who is the best candidate???

I have been doing a lot of research lately into the Govt. and the aliens and conspiracies and NWO and such. but with all this known i was just curious to find out what other people were thinking and who everyone thinks would be the best president of the candidates we have? (keeping in mind the above mentioned)

Dems and Reps all in corporate pocket thanks to pacs. I'd like to have 80 grand wrapped in tinfoil in my freezer. There are no good choices. That makes me incredibly sad. I'd go for Kucinich but it is hopeless. I respect him because he didn't sell out Cleveland Public Power to CEI and allowed Cleveland to go into bankruptcy because of his convictions. The reality of the matter is the likelyhood of him winning is negligible. We need a new party. Bottom line. Establishing a new party with new thinking not pocketed would be a tremendous opportunity on this forum. No hatin', just fresh answers and platform to put a rudder on a broken craft.

They're all really so awful, I really don't think there is a "best" candidate. These people are all egomaniacal political hacks. The best person or people to do the job are already too busy actually contributing to the betterment of society to waste their time on this ridiculous popularity contest.

Nobody with any brains and ability would want to be President, because you can do a lot better work elsewhere without becoming a moving target for every nutcase on the planet.

reply to post by Bean328


I don't think aliens should be a priority right now considering the state of our world and this country. If we ever got everything fixed, then yeah, maybe there can be some sort of disclosure if in fact aliens exist.

Ron Paul is the best candidate by far.

Some of his stances:

He would abolish the income tax and the Federal Reserve.

He would reform the health care system.

He would put the education back in the hands of the states.

He's never voted against the constitution.

He has a very consistent voting record.

He is against censorship of the Internet.

He is against big government and would greatly reduce the powers of the federal government.

He's against the Patriot Act.

He's against the Iraq war and has always been, also the only Republican candidate against the war.

He's against a war with Iran.

He wants to bring all our troops home and stop meddling in other nation's affairs.

He doesn't believe in policing the world.

He believes in actually talking to all nations and trading with all nations and preserving freedoms AT HOME. He believes that this concept will make other nations want to have similar societies, and believes this is a way to spread freedom and democracy, rather than with a gun.

Not to mention he has more support from military personnel than any other candidate Republican or Democrat.

His straw poll results against other Republicans speaks for itself:

Ron Paul v. Rudy Giuliani: 31-5-0 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Mitt Romney: 24-12-0 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Fred Thompson: 21-14-0 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. John McCain: 32-3-0 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Mike Huckabee: 30-4-1 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Sam Brownback: 32-2-1 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Tom Tancredo: 33-1-0 in favor of Ron Paul
Ron Paul v. Duncan Hunter: 32-2-0 in favor of Ron Paul

He has been in the top five search rankings on Google of ANY keyword searches, not just candidates for 2008.

He has more MeetUp groups than any other candidate.

He is all over YouTube.

He's the last hope for this country. If you're voting, vote Ron Paul.

You can go to RonPaul2008.org to read up on his issues and stances.

All of the other candidates, Republican or Democrat, are either a part of the CFR, or are anti-second amendment (Kucinich).

Ron Paul is a part of no such organization, and is pro-constitution in it's original intent.

Voting Ron Paul is the only logical way to go, and is the only way to preserve this country.






[edit on 10/20/07 by NovusOrdoMundi]

I would have to agree that they're all awful in their own little way. I was kind of leaning toward Edwards but his wife is not doing well, health-wise and I think that would be a big distraction if he did indeed get into to the oval office.

I think it's highly likely that Clinton will win, and if she's as horrible as I think she's going to be, it will probably be a good idea for those who can afford it to "vote with their feet" by moving out of the country.

Can any of you provide any proof or reasoning as to why you feel Ron Paul is "awful"? I think the OP wants some assistance in determining what candidate he/she should vote for, and simply labeling them all awful doesn't help.

So please, make your case. I've made mine.

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


Well, here goes the first shot in a most likely to be epic slugfest. Ron Paul is too extreme and he is just downright wrong on most of the issues. I will start by saying that his anti-war stance is very admirable, but I think that's the only thing I can agree with him on. OK, let's do this blow-by-blow, based off what wikipedia says his positions are.

"He advocates withdrawal from the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for reasons of maintaining strong national sovereignty."

-Very, very unwise. The UN and NATO have never actually held America back and on occasion they have provided America with valuable military assistance. Given Bush's "cowboy diplomacy", this will just look like we are a bunch of scofflaws who don't give a crap what the rest of the world thinks.

"Civil liberties concerns have led him to oppose the Patriot Act, a national ID card, federal government use of torture, domestic surveillance, and presidential autonomy"

-OK, those are good points, I can agree with that, moving on.

"he supports free trade, rejecting membership in NAFTA and the World Trade Organization as "managed trade." He supports tighter border security and ending welfare benefits for illegal aliens,[157] and opposes birthright citizenship and amnesty; he voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006."

-I don't believe Dr. Paul's money is where his mouth is on supporting free trade. NAFTA, WTO, et. al. are not perfect but they are an improvement from the protectionist trade arrangements that were formerly in place. Paul should focus on IMPROVING the trade organizations rather than scrapping them. Furthermore xenophobia (which is what Dr. Paul's immigration policy is) and free trade do not go hand-in-hand.

"Paul supports elimination of most federal government agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service,[2] the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, and the Interstate Commerce Commission,[3] calling them unnecessary bureaucracies."

-This is a totally lunatic position that only the most die-hard Ron Paul supporters would endorse (and I'm sure you're one of them )

"He argues for hard money such as some form of silver or gold standard, and advocates gradual elimination of the Federal Reserve central bank for many reasons, believing that economic volatility is decreased when the free market determines interest rates and money supply.[161]"

-Apparently Dr. Paul doesn't know much about what the economy was like when we DID have a gold standard, otherwise he would realize that the economy then was even MORE volatile.

Plus, Dr. Paul opposes welfare and Medicare. That may or may not be a good position to take but the public will never support it. I'm sure I've left out some of RP's positions, but the ones I've mentioned are critically flawed enough to render him an unviable and undesirable candidate.

I don't trust dynasties or those close to them- there go Hillary and Obama, among others. But the dynasties have something that idealists don't: decades upon decades and in cases centuries of governing experience, and legions of similarly backgrounded underlings. Keep in mind that it's not that we get inept government- we get government that doesn't have our best interests at heart. At least the government we have will not harm us beyond what their ends require. Inept government could screw us without limit. If you think gas prices are bad under a government that doesn't care about us, imagine what they'd be like under a government that doesn't know how to curb the problem when it reaches the limits of tollerance.

I all at once admire the sincerity and idealism of people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and also fear that they will be the ruin of this nation. They are maverick congressmen- they have long had the luxury of holding any position they like without ever having their goals fulfilled or the potential consequences realized. What I would like to see both Paul and Kucinich do is go back home and organize 3rd parties at the state level, spend 10 years building their parties in the state legislatures, then make runs for governor so that they could build a network of like-minded individuals and have in that network people with a great deal of experience and savvy, so that their ideologies will be able to offer us truly qualified presidential candidates in the future.

We'll never have a "good" candidate because we can't choose who we want. They are already chosen for us obviously so we take the lesser of the two evils. What we really need is a construction worker, farmer, stay at home mother, or any other person that actually makes this country live and knows the burden of the idiotic mistakes that we've allowed our gov't to make.

reply to post by I See You


I disagree with the belief that we need an "average Joe/Jill" for president. First off, they are so inexperienced that they would be easily lead astray by a shady character who at least claimed to be experienced. Secondly, poor people are more easily corrupted by money and/or power, if you don't believe me just do a case study on lottery winners.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
-Very, very unwise. The UN and NATO have never actually held America back and on occasion they have provided America with valuable military assistance.

The United Nations is a world government organization. We do not need world government. World government WOULD sacrifice our national sovereignty. If you advocate world government or the surrendering of our national sovereignty, then I can understand why you'd support the UN.

NATO is an alliance that can, and may end up sacrificing our national sovereignty. Our founding fathers said DO NOT align with ANYONE. They told us, instead, to trade with everyone and have good relations with everyone, but never enter such deals like NATO as it would sacrifice security and sovereignty.

Sorry, but I think I'll take their advice.

Also, how would exiting NATO and the UN mean nations of the world would think we don't care what they think? So exiting a world government organization where we block any resolutions condemning Israel, and a military treaty organization who has stuck it's nose in other's business, would get a negative reception from the rest of the world when those two things are replaced with better trade and relations?

Originally posted by uberarcanist
-I don't believe Dr. Paul's money is where his mouth is on supporting free trade. NAFTA, WTO, et. al.

NAFTA, WTO, and others, are flawed trade organizations that centralize power and money with trade. Ron Paul advocates simple trade and reduced power over such things, as well as better relations.

You can't have better relations when you have huge powerful organizations controlling trade who can cut off trade to any nation they deem unworthy.

It's counterproductive.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
-This is a totally lunatic position that only the most die-hard Ron Paul supporters would endorse (and I'm sure you're one of them

)

Do you mind explaining how it's a lunatic position or are you simply trying to make your point without providing the slightest bit of reasoning? Saying it's a lunatic position doesn't prove your point.

The IRS is directly tied in with the income tax and Federal Reserve. Dr. Paul wants to abolish the income tax and Federal Reserve, therefore, abolishing the IRS.

He wants to get rid of the Department of Education because he wants to put the education in the hands of the states. The states pay for the education, the government merely controls it. Why should the federal government control everything? Don't make his Department of Education position seem like he wants to abolish the school system. He just wants it back in the hands of the states.

I'm not familiar with his Department of Energy positions, so I can't comment.

The Department of Homeland Security...do I even need to say anything? Look how much power it's gained over the last 6 years, yet, they can't even secure the border. It needs to go.

FEMA is pretty much pointless. They do more harm than good. I've never studied his position on FEMA, but I certainly wouldn't protest it if he got rid of it.

The Interstate Commerce Commission I've never looked into either.

Next time get these from his website, please, as it will provide more accurate details than Wikipedia.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
-Apparently Dr. Paul doesn't know much about what the economy was like when we DID have a gold standard,

Have you looked at our national debt? It's over 9 trillion.

This is how the Federal Reserve works:

They issue the paper money, which isn't backed by gold. It essentially has no value.

Along with that paper money comes interest that WE have to pay. It's debt is what it is.

So how do we pay off that debt? Well we need more money to do that.

So the Federal Reserve issues more money, but there's interest attached to that also.

Basically what we're doing is creating more debt while trying to pay off the debt. We need to add on to the debt just to knock it down to where it was before we paid that little bit off.

That's what happens when you have a private central bank who has no oversight and the power to print money that is backed by absolutely NO VALUE.

Originally posted by uberarcanist
but the ones I've mentioned are critically flawed enough to render him an unviable and undesirable candidate.

Hardly

Your understanding of those positions has rendered him an inviable and undesirable candidate in your mind only.

I'd suggest looking at his stances much more closely. The fact that you've made the points you made in this post, and the fact that you support $400 haircut guy, shows me that you haven't really taken a serious unbiased look at these things.

Is he perfect? No. No one is.

But he's the best chance we have at saving this country.

reply to post by The Vagabond


So who among the candidates is experienced enough in your eyes?

Just looking at the "major" candidates..

Fred Thompson-Senator
Rudy Giuliani-Mayor
Mitt Romney-Governor
John McCain-Senator
Hillary Clinton-Senator
John Edwards-Senator
Barack Obama-Senator
Ron Paul-Congressman
Dennis Kucinich-Congressman

You mention Kucinich and Paul making a run for governor of their states. So are you saying it takes being a governor to be presidential worthy?

If that's the case, then only Romney deserves it out of the major candidates.

I guess I'm just having a hard time figuring out what you mean by your post., and why Kucinich and Ron Paul don't deserve to be president simply because they are congressman.

yea, there are deffinately positives and negtives to everyone but based on everything known ron paul does look like the best candidate. its a shame people allow this country to be run into the ground without taking any action. i think its safe to say we are one of the worse when it comes to our near 50% voter turnout. shows how much we care about what they do to our life and our freedoms...

reply to post by NovusOrdoMundi


What I'm getting at is the extreme difficulty that a reformer would face as president.

I begin with the premise that the qualities to look for in a president can be broadly defined under two categories: Leadership/Management strengths, and Policy/Ideology strengths.

The first type:
Leaders/Managers
Some candidates come in with a genius for organization and management, and they surround themselves with people who are brilliant in particular fields- the arrangement becomes that the cabinet generates good policy and the president spearheads the process of realizing that policy.
Many such candidates are generals.

The Great Ones George Washington and John F Kennedy did well because they had this quality.

The Failures Franklin Pierce (a direct ancestor of G-Dub, on his mom's side) was a uniter and a divider- his was the only cabinet in history to stay intact for a whole term, even though they were not ideologically unified. Like Dubya, he was elected because people wanted to have a beer with him (unlike dubya, he never denied his love of beer). Unfortunately, people later found out that they hated his guts because he was pro slavery and was considering taking Cuba by force. The moral of the story is that you can't ignore ideology because the candidate seems to be a good leader.

Today's Politicians Wesley Clark would probably be this kind of president. So would Rudy Guilliani. That's not to say they'd be as successful as Washington or Kennedy though- just predominately reliant on the same broad attributes.

Didn't have it Lacking this quality was a detriment to Lincoln- it made the search for the right general to defeat Lee a long one (for a while Lincoln was studying military history and considering personally taking command of the Army of the Potomac). Lincoln's inability to centrally control his own administration and fill it with the right kind of people also caused his vision of reconstruction to die with him.


The second type:
Experts and Idealists
Other candidates come in with a conviction of what the right policies are, and they need to surround themselves with people who can help them get it done. The President devises policy and the battle to implement it is somewhat annonymous, occuring largely behind closed doors.

The Great Ones Lincoln was great because he possessed this quality but faced great challenges along the way. Franklin Roosevelt is most noteworthy for this as well, and his administration might not have been quite what it was if not for Eleanor's help, which provided more of the first quality. It is typical for this type to be more easily described as "great" than "successful", because they often represent the beginning of endeavors that may take decades to complete.

The Failures Carter was a rare instance of a president of this type who had very little charisma and an often-negative message, and it cost him dearly. President Jefferson's Embargo Act could also be interpreted as stemming from ideology- an agrarian southern president not wanting to risk a potentially losing war for the sake of northern business interests. I prefer the Jefferson who presided over the First Barbary War- sometimes a president has to accept a course of action not suggested by his own beliefs because of what is at stake.
G-Dub was balanced as a candiate but as a president was decidedly of this type. He had that Pierce mojo, but also an undeniable ideological bent during his first campaign. Once in office though, he was all ideology and his charm started to wear off. He has ended up following his handlers into some real blunders because of it, and I really don't think he meant for it to be this way. If only he were a more effective leader- more balanced between ideology and management ability, he might have found people who could make his ideas work a little better than they have.

Today's Politicians Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are definately this kind of candidate, as are Obama and Edwards. McCain and Clinton are more balanced but lean in this direction. I think Bill further stabilizes this side of Hillary.

Didn't Have it
A LOT of politicians don't have this. William Henry Harrison is the laughable extreme- he was only there to babysit the politicians because he was electable, and in proving his machismo during his innaugural address he contracted a fatal case of pnuemonia.



So us suppose that Ron Paul is elected. He will be of the second type. That is dangerous territory for someone who wants to make serious changes, unless he also has a healthy dose of the first quality. He will desperately need people who can make his ideas happen.

The man definately has a handle on what he wants to accomplish, no problem there. Whether his views are right or wrong, there is no arguing that he understands his goals and what he will need to do. But where is he going to find qualified people who have the ability and the desire to help him achieve his goals?

He runs a severe risk of ending up in fights with his own administration, which is something less reform-oriented candidates of his type don't have to worry about and that more experienced and better connected candidates of his type can overcome better.

I am worried about a Ron Paul administration having a substandard justice department if can't find qualified people who will support his goals, or worse yet, about a Ron Paul administration facing subversion within the DOJ which might weaken him against a hostile congress or even result in the people who are supposed to be advancing his initiatives purposefully losing battles for him.

I am similarly worried about disloyalty in the DOD and DOHS. President Paul, if such a creature came to exist, could very easily be rocked by an Iran-Contra style scandal because of disloyal underlings trying to carry out their own foreign policy behind his back.


So what I'm saying in way too many words is that I'd like to see a guy like Ron Paul go where he can gain experience in the art of coordinating a team of like-minded people to get things done, and while he's at it cultivate people who share his values and have not been corrupted by politics into a qualfied staff before he goes into an office where he's going to need to rely on other people to help him get things done.

Remember, Lincoln, probably the greatest president to fall under the same type as Paul would, was by no means at the head of his movement. The time wasn't right for him until after the split of the whig party and a series of unsuccessful attempts. There has to be a battle for the soul of the Republican Party- True Conservatives versus the heavy-spending hawks and religious fundies- before it is time for a Ron Paul, because that battle is going to develop both a political base for Ron Paul and the political allies he needs as well as give important experience to the kind of people Paul will need on his side.

Sorry for being so verbose, I at least hope I've made my point. Not my best day for posting.

I agree 'I see you'. I was highly skeptical of last presidential elections. Diebold voting machines have been shown to be easily hacked, yet they are still used. The president of the company making huge republican campaign donations.
I'll continue to vote, but I am highly dubious of election results.