Who says you vote for the one that has realist chances over one that represents your points of veiw.If that is the case you just might as well vote for Obama 
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Who says you vote for the one that has realist chances over one that represents your points of veiw.If that is the case you just might as well vote for Obama [/quote]
One would generally want one’s vote to have the possibility of being effective.
As for Obama, McCain’s definitely got a fighting chance - the electoral map is pretty interesting, particularly if you assume that the CA Supreme Court just put CA in play ( The Volokh Conspiracy - - ) - even if McCain doesn’t win there, Obama will have to spend a lot of time and resources fighting for a state he thought was in the bag.
Your way of voting would be most effective if you were a Republican or Democrat. But if you were neither and just wants our country to be run by the best person you are wasting your voice if you do not say neither candidate is acceptable
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
Your way of voting would be most effective if you were a Republican or Democrat. But if you were neither and just wants our country to be run by the best person you are wasting your voice if you do not say neither candidate is acceptable[/quote]
No, my way would be preferable if you had any preference at all between the two people who have a chance to win, irrespective of whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
Your way of voting would be most effective if you were a Republican or Democrat. But if you were neither and just wants our country to be run by the best person you are wasting your voice if you do not say neither candidate is acceptable
No, my way would be preferable if you had any preference at all between the two people who have a chance to win, irrespective of whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican.[/quote]
I do not know how to respond other than Yes way neener neener neener
To reiterate the point about judicial nominations (don’t forget, 6 of the justices on the USSC will be 68 or older when the next president is sworn in), here’s an article looking at Obama’s philosophy and the types of judges he would choose:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-kind-of-justice-would-president-obama-mete-out/
(Internal links omitted)
[i]What Kind of Justice Would President Obama Mete Out?
Barack Obama may have been a professor of constitutional law, but some of his ideas about the role of the Supreme Court could be problematic. Which justices would he appoint if given the chance?
May 26, 2008 - by Jennifer Rubin
Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, never tires of telling his audiences that he was a constitutional law professor and, therefore, particularly qualified to address the sticky constitutional issues which the next president will face. Indeed, his early fame came, in large measure, from his status as the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Both because he offers his legal background as a qualification for the presidency and because the next president may have the opportunity to appoint five or more Supreme Court justices (plus as many as two hundred lower court judges), it is worthwhile to look at Obama’s views on the Constitution and his criteria for selecting judges.
Judges as social workers
Obama has described his views on the role of the courts and the proper criteria for picking judges. In a recent interview with Wolf Blitzer, Obama explained:
Now there's going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn�??t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings.
And in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’t have access to political power and as a consequence can’t protect themselves from being - from being dealt with sometimes unfairly. That the courts become a refuge for justice. That’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education.
Recently his spokesman stated, “Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.”
Well what’s wrong with all that? Plenty, if you believe in the separation of powers and democracy, according to noted conservative legal scholars.
Steven Calabresi, professor of law at Northwestern University and co-founder of the Federalist Society (who also serves on John McCain’s legal advisory committee), says “I think it means he has completely the wrong idea of what a judge is supposed to do.” He notes that since the first Congress all judges have taken an oath to “do equal justice unto the rich and the poor,” but, by asking judges in essence to side with the less well off, Obama is “calling on judges to disregard this.”
Taken literally, Obama’s conceives the role of the courts as roving advocates of the poor and disadvantaged who will look, not to the text and meaning of the Constitution, but to their own ethics and values - presumably very left-leaning ones - to override statutes, executive branch actions, and the American people themselves.
Given that, one wonders if confirmation hearings for Obama judicial appointees should skip over questions of the law and focus on the appointees’ religious and ethical views, their childhood experiences, and even their record of charitable giving. How else will we know whether they are “sympathetic enough”?
Aside from his judicial philosophy, Obama’s views on specific matters of constitutional law are no secret - and bear little resemblance to the body of case law which has built up over the last thirty years.
Abortion extremism
On abortion, Obama is an absolutist. Last April, he took strong exception to the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act (which had passed the House 281-142 and the Senate 64 [including 16 Democrats] to 33).
This is not simply then someone who believes women should have the last say in deciding whether to have an abortion, but one who believes that the courts should entirely displace the view of huge congressional majorities and public opinion to discern, as Calabresi bluntly puts it, “a constitutional right to dismember babies in a painful and somewhat violent way.” There is virtually no regulation or limit on abortion which Obama would likely find acceptable.
Here we see the fallacy of Obama’s notion that, in the absence of clear constitutional language, judges should resort to their own ethical precepts to decide cases. Obama’s own expressed views of judicial interpretation might lead many judges to a result utterly at odds with the one he has in mind.
Robert P. George, Princeton professor of law (also on McCain’s legal advisory team) observes, “His definition of the ‘vulnerable’ and the ‘powerless’ fits the unborn to a ‘t’.”
George explains that we have disputes in our country both about who “counts” as powerless and how we should treat them, but that these issues must be resolved within our “constitutional system.” He says, “For courts to interfere with no constitutional warrant and displace the people is a sin against democracy.”
Colorblind racism
On matters of race Obama is no more moderate. Last year the Supreme Court decided cases from the Seattle and Louisville school systems which concerned whether, in the absence of any history of discrimination or after expiration of any court order to remedy past discrimination, children could be assigned to schools by race. A majority of the court held they could not under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Obama railed at the decisions, declaring they reflected “a disturbing view of the Constitution that equates voluntary integration with Jim Crow segregation - a view that is both legally and morally wrong” and would usher in an end to Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in schools.
In his view, a bar on using race to assign children to school spells the return to “separate but equal.” Moreover, to reach that result (and agree with the dissenters in the cases) Obama would have demanded that the Court repeal more than twenty years of established case law which held that affirmative action measures must pass a “strict scrutiny” standard (requiring a compelling interest by the state and means narrowly tailored to reach that end).
But Obama’s view of these cases should come as no surprise. He has consistently opposed a colorblind view of civil rights. In 2006 the Michigan Civil Right Initiative appeared on the ballot and passed overwhelmingly, 58-42%. It stated, “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Obama did not merely oppose this measure; he cut a radio ad declaring: "If the initiative becomes law it would wipe out programs that help women and minorities get a good education and jobs. It would hurt initiatives that help women and minorities build their own businesses.
And it would eliminate efforts to help our children enter fields such as science, engineering, and mathematics. Proposal 2 closes these doors to many in Michigan and it moves us further away from a country of full opportunity."
But of course the measure did no such thing. It in no way affected efforts to “help children” or other programs so long as they did not use race or other protected categories to classify people. How would women and minorities have been hurt in building their own businesses by a measure that says all citizens should be treated without regard to gender and race? It is a mystery.
But what Obama opposes is crystal clear. Both as a matter of policy and Supreme Court doctrine, he objects to the concept that the government should not classify its citizens by race except in compelling circumstances (such as the need to remedy past discrimination).
Gun ban: Tipping his hand
When it suits him, Obama declares that it is not appropriate for him to comment on constitutional case law. With regard to the most significant Second Amendment case in 40 years, District of Columbia v. Heller, Obama has claimed it improper (for unknown reasons) for him to opine on a pending case. In this case the D.C. Circuit Court struck down what is essentially a total ban on handgun ownership, finding that the Second Amendment should be interpreted as securing an individual right to bear arms.
In deflecting questions on this case Obama has alternately claimed that he does not comment on pending legal matters (Except on race or abortion cases? Or only if they don’t impact swing state voters?), or that he is unfamiliar with the case, an odd remark from a constitutional scholar on a case that has been the subject of dozens of detailed press accounts over the last year. But he did provide one hint: he declined to join with 55 of his Senate and 250 of his House colleagues in an amicus brief urging that the Court strike down the handgun ban.
And here again we see at work the worst of his results-oriented legal reasoning. Obama at times has suggested that an individual right to own a handgun might exist but that the “common sense” regulation by the District of Colombia might be upheld.
But this is simply incorrect as a matter of basic constitutional principles. It is casebook law that a constitutional right once determined can only be abrogated (as it was, the circuit court decided, by an outright ban in the D.C. gun case) when the law at issue passes muster under the strict scrutiny standard, not merely by a finding that the law is a “common sense” or, in legal parlance, “reasonable” one.
Indeed, if his theory of constitutional law were applied in the abortion arena, not only would partial birth abortion bans be upheld but so would many other types of “common sense” regulations such as waiting time periods.
As Calabresi points out, Obama’s view seems to be that “it’s just fine with guns but not if you’re a teenage girl wanting an abortion.” Calabresi concludes that these are simply Obama’s personal policy views which have “nothing to do with the Constitution.”
Shaping the courts for generations
These issues and many others are not mere academic exercises. Under the next president, nearly 200 lower courts, which are in essence the “minor leagues” for future Supreme Court appointments, will be filled. And of course the entire Supreme Court could be refashioned.
We know from Obama’s vote (one of only 22) opposing the confirmation of now-Chief Justice Roberts that Obama will not be content to appoint a highly regarded Supreme Court advocate and judge.
He apparently wants no part of a judge whose judicial philosophy can be summed up as: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them.” We’ve seen repeatedly that Obama wants, not a referee, but a tenth man on the field - or rather one who always joins the team currently behind on the scoreboard.
Would Obama appoint his noted legal advisor and University of Chicago Law School professor Cass Sunstein? Ivy league law schools are now filled with scholars like Sunstein who argue that the Constitution secures rights such as the right to welfare or who contend that not only is abortion a constitutional right, but so is the right to government funding of those abortions.
Certainly, Obama will find no shortage of liberal law professors who do not take the words of the First Amendment literally and would uphold not just restrictions on free speech in campaign finance reform, but the return of the so-called “fairness doctrine” which would enact equal time mandates, essentially driving talk radio out of business.
Too far-fetched you say? Not at all. When a president and his appointees depart from the notion that the proper role of judges is (as best as they are able) to interpret and apply the language and meaning of statutes and the Constitution, we head into a brave new era of rule by judges who are very likely to share the ultra-left-leaning views of the president who appoints them.
And if Americans have come to believe the rhetoric of Democrats from numerous confirmation hearings that there are few values dearer than stare decisis (the respect accorded precedent in judicial interpretation), they might be sorely disappointed in an Obama judiciary.
For to achieve the ends he seeks, we will need to travel back in time to the era of the (Earl) Warren Court - ripping up case after case as we go to arrive back in a time when the issue was not what does the law say but, in the frequent refrain of Chief Justice Warren, “Is it fair?”
We know for sure is that this is precisely what Obama wants and very likely what he will get if elected.
PJM�??s special DC correspondent Jennifer Rubin is a writer living in Virginia. She is a regular contributor to Human Events, American Spectator and the New York Observer and blogs at Commentary�??s Contentions.[/i]
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…[/quote]
McCain suffers from an enormous credibility gap on any conservative issues. Obama is a black nationalist, McCain is a Mexican nationalist. He even has one working for him on his campaign (Juan Hernandez) who wants to integrate the two countries.
American nationalists have no one to vote for.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…
McCain suffers from an enormous credibility gap on any conservative issues. Obama is a black nationalist, McCain is a Mexican nationalist. He even has one working for him on his campaign (Juan Hernandez) who wants to integrate the two countries.
American nationalists have no one to vote for. [/quote]
This is the situation: you have a choice between Obama and McCain. One of those two is going to win the Presidency. Given that, if you have any preference at all between the two, you should vote that preference.
And given the age of the USSC (6 of 9 justices will be 69 or older when the next president is sworn in), and the fact the Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, you should think long and hard about whom you would want to be making the nominations for those life-tenured positions.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…[/quote]
Real Conservitives will vote Ron Paul
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…
Real Conservitives will vote Ron Paul[/quote]
And make it that much easier for Obama, sad as it is.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
And given the age of the USSC (6 of 9 justices will be 69 or older when the next president is sworn in), and the fact the Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, you should think long and hard about whom you would want to be making the nominations for those life-tenured positions.[/quote]
Obama will put Affirmative Action nuts up.
McCain will put social conservatives up.
I am choosing between eating shit and drinking diarrhea.
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
pittbulll wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Bumping this for those conservatives who have written they are going to vote for someone besides McCain…
Real Conservitives will vote Ron Paul
And make it that much easier for Obama, sad as it is.[/quote]
If the voter will not take the opportunity to say that McCain is not acceptable. He will not be able to communicate this point any other way. Obama is going to win any how . Just my opinion.
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
And given the age of the USSC (6 of 9 justices will be 69 or older when the next president is sworn in), and the fact the Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, you should think long and hard about whom you would want to be making the nominations for those life-tenured positions.
Beowolf wrote:
Obama will put Affirmative Action nuts up.
McCain will put social conservatives up.
I am choosing between eating shit and drinking diarrhea. [/quote]
Not really - FYI, conservatives are very worried that McCain’s nominees won’t be conservative enough. Is McCain really known for social conservatism? What having McCain in office will do is block the really liberal nominees. With a Dem dominated Senate, a President McCain would likely need to nominate someone in the Kennedy/O’Connor model in order to get him or her confirmed - whereas with a Obama and a Dem dominated Senate, you’d get Ginsburg-model.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
And given the age of the USSC (6 of 9 justices will be 69 or older when the next president is sworn in), and the fact the Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, you should think long and hard about whom you would want to be making the nominations for those life-tenured positions.
Beowolf wrote:
Obama will put Affirmative Action nuts up.
McCain will put social conservatives up.
I am choosing between eating shit and drinking diarrhea.
Not really - FYI, conservatives are very worried that McCain’s nominees won’t be conservative enough. Is McCain really known for social conservatism? What having McCain in office will do is block the really liberal nominees. With a Dem dominated Senate, a President McCain would likely need to nominate someone in the Kennedy/O’Connor model in order to get him or her confirmed - whereas with a Obama and a Dem dominated Senate, you’d get Ginsburg-model.[/quote]
What are the chance of McCain / Lieberman ticket ?
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
And given the age of the USSC (6 of 9 justices will be 69 or older when the next president is sworn in), and the fact the Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, you should think long and hard about whom you would want to be making the nominations for those life-tenured positions.
Beowolf wrote:
Obama will put Affirmative Action nuts up.
McCain will put social conservatives up.
I am choosing between eating shit and drinking diarrhea.
Not really - FYI, conservatives are very worried that McCain’s nominees won’t be conservative enough. Is McCain really known for social conservatism? What having McCain in office will do is block the really liberal nominees. With a Dem dominated Senate, a President McCain would likely need to nominate someone in the Kennedy/O’Connor model in order to get him or her confirmed - whereas with a Obama and a Dem dominated Senate, you’d get Ginsburg-model.
What are the chance of McCain / Lieberman ticket ?
[/quote]
zero. evangelical would go all apocalypse on his ass. also Lieberman would help in what state?
[quote]
pittbulll wrote:
What are the chance of McCain / Lieberman ticket ?
100meters wrote:
zero. evangelical would go all apocalypse on his ass. also Lieberman would help in what state?[/quote]
I’d say that’s right, though I don’t expect that the VP will be an evangelical favorite. McCain is the “maverick”, the not-quite-conservative independent guy - at the very least, that’s how he’s viewed by the Republican base. His main difficulty will be in motivating the base to turn out - so he’s going to need to pick someone more conservative (and probably someone with more economic credentials - and someone not in Congress).
A little campaign-outlook info from Team McCain:
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzhhZTk5NGEzMTExN2U4N2FiOTc1NjAwMDMzMjg3MTU=
[i]
Team McCain Offers Their Outlook on the General Election
Several senior staff members of the McCain campaign, including campaign manager Rick Davis, held a briefing for a handful of campaign correspondents today.
Finances: In the past 60 days, the McCain campaign’s finances have improved dramatically - Davis describes it from “being even” to “a place where we have a significant cash bank account�?� Going from zero to $30 million is pretty significant. We�??ve expanded our capability to fundraise, and not spend too much over past 60 days. We chose to consolidate.”
“It’s a much more egalitarian environment, moneywise, than anyone�??s willing to report,” Davis said. He explained a chart that showed John McCain’s campaign and the RNC having a combined $85.1 million ( 53.6 for the RNC, $31.5 million for McCain and their “what we believe, pretty confident” estimates of their counterparts - $46.5 million cash on hand for Obama, $4.4 million for the DNC
“We’re at least $35 million ahead of them in terms of cash on hand,” he concluded.
What happened to all of Obama’s money? Ask Hillary Clinton, it would seem. The McCain folks noted that their “burn rate” in April - where their primary was over - was 45 percent; Obama’s burn rate for the month that included that key Pennsylvania primary was 114 percent.
“I realize Obama is the greatest fundraiser in American political history, but he blew through a couple hundred million over the past few months,” Davis said. “Barack Obama will not have 60 days where he effectively doesn’t have competition the way we had.”
Asked about public financing, Davis said, “it’s an option for us, and it’s a pretty good option. But we’re raising a lot of money. If Obama would make this deal with us today, we would take that deal. But all we’ve seen is obfuscation and avoidance from the Obama people.”
The Environment: Davis: "Our greatest hurdle is the political environment. You guys know the numbers - wrong track, generic ballot, etcetera. A third term for the party in power is always difficult - our president has very low job approval numbers. it’s a tough environment We get it.
Davis noted the issue environment has changed dramatically since the beginning of the year. In most of the country, energy and jobs ranked as the number one issue. Iraq, the top issue in many parts of the country, is now second almost everywhere. Only in the Southwest did health care rank as a top issue.
The campaign showcased an intriguing chart that compared poll results when Americans were asked to describe themselves ideologically and then describe McCain and Obama.
McCain’s graph largely matches the public - 17 percent see him as “very conservative”, and 17 percent of the public describes themselves the same way, on through “somewhat conservative,” moderate, and liberal." Obama’s chart is very discordant; very few Americans see him as very conservative, and 55 percent see him as “liberal” - a much higher percentage than the 21 percent of the public that sees themselves as “liberal.”
Perhaps most ominously to those who would prefer a Republican presidential candidate who echoed talk radio on the issue, illegal immigration, Davis noted that McCain’s history of stands on immigration that caused him such grief in the GOP primaries “may suit to fit him in a general election.”
The States: McCain’s first general election ads went up in 54 markets in 10 states today - Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. They noted that while they did not purchase ad time in West Virginia, several of the stations in adjacent states reach the West Virginia market.
Team McCain is thinking bigger, though, and they also have a broader map of “in play states” or states that they are watching that includes the 11 above as well as Washington, Oregon, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Jersey, Delaware (I am skeptical), and Maine.
Some of these states appear to be holdovers from a McCain vs. Hillary matchup. Davis noted that they trailed Hillary by 10 points in Arkansas, but lead Obama by 10 points.
Davis rattled through the list of potential target states.
California “interests our campaign a lot” because of the “unique appeal that McCain has to independents.” “I wouldn�??t say we’ve got it identified as a target state, not going to commit a lot of resources - Arnold is very popular there, and we played up well with his reputation and imagery.”
The southwest, Nevada and New Mexico - he is a natural fit and is very familiar with the dominant regional issues - water, development, land use, property rights. Throughout his career, he received 70 percent of Hispanic vote in Arizona consistently.
In Wisconsin and Michigan, “polls show we�??re very competitive.”
In Connecticut, “polls show us within the margin of error. The strong association with Senator Lieberman helps McCain�?� I wouldn’t have said this was a targeted state a month ago, and I might not say it is a month from now.”
New Hampshire: “It’s John McCain’s second home. He has a history of success there.”
Ohio, Pennsylvania: “In Pennsylvania, 12 percent of the electorate identifies as Democrats who say they won’t vote for Barack Obama. We’d like to take those voters up on that.”
Race Coverage: “In the past few days, we’ve seen significant difference in the coverage, particularly from your colleagues in the electronic media,” Davis said. “On Wednesday, our press conference was covered start to finish. One of our town hall meetings this week was covered by all three cable networks, start to finish.” He joked that he was pleased to see McCain’s name on the front page of the Washington Post, instead of page A23. He said traffic to the web site had doubled, and that donations were increasing accordingly.
Charlie Black noted, “the June polls will probably show Obama with a 10 point bounce. We�??ll see how long and wide it is, but that’s not where the race is going to settle in.”
Almost every publication covering the race has noted that McCain is running significantly ahead of the generic Republican in the generic head-to-head matchup; very few have noted that in virtually every public poll Obama underperforms the generic ballot, and this gap is even larger in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Winning Over Hillary Democrats: Asked about Democrats who are not yet sold on Obama, Davis offered an intriguing comment: “We have seen significant uptick in calls from states that have those voters. They have a lot of people who want to play with us.” Later in the conversation, asked if he could be certain these individuals would really vote for McCain, he responded, “they’re talking about endorsing us, so I think they’ll vote for us.”
Asked which states they were getting the calls from, they said all over, but specifically mentioned Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Maryland. “In almost every state, there’s a core that’s starting to build, and we’re putting names on paper.”
The Ground Game: While conceding Obama’s huge crowds are an accomplishment, Sara Simmons, deputy director for strategy, noted that on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign, they decided that massive rallies weren’t always the best use of resources. “It’s a huge resource allocation question of the staff’s time and effort,” she said. “We never did it for Schwarzenegger, even though he could have brought out huge crowds.”
Senior adviser Mike DuHaime noted Obama’s rally in Philadelphia, where 35,000 showed up; he went on to lose the state’s primary by almost 10 percent.
DuHaime also noted an anecdote from his counterparts on opposing campaigns in 2004, that the Democratic 527s couldn’t get Kerry and Edwards to do events where they really needed them, the exurbs outside the major cities. (They were forbidden by law from coordinating messages.)
The candidates kept showing up in urban areas where the base was already motivated, ginning up enthusiasm among those already certain to vote.[/i]
Best argument yet.