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I was nine years old when George W. Bush was elected president of the United States in 2000. I now realize that half of my life has been spent under the rule of King George II. I decided that the best way to commemorate his presidency was to look back on the ups and downs of a tumultuous eight years that changed American culture and society forever.
Nominations for each party are still, for the most part, a mystery. But, I believe the final four candidates to be our next president can now easily be narrowed down. Our next president will either be, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or John McCain.
The current contenders for the nomination, all of them, are:
Democrats: Top Tier: Clinton, Obama 2nd Tier: Edwards Lower Tier: Gravel?
Republicans: Top Tier: Romney, McCain 2nd Tier: Huckabee, Giuliani Lower Tier: Paul
I’ve based all positions by recent polls, amount of support, donations, the number of delegates each candidate already has, and most importantly the probability of a candidates success based my own biased opinion!
So that leaves the top 4 upper tier candidates within the most likely positions to receive their party’s nomination. Clinton, Obama, Romney, McCain.
In the general election:
I see John McCain as Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare. And Mitt Romney as Barack Obama’s. Regardless a Democrat will be elected president, but in those two matchups, I see the Democratic candidate facing their toughest opponent. It’s too early to even begin to hypothesize the Democratic and Republican nominees, and unlike other pundits, I believe we have to let the voters decide first.
In short, NO, but he shouldn’t be president for other bigger issues.
John McCain visited Concord High School in New Hampshire on Tuesday. I guess there is no one else who really cares what he has say, but it is important that politicians are reaching out to America’s youth. For a lot of high schoolers, the 2008 election will be our first election to vote in. A student asked McCain if he was worried that being so old might cause him to die in office or get Alzheimer’s disease:
“I work 24/7, I’m very active, and people will judge by the rigor and enthusiasm of our campaign” Then, he added in a McCain-like touch. “And thanks for your question, you little jerk,” McCain joked, as a crowd of a several hundred in a packed auditorium laughed. He paused, then added “you’re drafted.”
Remember, Ronald Reagan was thought to show signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s during his years in office. And Ronald Reagan almost screwed up America. But I think John McCain should not be president because of where he stands on the Iraq War and other issues. He is pro-war, and you might remember his “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” comment. Or what about his stance on gay rights. Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday Rudolph Giuliani was ‘caught red’ nosed when he said that, referring to September 11th that, “I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. … I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.” [NYT, The Caucus]
A Firefighter whose son was killed on September 11th said, “That’s insulting and disgraceful. He’s a liar. I was down there on my hands and knees looking for my son. [Giuliani is] living in a dreamland.” [Fox News]
And in regular John Edwards fashion, he called out the Republican presidential candidate, as well he should. The Edwards camp called Giuliani a “fraud”. Rudy’s camp blasted back by saying that Edwards is “the same guy who thinks the War on Terror is simply a ‘bumper sticker.’” Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week it was reported that Hillary Clinton’s campaign received over $20,000 in donations from News Corp, the company owned by the same man who owns Fox News, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch and his son personally donated to Clinton’s presidential campaign as well.
Is News Corp donating to Clinton’s campaign in hopes that she’ll get the nomination? Then that means Fox News would try to smear her during the general election. In their eyes, there is no easier target than Hillary Clinton. Well, Hillary has never lost an election, and I don’t think she plans to. She has successfully weathered smear campaigns before, and she could do it again. But the enemy, Fox News, could be harder, as it is the most viewed cable news network.
That said, Senators and Democratic presidential candidates Chris Dodd and Barack Obama have also received large donations from a News Corp top executive, Peter Chernin. John Edwards was not happy about this, and he asked them to return the money, citing Fox News’ right-wing bias.
So who is Fox News’ real candidate? Rudy Giuliani. And earlier this week it was reported that he has extremely close ties to the man who is in charge of Fox News, Roger Ailes. Ailes had previously worked on a Giuliani mayoral campaign in the past. Needless to say, they are begging for a Clinton vs. Giuliani general election. The whole thing reminds me of the Republicans donating to Ralph Nader in hopes of stealing votes away from the Democratic candidate.
Does it really matter where the candidates get their money from? I’m sure there are many people donating to candidates that they don’t completely agree with on the issues. Earlier this month there was a Republican scuffle between Tom Tancredo and Sam Brownback. It was over donations given to the Tancredo campaign by a pro-choice contributer with close ties to Planned Parenthood, a pro-choice organization. Both Brownback and Tancredo run on pro-life positions, and Brownback demanded the donations to Tancredo’s campaign be returned. Tancredo declined saying that the contribution did not reflect his own view on the issue.
Obama also announced that he will not be accepting money from PACs, (Political Action Committees). I just don’t think it could hurt a campaign for accepting PAC donations, especially if the PAC agrees with the candidate on the issues, and well if they are a progressive PAC.
Whether or not you agree with where the money comes from, money powers this race. Money is a message. Money gets out the message. It can buy the White House, it can lose the White House. If campaigns were publicly financed, then maybe we would spend more time on the real issues. Many candidates have promised that once they get elected to office, they will make campaign financing changes, but they have an election to buy first.
YouTube usually tries to stay away from featuring videos with political agendas, as well they should. What they will feature is obvious generic boring videos such as “STAND UP for WORLD PEACE”.
But if you’ve been to YouTube in the past few months, political sections sponsored by the site are taking over. And it seems the YouTube editors are getting increasingly more right-wing. Read the rest of this entry »
and in turn the voting youth of America. They are scared to answer questions on the War in Iraq, climate change, healthcare, stem cell research, and civil rights. Why? Because they are, for the most part, on the wrong side of every issue.
Only Ron Paul and John McCain have signed on to the CNN/YouTube debate scheduled for September 17th in Florida. Both are idiots. Read the rest of this entry »
Believing that you’re better than Bush to be able to criticize him actually means you’re worse than him in the end, and in the eyes of most of America. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Young American by Daniel Solis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. (2007-2009)
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