It's faster going down the other side....

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

Trump could be his VP

Talk about nice tax law changes on real estate, capital what?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I watched the debate and noticed a few things.

1. Obama has no chance of being President
2. The Clintons are great debaters
3. How did Edwards get the perfect dimple in that neck tie?

Poor Edwards. Guy is never going to make yet he's going to bash his head against that wall for God knows how many elections to come.

I watched part of the debate and the horrible feeling that came over me was, get used to the sound of 'President Giuliani.'
Hillary is going to get beat up over this debate from here on out. The semi, sorta driver's license for illegals makes some sense but the public isn't going to get behind it, methinks.

At times I think Hillary can win it but I keep thinking of a line Samantha Bee of the Daily Show put out a couple of years back, something like:

" . . . . and in 2008, the Democrats are going to nominate Hillary Clinton and experiment with new ways of having their asses handed to them."

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

IMO it's Clintons election to lose, it'll be at least one election cycle before anyone admits to voting Republican again.

If it's possible the be too polished Edwards belongs in the definition, polished is good but there's a subliminal message that he will be afraid to get dirty when a President needs to get dirty. Being the trial lawyer that he is I'm sure there is a pig pen beneath that suit.

Clinton is playing a pretty interesting strategic game. She has positioned herself to the right of all Democratic opponents. This is mildly risky in the primaries, where the ardent party faithful have the greatest impact. She is probably losing some support from most Democrats by grabbing the center-right of her party. But by laying centrist markers down early, she has forced the other Democrat candidates to attack her from the left -- none of them can stand to the right of her without becoming confused with a Republican. These leaves the other Democrat candidates squabbling over details of their differences. The more the other candidates attack her for her center-left positions, the more electable she will appear to moderates and center-right Republicans.

Of all candidates, Repo & Demo, I think her political strategy is the most effective. It is classic Bill Clinton/Dick Morris "triangulation". Here's what to look for after she gets the nod from the Democrat Party Convention: A Sistah Solja moment. She will turn on some small, vocal segment of the leftists who are holding their nose to vote Democrat and attack that group, or a major player in that group. A perfect target would be that nutty woman whose son died in Iraq. Mercifully, I've already forgotten her name. Or maybe it will be some Hollywood nutcase who is not especially popular. Just as Clinton gained from the Sistah Solja episode, Hillary will benefit from it with the center and center-right.

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Here's my pipedream.

The major parties shoot themselves in the head by extending the primary season over such a long period. All of this time gives "investigative journalists" plenty of time to dig-up graveyards and publish the putrifying remains of scandals long passed. The major candidates become so tainted by the charges and counter-charges that donors quit writing checks and begin thinking that THIRD PARTY XXXX couldn't be as revolting a choice as the Demopublicans have offered. People in general start to squirm at the choices and begin to sicken of the charge/counter-charge politics and the disgusting, vile personal attacks. both major parties begin to fracture along common-cause coalition lines within each party. Coalitions begin entertaining the idea of supporting 3rd party candidates in the NEXT election. Etc.

Bot

President Metrosexual.

My thought is that Dr. Paul would want a young man with a well-deserved reputation as a crusader, rather like himself. Toward that end:

I tend to think you're right on that one.

Edwards reminds me a bit of the new wisdom going around on how to grow up has it: kids ought to be exposed to dirt, playing outside, etc. so that their immune systems build up strength. Not literally, but something about the guy tells me he missed some crucial formitive experiences growing up. Too boyish, slick, and bland.

Guiliani I do not like, for a bunch of reasons. The guy's a panderer. Paul Krugman ***** slapped him good here:

November 2, 2007
Prostates and Prejudices

By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times

“My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and thank God I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent,” says Rudy Giuliani in a new radio ad attacking Democratic plans for universal health care. “My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent, under socialized medicine.”

It would be a stunning comparison if it were true. But it isn’t. And thereby hangs a tale — one of scare tactics, of the character of a man who would be president and, I’m sorry to say, about what’s wrong with political news coverage.

Let’s start with the facts: Mr. Giuliani’s claim is wrong on multiple levels — bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.

Mr. Giuliani got his numbers from a recent article in City Journal, a publication of the conservative Manhattan Institute. The author gave no source for his numbers on five-year survival rates — the probability that someone diagnosed with prostate cancer would still be alive five years after the diagnosis. And they’re just wrong.

You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The details are technical, but the bottom line is that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America.

So Mr. Giuliani’s supposed killer statistic about the defects of “socialized medicine” is entirely false. In fact, there’s very little evidence that Americans get better health care than the British, which is amazing given the fact that Britain spends only 41 percent as much on health care per person as we do.

Anyway, comparisons with Britain have absolutely nothing to do with what the Democrats are proposing. In Britain, doctors are government employees; despite what Mr. Giuliani is suggesting, none of the Democratic candidates have proposed to make American doctors work for the government.

As a fact-check in The Washington Post put it: “The Clinton health care plan” — which is very similar to the Edwards and Obama plans — “has more in common with the Massachusetts plan signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney than the British National Health system.” Of course, this hasn’t stopped Mr. Romney from making similar smears.

At one level, what Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney are doing here is engaging in time-honored scare tactics. For generations, conservatives have denounced every attempt to ensure that Americans receive needed health care, from Medicare to S-chip, as “socialized medicine.”

Part of the strategy has always involved claiming that health reform is suspect because it’s un-American, and exaggerating health care problems in other countries — usually on the basis of unsubstantiated anecdotes or fraudulent statistics. Opponents of reform also make a practice of lumping all forms of government intervention together, pretending that having the government pay some health care bills is just the same as having the government take over the whole health care system.

But here’s what I don’t understand: Why isn’t Mr. Giuliani’s behavior here considered not just a case of bad policy analysis but a character issue?

For better or (mostly) for worse, political reporting is dominated by the search for the supposedly revealing incident, in which the candidate says or does something that reveals his true character. And this incident surely seems to fit the bill.

Leave aside the fact that Mr. Giuliani is simply lying about what the Democrats are proposing; after all, Mitt Romney is doing the same thing.

But health care is the pre-eminent domestic issue for the 2008 election. Surely the American people deserve candidates who do their homework on the subject.

Yet what we actually have is the front-runner for the Republican nomination apparently basing his health-care views on something he read somewhere, which he believed without double-checking because it confirmed his prejudices.

By rights, then, Mr. Giuliani’s false claims about prostate cancer — which he has, by the way, continued to repeat, along with some fresh false claims about breast cancer — should be a major political scandal. As far as I can tell, however, they aren’t being treated that way.

To be fair, there has been some news coverage of the prostate affair. But it’s only a tiny fraction of the coverage received by Hillary’s laugh and John Edwards’s haircut.

And much of the coverage seems weirdly diffident. Memo to editors: If a candidate says something completely false, it’s not “in dispute.” It’s not the case that “Democrats say” they’re not advocating British-style socialized medicine; they aren’t.

The fact is that the prostate affair is part of a pattern: Mr. Giuliani has a habit of saying things, on issues that range from health care to national security, that are demonstrably untrue. And the American people have a right to know that.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I think if your state, county or city wants to pay for your insurance that they should do so out of taxes collected from the appropriate level. I like diversity and don't want to see it crushed by yet another federal bureaucracy.

The fed will do for health care what it has done for railroads, postal service, the retirement system, and tax collection.

This is probably why.

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DJ


84 300D Turbodiesel 190K with 4 speed manual sold in 03/2012

As a panderer, Giuliani is an amateur. He could take lessons from Hillary, as could just about everyone else. And there you have my two least favorite candidates. Just think, that could actually be the choice next November.

It will never fly in this country to have every doctor employed by the state, with everyone, no matter how well heeled, being obliged to line up for the same care.

What would be a good step, IMHO, is to establish low income clinics to take the burden of indigent patients off of emergency rooms at a fraction of the cost.

People of means will go wherever they need to find top quality care, Europe most likely, Switzerland mayhaps. But that's be one hell of an inconvenience.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Lowest common denominator.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

This cartoon depiction is accurate......

She's clueless & screwed unless 100% scripted.

Porno Willie could be awakened @ 4 a.m., and asked; "what about Sri Lanka"........ --Porno Boy would launch into a glib 1,000 word answer.

She's not that bright........ Edwards nailed her blatant discrepancies.

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