Which politician isn't an opportunist, politics is a game of survival and you do what you need to do to survive.
your thinking of most politicians not all. RP is one of the few that didnt sacrifice his ideals and beliefs and stood by what he believed in even if it wasnt popular with the eltists. Its a shame that we the american people are no longer in control of our destiny.
He is a non issue only with the delegate system which we all know is corrupt. He made a big impact on millions of americans such as me who now have hope that at least one candidate out there that actually cares about the american people and is honest about what he believes in and isnt supported by any special interest group. Someone like you wouldnt understand these things or care about them but integrity and honesty still mean something to alot of people. They just need to get more informed about how corrupt our system has become politically.
So your another that asserts he is an issue & still electable to the position of president? i don't really care for the reasons as to why you think that he is non-issue whilst asserting he is an issue, as this indicates a split personality.
He is an issue. If things carry on as they are, he will be going to the Republican convention to speak, something not afforded to Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney. Just because you have the attention span of a gnat, doesn't mean that it's over. HA! Psychological evaluation from a guy whose best thinking emanates from between split cheeks! And it's that attitude that keeps statesmen from every being our leaders. Because people acknowledge that politicians should be opportunists and not trustworthy or credible, and in fact, they want to be pandered to by people who lack credibility or honesty. It's actually a very sad statement about you.
No its an acknowledgment of reality, you don't want politicians to be opportunists then make it a one shot deal, one term in congress and your out, where then people would vote for the right thing instead of voting based on how it would look to help a certain group of people who they need their votes and money from to get reelected for another term.
Ok, i'll look forward to the flurry of posts about him, not unless all these supporters that previously posted RP threads everyday suddenly don't have internet access.
Toopac: I was looking at some hard statistics. CNN has a running poll of votes through 2/20/2008. As of that date, there were slightly more than 14 million votes in Repbublican primaries and caucases and slightly more than 22 million votes in Democratic primaries and caucases. RP had just under 666,000 votes: RP had less than 4.8% of the Republican vote total and less than 1.9% of the total vote through 2/20/2008. Another way of looking at that is that 98.1% of the primary/caucas voting public was not for RP. But.....RP seems to get more than 1.9% of the post total at DP's P&R forum. I guess this must be one of those centers of RP hot air. and I'm sure we will see lots more RP posts.
George Bush received enough votes to win the Presidency twice. Are you going to tell me that the votes decide the quality of a candidate? The votes are meaningless. All that counts are delegates. How can you in good conscience make a post, supposing some understanding of the process, without knowing how it actually works? @Toopac, there is an irony to you insisting that Paul is marginal, while playing the role of gadfly in P&R yourself.
How many delegates does RP have? 5,10,20,50, 100, more than Huckabee, or more than Romney had before releasing them? In 2000 Bush received just under 50% of the popular vote. Seems to me about 1/2 the population wanted him to be president and 1/2 didn't. I'm looking at the totals for the most active voters and according to results through 2/20/08 about 95% of voters/caucasers among Republicans don't want RP and about 98% of all voters/caucasers don't want RP. Seems to me that a huge percentage of the voters are giving their opinions about the quality of candidates in their eyes. But.......I suspect the DP P&R section will still be chock full of comments applauding RP.
Right, but since when did the masses know who they are voting for? You voted for Clinton, admitting that you like the idea of universal health care, with no idea if her plan is feasible or desirable. That didn't stop you from voting for someone who endorsed the war you now like to complain is a mistake, nor a candidate who has run on global warming, when the planet stopped warming 10 years ago, or a candidate who wanted to leave nukes as an option on the table with Iran, when Iran didn't even have nukes or a nuclear program. So yeah, if the masses are voting with the amount of knowledge and discretion you show, then I can understand why Ron Paul gets wiped out by populist candidates who promise imaginary candy, and don't want you to look to close at their record. FYI, for all of the mocking, Rudy G raised a lot more money than Paul, has a national profile, had a true neoconservative platform, lead the nationally polling for months, and Paul kicked his ass in several states. Same with Fred Thompson. But at the end of the day, McCain has been declared the winner on Super Tuesday, even though Paul, Romney and Huckabee could have taken him to the wire at a brokered convention. Which leads people such as yourself, to vote based on what you hear on TV, not what the realistic delegate counts are, not who is financially viable, and as above, not based upon any understanding of "your" candidate's platform.
FYI, I initially grudgingly supported the war in Iraq. As with all leadership of all nations at that time, I believed in the threat of weapons of mass destruction being held by Iraq. I later grew to believe that the Bush administration deceived the nation with regard to Iraq. I believe that he had his eyes on Iraq from the earliest stages of his administration. He ultimately used 9/11 as a ruse to the American public to wage war against Iraq. I believe now that he wanted to aggressively tangle with Iraq long before terrorists attacked the US. I also believe a nuclear threat exists in Iran. The US intelligence report did not say that it doesn't exist. It took its latest evidence from several years ago and said that data shows that the prior efforts had stopped. As retired experts from the Intelligence community have documented in public pieces it is extraordinarily difficult to penetrate on deep military secrets and the development of weapons of mass destruction. The community of scientists and technologists who build these things are hidden from public view and secured away from the rest of the nation. Unless you have a mole of a scientist inside such a facility there is no way of knowing what is going on. The experience with Saddam only reveals this in greater detail...from the opposite extreme. Saddam faked weapons of mass destruction....no outside nation had information to the opposite and the whole world believed he was building them. Ooops...excuse me. you know more than the masses, Intelligence officers, PHD's in economics and anyone with a bit of experience in any aspect of life. As to global warming take all the science on the topic, eliminate the outside commentary from people who aren't qualified to understand the science and then look at the issues. Take out the politicians and the loud mouthed yakkers, take out interest groups who have no ability to speak about the science but may have an interest in responses that may affect their industries and look at the volume of science that discusses the issue. That is who I'd believe. Ooops. I forgot, believers of the Austrian school of economic thought don't like data. They like theories. I guess that applies in your case to economics and every comment on any topic imaginable. When first introduced to RP I couldn't understand why he wasn't running in some sort of independent perspective. Clearly many Republicans have to distrust someone as radical as he in as many issues as he covers. And they did, as evidenced by the vote totals for the less than 5% candidate (on the Republican side). And as for my decisions, when the time got close to vote I went back and listened particularly to the candidates themselves rather than rely on tv and the media. Oops. Every time I make a declarative statement you twist it. I guess the guy who has answers for everything is allowed to say whatever he wishes. Its not surprising to me that folks, such as GTech from the Right, or myself from the Left (I like to consider myself in the center but in this forum I clearly represent the Left) both find RP and your hawking of his qualities distasteful. And as for realistic delegate counts as the primaries and caucases moved forward, you must count in some out of this world numerical system to propose that RP had a chance or alternatively must imagine himself to be some deity above and beyond all others to tell Romney (spent a lof of his own money) and Huckabee what they should be doing. Meanwhile as of today, I see that Huckabee shut down his campaign and RP still is campaigning away and still asking for donations. I guess he likes taking other peoples money.