're similar enough that I wouldn't mind either of them in the white house.

Combined ticket is probably a mistake

[ktappe (747125)]

I've not decided which of the two to vote for, but I do agree with something I heard John Grisham say last week: That having them pair up for a "super ticket" would probably be more negative than positive. Any voters who would not have voted for a woman AND any voters who would not vote for a black would BOTH be turned away and McCain would slide into the presidency.

Re:Combined ticket is probably a mistake

[sayfawa (1099071)]

This whole election's outcome will be based on peoples' prejudices. What does America dislike the least:
a) women
b) old people
c) funny religions
d) blacks

Douglas Adams had it right:

[Liberaltarian (1030752)]

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

It all comes down to...

[monschein (1232572)]

Who can win against a white male - a black man or a white woman?

Re:It all comes down to...

[Liberaltarian (1030752)]

What makes you think that the GOP will nominate a whi-- *looks at the GOP field*

Damn. Fair enough.

obama@google

[Deanalator (806515)]

Someone posted part of this clip last time, where Obama talks at google about the future of technology. This is the full 64 minute clip, complete with Obama's joke about sorting algorithms :-)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=m4yVlPqeZwo [youtube.com]

Re:obama@google

[00_NOP (559413)]

Yes, but does he use emacs or vi? That's what we want to know!

Hillary and Obama

[Random BedHead Ed (602081)]

Please keep discussions limited to talk about Hillary and Obama.

Let's be consistent: you meant Clinton and Barack.

Re:Hillary and Obama

[pierced2x (527997)]

Hillary consistently refers to herself as 'Hillary', not 'Clinton' (go to her website, or see any of her campaign swag). The same goes for Obama. I see nothing wrong with calling them their preferred campaigning name. I am especially tired of the people that say Hillary is being 'disrespected as a woman' because she is called by her first name. Let it go already.

Great summary of Hillary

[arkham6 (24514)]

"She is highly intelligent, has real experience and is an attractive candidate. But she is terrified to act on her beliefs. In fact, she seems so conditioned by what she sees as political constraints that one can barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end."

Re:Great summary of Hillary

[ScentCone (795499)]

one can barely tell where her beliefs begin and where those constraints end

I don't know. Sometimes she says what she really thinks. Just yesterday, she talked about garnishing the wages of people who don't buy health insurance. Now that's letting her colors show.

Re:Great summary of Hillary

[ScentCone (795499)]

Sorry, she said what?

That's right, you heard me [yahoo.com].

Provenance and Iraq.

[Average (648)]

Policy differences between Clinton and Obama? Minor.

Leadership?

I worry about provenance with Clinton. Why was she the head of the Healthcare task force? A recognized health expert? A well-known elected official? Wife of a guy who got 43% of the vote? That 'mandate', plus too much secrecy, doomed a not-so-bad health care plan and has cost us a lot of jobs and bankrupt Americans in the last 14 years.

Then again, why was she on the board of Wal-Mart? We mention that (well, she doesn't mention on her website that she was the first female board member of America's #1 retailer). But, why? Was she a business expert? Run a corner store? Worked her way up from the mailroom? Was she the wife of the governor of Wal-Mart's home state?

Obama has taken every step. He's sprinted to the top, no doubt. But, he's gone from knocking on doors in the projects to fighting a political machine in his district to convincing both rural and urban Illinois to inspiring a generation. No shortcut.

Not to say she's been a bad senator. But, the Iraq vote is very troubling. Only six Senators are on record as checking in to the locked room to read the full (96 page) intelligence report. Yes, it was full of lies. But, John Edwards *did*. Clinton? McCain? Neither. They believed.

And thinking of Iraq. The *only* way out of Iraq is to offer a new deal to the Iraqis. Clinton? The wife of a man whose crippling sanctions and annual bombing runs caused a whole lot of misery and entrenched the regime? Sure, from here we can say the sanctions were a good thing. But, for the man on the street who lost a child to deprivation? We need a president who is not connected to that legacy.

Barack

[Edward Ka-Spel (779129)]

Chances are, despite growing up Republican, I will vote democrat this election no matter who it is. Bush ran the republican party into the ground. But not all candidates are created equal.

Hillary is a strong traditional candidate. She is carrying out a textbook campaign. She appears to me to be very power hungry and is willing to do whatever it takes to win, but sometimes you want that in a president. I think she would make a decent/good president. I really didn't like Bill Clinton as president, but compared to Bush, the 90s look like the golden years.

Barack, though, is something different. He looks like he is honestly and thoughtfully trying to do what is best for the country. He tries to understand the issues, think through the issues, and come up with the best answer to the issue. That is something very rare. I noticed in the California debates that Hillary would say "this is my answer, it's the best! Your idea is dumb!" Barack would say "I have considered your idea and think that this would be the result of your idea, so I have another idea that doesn't have the disadvantage your idea has." He is the only candidate I have seen that actually thinks an idea through. Everybody else (Republican and Democrat) seem to just throw ideas out that sound good, without thinking about it. Obama has the potential to be one of the top presidents ever. (He may fail of course, you never know...)

I have been voting since 1992, and this is the first time I ever had a candidate that I wanted to win, as opposed to picking the lesser of two evils. (of course, I haven't voted for the winning candidate yet...)

Re:Onlk Obama and Clinton?

[jalefkowit (101585)]

From my limited understanding of human psychology, I detest polls or referring to them as evidence at all. The wording of the question as well as the order in which the questions were asked affect it too much.

Gravel is at less than one percent in every single poll ever taken, which would discount issues of bias in a particular survey. You may not like polls, and it's true that you can create an individual poll that drives responses in one direction or another. But it's hard to discount the enormous pile of evidence that we have that Americans don't see Gravel as a serious candidate (and for good reason).

Re:WTF?

[Pojut (1027544)]

As technology grows and becomes a more regular part of the everyday citizen's life, this next election will have a MASSIVE impact on us all, including from a technology standpoint. The next president will play a role in dictating funding, telcos, ISP's, piracy...you name it, this election is going to dictate quite a lot in terms of technology (not to mention everything else, of course)

In that sense, discussing this election (ESPECIALLY considering Hillary is a technological idiot) is very on-topic.

Re:WTF?

[kent_eh (543303)]

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters

Doesn't the process of selecting the leader of the (for better or worse) one of the most powerful and influential nations on the planet have some relevance to the phrase "stuff that matters"?

Even if you live in another country, the US government and it's actions have some amount of influence on your existence. (whether it should have as much influence as it does is another topic for another thread).

Re:meh

[airship (242862)]

She's not a lunatic - she's a cold, calculating machine politician. We don't need another Clinton or Bush in the White House. Enough of the dynasties.

Obama is naive, compassionate, charismatic, and idealistic - just the kind of change in leadership this country needs.

Re:meh

[Pojut (1027544)]

Have you actually watched the woman talk for more than 2 minutes? That's all the example that you need.

Hillary is the epitome of saying whatever it takes to get the most votes. Running to become the next leader of the free world while spouting off boilerplate sayings just to look good in the polls is frightening. I don't know about you, but I don't want my leader to do their best to appeal to the masses...I want them to focus on running the fucking country.

Not to mention she is a backstabber. Did she or did she not agree with Obama to not sling crap at each other any more? And what is she doing now? Slinging shit again. Fuck that. I do NOT want the leader of my country to be trying to make others look bad so I will vote for them. You tell me why I should vote for YOU, not why I SHOULDN'T vote for someone else. This applies to all the other candidates as well.

Re:Gravel?

[MightyYar (622222)]

The uneducated masses pick the candidates who get the best press rather than bother to research what the candidates' positions and records are.

Unfortunately, you must let the uneducated masses have an equal voice if you hope to call this a democracy. The best tack, then, is for the educated elite to push for better education... which for some reason they tend not to see as obvious.

On the other hand, our founding fathers didn't trust the uneducated masses, either. We have a largely unelected judiciary, and even the Senate was not originally elected. The popularly elected House then was only given a term of 2 years vs 6 in the Senate! Even the presidential election is slightly skewed from true democracy by the electoral college.

Re:Obama

[malevolentjelly (1057140)]

I half-way agree. I am pro-Obama, but I think I have every reason to hate Hillary. The fact of the matter is that we've got a republican in the democrat field looking to cock-block progress by using a well-known "democrat" name.

If Hillary wins the nomination, it will be impossible to have a real progressive democrat president for four years. If she wins the presidency, then it will be impossible to have a real progressive for eight years.

Imagine another eight years of Bush politics. Remember, Hillary is pro-censorship, security, war, executive power, and secrecy. I think she's more like Bush than McCain.

Re:None of them are worth a damn.

[omeomi (675045)]

They all want the job, which should be enough in itself to disqualify them.

Not a bad idea. The electorate should just choose some random person to be president every 4 years, and surprise them with the news at work one day.