Your 2008 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

But part of me looks at the wide-open-on-both-sides landscape and says candidates are only as good as how they stack up against a given opponent, i.e. some people will look better or worse depending on who is on the other side. I wonder if one party will end up picking their candidate with an opponent in mind, or if both parties will end up in a game of chicken. Perhaps this is an amateur's perspective - maybe you go with the best guy (ahem) and wait for the Veep selection to start making comparisons.

see also: George Allen. I think I'm ready to start taking him seriously as a potential, even if I think he's no Bush (W or J).

Dems:
Hillary
Bayh?
Kerry
?????

"He knows the players in Silicon Valley and Seattle and New York City -- and, more important, they know him. That matters."

Clearly a Prince of Darkness. Not where I want a leader coming from (so old-fashioned, I know).

aren't there lots of VCs who throw lots of money at Dems?

don't worry about allen. as someone who lived in va during his tenure (and who has met the man; he asked me if my family were "chicken farmers"), i can testify that he's a total douchebag and utterly charmless, even with the nfl pedigree.

Schweitzer is great. but you really need a certain minimum record to go to the top of the ticket that he won't have.

xpost - I don't think he will; if he does, I don't think he'd get very far

and the gop blog tracker dude added warner?

I guess it was already obvious where his life was going to lead. It is depressing how much more sucessful than me he is. Oh well, I made my bed, etc.

They certainly throw lots of money at Dems, but they also shower plenty of money upon Republicans, as do most savvy corporate and "investment types." It's that timeless capitalist strategy, the hedge, at work. The way I look at it, what's most important isn't how much money you amass in absolute terms, but rather how much money, and from what sources, you pile up versus your opponents. Using that yardstick, counting on VCs and other investment types to push any single candidate over the top doesn't seem wise. People who move money around for a living know better than to place all their chips on one bet, and most of them have a nose for following the money -- if they sense a position is weak, they'll bail out in droves.

Take a look at this data on giving by venture-capital political donations compiled by Open Secrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=F2500. Donations from the VC sector run 55% to 45% in favor of the Democrats. But the National Venture Capital Association -- the industry trade group that is presumably whispering in the ears of aspiring legislators, and the largest donor in the sector -- gave 66% of its money to Republicans. If you do some clicking around in the toolbars on the site's left nav you'll also notice that in the grand scheme of corporate campaign largess, the $10.6 million ponied up by the VCs is pretty small beer (the top three investment bank donors, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Americas, alone gave more than the whole VC sector).

The pattern of giving is similar elsewhere in the financial sector. Commercial banks gave $30.7 million to political candidates (64% of it to Republicans), insurance companies gave $36 million (68% to Republicans), and securities businesses and investment banks gave $89.9 million (53% to Republicans and 47% to Democrats).

>Norm Coleman...'s got that sort of Sen. Van Ackerman from Advise and Consent too-eager quality about him. <

Now Eric, who's that? Walter Pidgeon?

Anyway, the point was not about money, but about a community that would vouch for someone. Warner was a VC before he was Governor, and apparently a very good one.

As individuals, yes. But their industry PAC gave more to Republicans by 2 to 1. If their is a sectoral VC voice, the PAC is it.

there are far fewer VCs and I would think that the average individual VC has more to give than the scores of junior bankers whose contributions are included in these figures

Individual contributions are capped at $2,000. Both groups of individuals can probably swing that.

Anyway, the point was not about money, but about a community that would vouch for someone.

VCs "vouching" for someone (whatever that means) is substantive how?

I would friggin die if McCain ran as a third party candidate, just so long as the drunk on Jesus coalition of pro-business and whackjobs that is the modern Republican party fell apart.

Now Eric, who's that? Walter Pidgeon?

God no. Either party could use a Walter Pidgeon at this point. Van Ackerman (George Grizzard) was the guy who initiated the fag-baiting of Sen. Brig (Don Murray). I'm not saying that Coleman is going to out someone of his own party (well, he might from his former party), but something about his eagerness to show up to get his photo taken in the aftermath of the '04 elections is hard to ignore... or, at least, is hard for me to ignore as a Minnesotan.

That said, this week's City Pages put the chips down on Gov. Pawlenty.

The pro-choice thing, OK. But, in case no one noticed, Republicans only attack a lack of "family values" when the perps are Democrats.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/sector.asp?txt=F01&cycle=2004

Individual contributions are capped at $2,000.

to candidates, yes. to committees, it goes up to $25K.

VCs "vouching" for someone (whatever that means) is substantive how?

I don't know, necessarily. But Fineman seemed to think it important somehow.

That's because Fineman is an idiot.

The institutional breakouts display the same tendency. It's classic risk arbitrage.

+ 1 for being bill richardson

I can't remember much of Bush I's term besides Gulf War, his hatred of broccoli, the book on Millie, and raising taxes. Isn't that preferable?

basically i want to vote for rosanne barr

Don't forget puking on the Japanese Prime Minister, that was memorable.

alfred how could you forget puking all over the japanese pm

George's version of Monica's smeared dress?

HE IS, TRACER

Obama would actually be a perfect model for Good Friends.

Obama and Hillary, actually

And I think we know who'd have the natural smile and who'd have the pained "this is killing me inside" smile

'good friends' rofl

hillary - natural
obama - killing him

no, other way around!

O: this cereal is great! good flavor, nutrition, it's just good stuff!
H: jesus christ i hate this man so so much

By the way, did you notice how even-keel all the candidates spoke last night? No repeating Dean's gaffe of speaking to the crowd instead of the media.

Which wasn't a gaffe, just a good opportunity for Rove and Drudge.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080103/i/r3179714404.jpg?

"I want more life, fucker"

that picture is sort of awesome

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/goodfriends.jpg

lol

roflz

l-r morbs, adam schefter

kudos!

Tracer, you wiz

Obviously Hillary is going to come out with some pointed negative ads, but I'm interested to see if Obama will respond in kind, or if he will maintain his pacific stance and let the Clinton campaign dirty its hands trying to sling mud.

Unless he kept white slaves, I'm not sure what other dirt she can sling at him. The drug thing petered out.

"I hold in my hand Barack's summer camp transcripts..."

I think Clinton's fucked.

it's all about letting someone get dirty for you; for obama, it was edwards. for hillary? i dunno, the vwrc? maybe scaife lunching with bill means something.

I just don't see any workable angle against Obama that she can fall back on. He's monopolized the "change" meme for obvious reasons, and he has no skeletons in his closet that haven't already been exhumed and dismissed, and harping on his "inexperience" seems like a double-edged sword that could just as easily be turned against her. On top of that, she's got negative associations with a family dynasty, her stupidly hawkish foreign policy votes, and zero personal charisma or dynamism.

she'll have to say he's a paper tiger: his support is all young and heavily 'I', untranslateable out of iowa. she has no options but to keep going on "inevitability" -- "oh big deal, we all know i'm gonna take this amirite?"

ps that kashi box is about the best thing ever

i thought her post-caucus speech was very big-tent; she didn't say "yeah but CHOOSE ME NEXT" until the very last line; everything else was about democrats and the democratic party.. i'd actually be sort of surprised if things got nasty between the democrats but i always think that and they always surprise me

but that sorta presumption can be pretty unappealling. Its a weird tautology ("vote for me because I'm going to win!") that has no substance to it.

x-post

Rodham's speech: "There'll be a Democrat in the White House in 2009! Probably not me!"

She and Drudge will make fun of his ears.

She could always needle him on policy issues, though, right? Not that they would be very productive. I certainly think Hillary's in a tight spot here -- I think her underhanded attacks at Obama's character, even though she made them through surrogates, backfired and made her look two-faced. She can't afford to repeat that in New Hampshire, but she needs to do something to stop his momentum.

Not that I want her to, mind.

fight about this on the mod req board

This thread has some amazing stuff in it.
jhoshea the plumber was OTM in 06

weve totally neglected this photo
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/03dqg4K7qX8nt/340x.jpg

ugh would rather not picture their hideous couplings

geez blount whatever happened to that guy

balls

Symmetry required gabbneb to open this.

i was also otm in 06 but only about the major issue of the election, not the candidates

TOMBOT would like to point out

well if we're slapping ourselves on the back then for the record I was OTM all over this fucking thread - about Hillary, about McCain, about Obama, lolz even about Biden:

Biden as VP would be a disaster, I think - who would want a VP that tries to hog the media limelight by continually putting his foot in his mouth?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, February 1, 2007 7:20 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Biden is not running for VP. quite possibly Secretary of State, but not VP.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, February 1, 2007 7:30 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and you were right about Biden's hyperactive foot!

I don't have time to read this - was I OTM?

(Biden wasn't running for VP btw)

slapping selves on back dept

Does Joe Biden have rocks in his head? The plagiarizing sen (D-Credit Card Companies) will be '08's Lieberman.

>Both Powell and Obama have incredible integrity<

That's hilarious. You do remember the UN slideshow? And Obama's voting record has been fairly New Democrat-as-usual:

http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/05/whats-happened-to-barack-obama.html

"Obama's second vote as a U.S. Senator was in support of confirming Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He also voted to confirm John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, despite Negroponte's involvement in Iran-Contra and other situations that clearly raise questions about his ethics and discretion. Obama also voted for a bill to limit citizens rights to seek legal redress against abusive corporations. During the bankruptcy debate, he helped vote down a Democratic amendment to cap the abusive interest rates credit card companies could charge...Obama cast a key procedural vote in support of President Bush's right-wing judges."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, June 23, 2005 1:55 PM (10 years ago)