2008 Conservative Presidential Candidates

reply to post by xpert11

IMO it all depends on the mood of the electoral college.

At the risk of repeating what you already know, may I say that “mood” is unlikely to have any influence on the final outcome. The system works like this: each party runs a slate of “electors” in each state. The names of those people do not appear on the ballot. Only the party label and the name of its candidate appear. At a date already set by law, about 6 weeks after November 4, the electors gaining the most votes will meet in the 50 state capitals and DC, and “cast” their votes. There is no cross-talk between the electors of one state with those of another. Those 51 bundles of votes will be sealed and transported to W-DC. On arrival the bundles will be handed over to the Clerk of the Senate, or other person designated by law. He or she will open the bundles of votes in front of a joint session of Congress convened on January 3 unless by law they shall appoint another day. The electors are bound by conscience to vote for the person they have undertaken to stand for.

In terms of the popular vote McCain looks doomed no matter who he comes up against . The core supporter base of the Republican looks set to stay at home on election day. All the figures I have seen state that in the primaries the number of Dems voting far outweighs there Republican counterparts.

I could not agree with your observations more, Mr X11. To me, the biggest item is the possibility of making 2 or maybe 3 Supreme Court appointments in the next 4 years. Associate Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 years old. Born in 1920. Ruth Ginsburg is 74. Anthony Kennedy - not related to the Massachusetts Kennedy’s - is 72. Stephen Bryer is 70, and David Souter is 69. It is taken for granted the next president will have Stevens and most likely Kennedy to replace and maybe Mrs. Ginsburg. Kennedy has become the “swing” vote after O’Connor retired. He is more conservative than she was, if that is possible.

Associate justices of the Supreme Court are paid $203,000 per year as of 2006, and the chief justice receives $212,100 per year. A trick is to call retired Federal judges “senior” status, and then to give them full pay, as an incentive to retire. They usually take 1 or 2 cases a year, to “keep their hands in.” It is often a valuable function they serve. They, like all top Federal positions, including Member of Congress, will get a raise in 2009. They were on COLA - Cost of Living Adjustment - for a long time, even if those making minimum wages were not. Hmm?

So the next president will apoint at LEAST one person to the supreme court...

Did George W apoint 2 or 3 people?

I can't remember off the top of my head, i rememebr that he apointed a couple within a a short time period...


Apointments of Supreme court Justices are possibly the most important thing a president does....

Originally posted by TKainZero
Did George W apoint 2 or 3 people?

Assuming you mean George Washington the number is greater then you guessed it is closer to ten then two. Source

Apointments of Supreme court Justices are possibly the most important thing a president does....

That may be the case for Americans but for people like me who live in other parts of the globe I would say the most important thing the President/Congress can do is trade and foreign policy .

reply to post by xpert11

Originally posted by TKainZero: Did George W appoint 2 or 3 people?

Assuming you mean George Washington the number is greater then you guessed it is closer to ten then two.

John Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States. John Rutledge was appointed to take his place in July, 1795, but he failed to gain approval of the Senate in December, 1795, and so he left the bench. Was he or was he not the Chief Justice? Oliver Ellsworth was appointed and confirmed to be the next Chief Justice. On his resignation, a “lame duck” Federalist President John Adams appointed his Secretary of State, John Marshall, to be Chief Justice on February 4, 1801, barely beating the inauguration of anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson who was sworn in as president March 4, 1801. John Marshall went on to become best known for establishing the RIGHT of JUDICIAL REVIEW of all the acts of the other 2 branches, the Legislative, Article 1, and the Executive, Article 2.

It is often debated whether John Marshall was the THIRD or the FOURTH Chief Justice of the United States. (I vote for #4).

G.H.W. Bush appointed David Souter, b. 1939, who has proved to be a very good justice. B41 also appointed Clarence Thomas, b. 1948, which was Affirmative Action in Republican Reverse! A slam on Thurgood Marshall in particular and on African Americans in general.

G.W. Bush, known by his friends as Dumbya, appointed the unmeritorious John Roberts b. 1955, to be Chief Justice. An oxymoron.

Further showing his disdain for rationality, Bush43 appointed Sam Alito, b. 1950, another Republican nondescript, as Associate Justice.
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 3/8/2008 by donwhite]

Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.

Source

I support the Boeing deal but from hear on out I will wear my political strategist hat.

This can only hurt McCain who will be seeking the vote of blue collar workers who traditionally vote more along left wing lines. Naturally all of this ties into the fact that voters in protectionist states and city's wont like this at all.



[edit on 11-3-2008 by xpert11]

Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus.
www.cnn.com...

I suppose we KNOW where McCain stands on that issue?

reply to post by xpert11

I support the Boeing deal . . This can only hurt McCain who will be seeking the vote of blue collar workers who traditionally vote more along left wing lines . . all of this ties into the fact that voters in protectionist states and city's wont like this at all.

The Air Force is buying 179 new in-flight refueling tankers. I believe the “going in” price is $37 b. That's $207 million each, about twice the going rate for a similarly sized commercial airliner. Under modern accounting methods that means the final price will be about $50-$60 b. Cost overruns, you know. I can’t help but reflect that in 1941 the then Col. Leslie R. Groves of the US Army Corps of Engineers was the Man in Charge of constructing the Pentagon, then the largest building in the world. He brought the job in on-time and within-budget. Which was what anyone was expected to do in the 1930s-1940s.

Promoted to Major General, Groves went on to be the Man in Charge of the Manhattan Project. He was made a Lieutenant General in recognition of his leadership of the bomb program, just before his retirement on February 29, 1948. One of the Greatest Generation. Just doing his job.

Back to Boeing. There has always been a “special” relationship between airplane designing and manufacturing and the military services which are their exclusive customers. Through 1942, Boeing had been the exclusive heavy bomber supplier to the Army Air Corps, to morph into the Air Force in 1947. Grumman worked exclusively for the Navy (and Marines which is part of the Navy). Curtiss-Wright OTOH, one of our oldest aircraft companies had contracts with both the Army - P40s of Flying Tiger fame - and the Navy - SB2C Helldiver. See Historical Anecdote below.

Boeing built the B17s of WW2 fame. They followed on with the war ending B29 which was upgraded into the B50. Converted models of it were KB50s and our first in-flight refueling tankers. Boeing built the 747, the most successful commercial airliner of all time. Boeing is qualified - the best qualified IMO - to build those planes. (As a young airman in the USAF I have worked on brand new Boeing KC97s. The AF version of the civilian Stratocruiser).

The national security issue of “outsourcing” items that are essential to our nation’s military capability, remains unresolved. Already we do not make 100% of the M1A1 tank. The main gun for example is made in Germany. We do not make most of the high tech battlefield electronics. Assembled in the US, but the parts are made in China. We have gradually outsourced more and more of our defense industry. Outsourcing of defense projects remain an unspoken and unresolved issue which includes loss of jobs and security.


Historical Anecdote. I tell this story as the truth. Background. George Selden filed for a patent on the automobile on May 8, 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4 wheeled car. Selden filed various amendments which purposely delayed the issuance of US patent No. 549160 - he was already collecting royalties - which was finally granted on November 5, 1895. Selden collected a royalty from the nascent auto industry on every car. His patent would run 17 years, to 1912. Henry Ford refused to pay the royalties. When Selden sued, Ford won his case in court. The Selden patent was dead.

Orville and Wilbur Wright invented the airplane in 1903. Seeing Selden's advantage, they tried to patent their invention. The early Wright Flyer did not have modern ailerons, the control surface that rotates the craft on the X axis, raising and lowering the wings. The elevator functions in the Y axis, raising the nose up or putting it down, and the vertical rudder works the Z axis motions, turning left and right.

Instead of employing the simple aileron - which was unknown in 1903 - the Wright's devised a complicated hand operated 2 lever rope and pulley system that BENT the ends of the wings up and down to accomplish the required wing up or down motion. (When turning an airplane you must lower the inside wing or the flat flying plane will skid in the air and lose lift).

Glen H. Curtiss of Hammondsport NY was an early aviation enthusiast and a prolific inventor. By the time Curtiss was building his first airplane - a seaplane in1908 - the French had invented or evolved the aileron we use today. Curtiss incorporated this improvement in every plane he ever built. The Wright Brothers OToH, were afraid to adapt the aileron to their planes because their patent was pending and they feared any change would have a negative impact on the application or its enforcement. The Wrights sued Curtiss. Curtiss was without funds but Henry Ford heard of this and furnished his staff lawyers to defend Curtiss. The Wright patent claim was defeated.

Unwilling to improve the Flyer, the Wright Brothers built but 13 Wright Flyers. Every one crashed, some resulting in death. Curtiss OTOH built over 6,800 JN1, -2, -3 and -4, the Flying Jenny. In 1929 the Wright Aeronautical Company and the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company merged to form the Curtiss-Wright Company.

[edit on 3/12/2008 by donwhite]

On McCain...

(Understand I DID NOT support him in the Primaries)
((I was a Romney supporter))

BAGHDAD - Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president who has linked his political future to U.S. success in Iraq, was in Baghdad on Sunday for meetings with Iraqi and U.S. diplomatic and military officials, a U.S. government official said.

McCain's commitment to winning in Iraq as part of the overall global war on terror is second to none. Too bad the same can't be said of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who are in the midst of trying to make on-the-fence Americans believe they'd be just as strong as McCain on the issue of our national security.

Right Wing News

If your concerns are National Security, the choice is obvious.

Semper

To be honest I don't think about Iraq much any more . No matter who wins the next election it is unlikely that NZ troops will return to that country . My main concern is Afghanistan where NZDF personal and only five countries not including NZ are carrying the load of the fighting.

As for McCain being strong on national security because he supports the war in Iraq I suggest you check out the video I posted here .

reply to post by xpert11


Just caught a little of that, but if it is all about Somalia, then my point stands...

Somalia has not been a hotbed of terror activity.

Semper

Here are two threads that throw some light on this matter .
Topic

Topic



There were some threads I can recall that the search function didn't find.

You don't see much media coverage because the US only has a small presence in the region . Other then the possibility of Iran getting Nuclear Weapons the ME has pretty much run its course .

Make no mistake Africa is the next battle ground against the enemy and in the the global economic war. I rate pulling out of Somalia as the biggest era Clinton made. Now there is nothing to stop China influence in Africa , Somalia is a right mess and so on.

reply to post by xpert11

Other then the possibility of Iran getting Nuclear Weapons the ME has pretty much run its course.

My sentiments exactly. With Bush43 gone America's enthusiasm for engaging in an endless War on Terror will quickly diminish and finally, common sense will prevail and it will be over. Already pundits are bandying about the number $3 T. as the cost of the Iraq adventure. I call it an "adventure" because it does not rise to the level of a genuine war.

That huge and growing price of a phony war is unsustainable without a huge tax increase on the R&Fs. And you know the chances of getting that! Alternatively, we could decide to devote ALMOST all of our great wealth to a multi-generational long WoT as Dick Cheney promised and John McCain threatens.

In January, 2009, I’d like to see an immediate repeal of the Patriot Act and a dissolution of the Department of Homeland Security. The old INS can then register the undocumented workers and get that divisive issue behind us. We would enlarge the temporary work pass program coordinated with employers via the internet, and make passes available at all the old established border crossing points. That will “dry” up the motivation for illegal crossings. Viola! Border Security! And for GOD’s sake, tear down that DAM wall. It is humiliating and embarrassing to a free country. See Note 1.

Make no mistake Africa is the next battle ground against the enemy and in the global economic war. I rate pulling out of Somalia as the biggest era Clinton made. Now there is nothing to stop China influence in Africa , Somalia is a right mess and so on.

I concur. To the extent that widespread, devastating and unrelenting poverty motivates Osama bin Laden and others like him, Africa is the next battleground. (A struggle between the exploited and the exploiters). We white Westerners have created a cauldron about to boil over! When the Western powers - primarily Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Holland and Belgium - Germany got kicked out after 1918 - apportioned the continent between themselves, they drew the lines we love to call BORDERS over which we'll kill.

We neglected to LEARN or to CARE about WHO lived there. We put traditional tribal enemies together for our administrative convenience. Hubris will not let is LEAVE. Or is it MONEY? And now all we can say is “Thank You, Queen Victoria! You really mucked it up. "

We repeated this same mental affliction in 1948 in Palestine. For they sow the wind And they reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7. New American Standard Bible (©1995)


Note 1. “The New Colossus”
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
by Emma Lazarus

[edit on 3/17/2008 by donwhite]

Don your not going to get your wish. Obama seems to be intentionally vague about his Iraq policy . If the Dems win the White House you will most likely a draw down in the number of US troops in Iraq and a manpower cap. You certainly wont see a withdrawl from Afghanistan .

Despite the fact only five nations are doing the hard yakka there is wide spread agreement that Afghanistan must become a failed state.

reply to post by xpert11

Don your not going to get your wish. Obama seems to be intentionally vague about his Iraq policy. If the Dems win the White House you will most likely a draw down in the number of US troops in Iraq and a manpower cap. You certainly wont see a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Despite the fact only five nations are doing the hard yakka there is wide spread agreement that Afghanistan must become a failed state.

1) Obama is vague (as is Hillary) because there are 30-40% of Americans who LOVE the WAR. Any WAR we are winning. The Dems cannot afford to give them a CAUSE BELLI to go out and vote for McCain.

2) I agree on the likely outcome of a Dem victory. Just as we had 38,000 troops in South Korea in 2001 - probably some fewer now - so we may well have a good sized garrison in Iraq. IF they will invite us. Those forces are a major provocation to North Korea. But that’s why we want a LACKEY regime in Baghdad as we had in Seoul and now have in Afghan and Pakistan. To "inivite" us in. Hey, it looks "democratic" over here. Throw in an occasional election and you've got real steadfastness over here.

Take all your old speeches, your old posters, draw a line through the communist part of ANTI Communist and write in "Terrorist." Same old speeches. Just different bad guys. Up dated to fit the times.

If you can get your head around this, the INSURGENCY is INSURGING against the Americans. They are killing Iraqi COLLABORATORS as the Marquis did in France to Germans in WW2. Americans gone, insurgency gone. Simple.

3) Withdraw from Afghan? Are you kidding? Next to oil heroin (along with coc aine) is the most valuable widely traded world commodity! Or course, we don’t want any real competition with our Columbia COCAINE operations from the Afghan HEROIN operation. Cooperation not competition. Allocating markets, and etc. A joint project of the US Special Forces, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Hmm?

We promised the Afghans $20 b. in reconstruction aid after the QUICK put down of the old Taliban. We delivered about $1.2 b. and it was mostly war goods which we call “reconstruction” goods. Rockets NOT toilets. Machine guns NOT refrigerators. You get the point. Things are what YOU say they are. The Rumsfeld doctrine. Yes, he's gone, but his make-over of the DoD is not.

4) Those 5 coalition of the willing governments better watch out at home or their governments will go the way of Tony Blair. Into inglorious history. As soon as their KIA rise to significant levels.

[edit on 3/17/2008 by donwhite]

reply to post by donwhite


My above post should have read " not become a failed state."

Rudd replaced Howard as the PM of Australia and there remains bipartisan for the Australian effort in Afghanistan. The insurgents target there fellow Iraqis based on ethnic lines rather then US forces other wise you already know my point of view on this matter.

Issues with NATO and other countries aside the primary reason we haven't seen Victory in Afghanistan is that resources were diverted to the Iraq misadventure .

reply to post by xpert11

My above post should have read "[Afghan] not become a failed state." Oceania. Rudd replaced Howard as the PM of Australia and there remains bipartisan for the Australian effort in Afghanistan.

I cannot explain the Aussie’s enthusiasm for the Afghan war. Which is to admit I don’t understand it. I estimate the Aussies are at the cultural point in their history where the US was at just prior to the beginning of World War One. 1914. We were flush with pride over having just subdued a continent. We were still taking unmerited pride in having handily won the Spanish American War, which was not much of a war really. Without William Randolph Hearst.

Almost universally ignored here, we lost 50 times as many men KIA fighting the native Cubans and Filipinos than we lost to the Spanish. We lost 4,000 men KIA in Mindanao fighting Muslims (we called them 'terrorist' although they lived there) and 1,500 KIA in Cuba fighting the Cubans. Counting the sailors on the USS Maine, I believe we lost about 150 men KIA to the Spanish. And now we have concluded the Maine exploded due to coal dust and not due to a Spanish mine as Mr Hearst so loudly proclaimed.

Back to Australia. Feeling pretty proud and not yet aware of their limitations. The Aussies. Surely the Aussies have not bought into the discredited Domino Theory that if they don’t fight in Kabul they will have fight in Sidney? Wake up! The Afghans have NO boats. Which is my same reminder to those who want America to worry about China’s military forces. If any two countries were ever land-locked, Afghan and China are two. (China has no troop ships).

Afghan a FAILED state? Hmm? Has Afghan EVER been a state? I mean in the sense we westerners are using it? I know the 18th century Brits in Whitehall drew a line on a map and named it Afghanistan, but that did not make it so. The Brits were not then (or now) the physical embodiment of Jehovah. (Afghan is an ill defined region). I say the West are worrying about something they don’t understand. How a Western defined space can be occupied by people but not be a “country” like ours. We are bumfuzzled. To use a word I like but which may not be in your dictionary.

The insurgents target there fellow Iraqis based on ethnic lines rather then US forces other wise you already know my point of view on this matter. Issues with NATO and other countries aside the primary reason we haven't seen Victory in Afghanistan is that resources were diverted to the Iraq misadventure.

This is more “true” IF you get most of your news from CNN or FOX. If you will tap into al Jeezera once in a while, you’ll see it is NOT the perspective of people who ACTUALLY live there, speak the tongue and are part of the heritage.

Aside: Recently I read a book that compared the English in India to the Americans in ANYPLACE. For 200 years, upwards of 20% of the grads from the best English schools - Oxford and Cambridge and others - went to India to work in the British Civil Service - bureaucracy - that “RULED” India. More than half of those men - almost always men - stayed on to retire from their posts in India 30-40 years before returning to England. They learned the language, the customs and the RULES of conduct. They ate the food, and co-mingled with the populace. 5,000 or 15,000 Englishmen (and Scots and Irish) depending on which book, were able to “control” India. That is, to operate it to England’s economic advantage.

Americans OTOH do 11 month tours of duty. We send NOT our best - Ivy League - California - but many of our 2nd or 3rd tier people although that is not easy to define here. We talk egalitarianism even if we don't practice it. When we are there, we live in our own enclaves and we TAKE and KEEP our culture while we’re there. We spend $45 a day per man to fly in food Made in the USA by Halliburton. We speak disrespectfully towards the native inhabitants in our tongue, not knowing their tongue.

Then on their return home, we interview those good men and women on CNN or FOX and get their TAKE on Iraq. Boots on the ground! First hand insights. Then we tell ourselves with obvious pride that we are among the very best informed people on this planet.

All but a few of our TOP leaders - policymakers - FLY into Iraq and stay over the weekend, usually in the Green Zone, then fly back to the US to make MORE policy FOR Iraq. In real life, we don’t know and we don’t want to know about them. What we do "know" is Islam is NOT a religion of PEACE like our Christianity is! Christ GOOD, Mohammad BAD. Sweet Jesus! Come Quick!

[edit on 3/19/2008 by donwhite]

NATO , New Zealand , Australia and other countries don't want to Afghanistan to become a haven for the enemy like it was pre 9-11. Don't get me started on the bogus idea that is the Domino Theory which was repackaged in order to support the Iraq war.

What few media outlets reported last year was that Poppy growth had been fallen in Northern Afghanistan.

Short military history of Australia and New Zealand.

Both countries sent troops to the Boer War and shed blood in two world wars long before the US got off its collective ass and bothered to enter the conflicts. Aside from the Korean War Anzacs were helping to combat Communist insurgency's a decade before GIs were blowing up villages in order to save them.

Only Gulf War Two stands out the conflict were NZ was absent . This brief history does not include peace keeping in our backyard .

reply to post by xpert11

Both countries sent troops to the Boer War and shed blood in two world wars long before the US got off its collective ass and bothered to enter the conflicts. Aside from the Korean War Anzacs were helping to combat Communist insurgency's a decade before GIs were blowing up villages in order to save them.

Sir Winston began his adventuresome life in South Africa. In his multi-volume “History of the English Speaking People” he gives some attention to the British and Dutch contesting over mineral rich south part of the African continent.

Conservatives in America durn near kept us out of War 2. It was mostly through guile and his broad knowledge that FDR had the US as well prepared for war as it was.

Follows the closing lines from my favorite movie, Breaker Morant.

In prison cell I sadly sit,
A damned crest-fallen chappie!
And own to you I feel a bit-
A little bit - unhappy!

It really ain't the place nor time
To reel off rhyming diction -
But yet we'll write a final rhyme
Whilst waiting cru-ci-fixion!

No matter what "end" they decide -
Quick-lime or "b'iling ile," sir?
We'll do our best when crucified
To finish off in style, sir!

But we bequeath a parting tip
For sound advice of such men,
Who come across in transport ship
To polish off the Dutchmen!

If you encounter any Boers
You really must not loot 'em!
And if you wish to leave these shores,
For pity's sake, DON'T SHOOT 'EM!!

And if you'd earn a D.S.O.,
Why every British sinner
Should know the proper way to go
Is: "ASK THE BOER TO DINNER!"

Let's toss a bumper down our throat, -
Before we pass to Heaven,
And toast: "The trim-set petticoat
We leave behind in Devon."

The Last Rhyme and Testament of Tony Lumpkin -
First published in The Bulletin, 19 April 1902.

Condi could be the GOP VP?


With the Dems killing each other, McCain CANT pick Condi as his VP, what a bad pick!

I guess they might be trying to cut into the Dems Symphany Votes...

"Tired of Old white men becomeing VP... The Dems are presenting a black man, and a lady, and the Reps, they counter with a Black Woman for VP..."

Madness...

Originally posted by TKainZero
Condi could be the GOP VP?

Condi being McCain VP is an interesting idea but I rate it as being a very unlikely event. I would be amazed if Huckabee doesn't have the VP well and truly sewn up. Well that is my ten cents anyway.

reply to post by xpert11


Although I could certainly be surprised, I also think that Huckabee is going to be McCain's running mate...

I really thought Romney would get the "nod" but perhaps Huckabee is the better choice after all...

Semper