[Lipitorseffec]

Hell yes, DirtyMartini!

Kuci - yeah.

-Arrian

[Slintreeoost]

Since it's just a pipedream anyway --

my plan also requires that the media STFU, and quit telling us who are the "frontrunners". Polls will be illegal. Exit polls on election day will be illegal. Projecting winners will be illegal. Campaign finance will be stricly enforced. There will be regularly scheduled national debates which will be shown on all TV channels, broadcast on all radio stations, and for which all employees must received paid breaks to watch. We will force feed fairness and equality to the American voter!

Whoo, back to reality -- I agree that if we just switched it to a big national primary that it could be just a name recongnition exercise, but I don't even see how that's really worse than letting 200,000 Iowans narrow the field by half by standing in little herds in the corners of high school auditoriums and church basements. Have you heard the stories on the news? The deal-making and coersion is absurd. "Hey Hillary group. Send us over two more of yours or when we get disbanded we'll all go over to the Obama club. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah boo boo." Just the fact that it takes two plus hours is almost a form of temporal poll tax. I could go on...

[lookanddiscover]

Your same-day-nationwide idea simply crowns the most well-known candidate in each party, and I'd submit that that is even less democratic than the current system.

Maybe it isn't well advised, but it surely isn't less democratic. Every voter gets a great number of people from the two major parties to vote from for President. That's pretty damned democratic... of course the one with most name recognition wins, but in plenty of democratic elections it turns out to be a popularity contest.

[ssiikmuz]

Whats wrong with the old way, where elected pols and party bosses picked the candidates in smoke filled rooms.

Secondhand smoke

[CO2490pL]

Most people aren't scientists that true but they are not expressing 'faith' when they believe a scientist. Evolution its accepted on the Credibility of the Scientific establishment (Argument from Authority) who themselves accept it on Scientific Evidence (Argument from Logic).

Faith implies a belief that dose not rest on the Authority of other people or on Logic.

[AlexBolduin]

FDT.

[drugstore]

Good point Tradition can be a source of Authority, and being in the immovable past it much harder for its credibility to be shaken. The weakness is that people for their natural ego-centric reasons consider only THEIR OWN traditions to be of any authority and only the most resent ones at that. Their are currently many traditions that claim to have a similar observational origin, and history is littered with traditions that have fallen by the way-side as well. So we must add an unsupportable Cultural Bias to your recipe to explain belief in Creationism.

So lets summarize, to believe in evolution one can be personally ignorant of scientific principles but choose to accept it on the credibility of a scientific establishment which is broad International group in good standings, they claim to know the truth by direct study and observation in the present time and have produced impressive technology using their knowledge. Creationism on the other hand requires one to accept the Authority of an arbitrarily selected Tradition which itself traces back through countless layers of accepting past Traditions to the long dead original observers.

The only similarity is that you have picked an Authority outside of ones self to base a belief in something on, but in the first case the authority choosing is done well and in the second its done poorly aka 'blindly'. Furthermore anyone with a greater then room temperature IQ can study the evidence fro Evolution themselves and made their own judgments on logic and I believe the vast majority of people are capable of understanding Evolution and making sound judgments on it if they approaches it with an open mind.

OK thread-jack over

[RuttyUttepe]

Originally posted by Wezil


I've been watching for the spin from Clinton's Poly supporters but I haven't seen it yet. Maybe they are still in shock. Clinton was hurt by Iowa, but that doesn't mean she's out. The person who took the biggest hit was Edwards. He needed the win in Iowa much more than Clinton and Obama. 2nd place just won't cut it for him.

[jPNy2BP5]

I think Obama will win. I'd like to see Richardson as a VP for the Democratic ticket (since he'll never get the #1 spot).

I'm a little depressed that Huckabee is doing so well, the schmuck

[Chiquita]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
But a #2 is good enough to Be the parties #2 which is all he ever had a chance at IMHO. Edwards demographics are very complementary to both to both of the front runners and I the chance that he would be tapped for VP is increased. In fact I think thats been his main goal all along with the Nomination itself as a marginal possibility. Possibly, but I always got the feeling that Edwards felt that getting the VP was more of a Booby prize. He only took it in 2004 as a chance to keep his name in the spotlight for his next bid for president.

[adultcheee]

Originally posted by Oerdin
If Huckabee doesn't do well in NH and McCain does, as is currently predicted, then it could come down to a race between McCain & Huckabee on the Republican side. Nah, your forget Guiliani, who's entire campaign strategy is centered around Feb 5th.

[crestosssa]

Giuliani looks dead and buried. When asked about his sixth place, 4% performance in Iowa (beating only Duncan Hunter), he said, "None of this worries me -- Sept. 11, there were times I was worried." He's on track to getting fifth in NH (beating Hunter and Thompson).

I still wouldn't count Romney out. As terrible as his IA performance was, he still looks like the most plausible Republican candidate in terms of support from the various GOP coalition members and national infrastructure. And Obama's victory doesn't help McCain at all.

[ElisasAUG]

I think McCain will win the Republican nomination in the end. He might pick up Huckabee as VP to get evangelicals. They have fiscal and religious conservatives there, plus they are the least xenophobic and can still get hispanic support.

[angelxmagic]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Nah, your forget Guiliani, who's entire campaign strategy is centered around Sept. 11th. Fixed

[Unhappu]

Originally posted by Verto
His success saddens me, because of how many people agree with his dangerous wacko beliefs. Fixed.