I turned on the New Hampshire Democratic debate with one thought in mind. Which one of these people is going to get my first ever Democratic presidential vote?

Within seconds, goofy Mike Gravel eliminated one person from consideration. (not including himself, because he didn't stand a chance to begin with)

When he applauded Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd for their NO votes on the Lieberman/Kyl amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill, and expressed his disgust in Hillary Clinton for her support of it, that did it for me.

I'd been a bit busy, and was unaware of how the vote had gone. Seems as though the junior Senator from my home state, Barack Obama, was a bit busy as well, because he wasn't even there to cast his fucking vote.(neither was McCain....also very busy)

76-22. Un-fucking-believable. Who is sitting on the US Senate, and why?

Hillary Clinton will not get my vote if she gets the Democratic nomination. Not a chance in hell. She is an absolute idiot.

If there's one way to lose the crossover votes, the votes of pissed off conservatives, the votes of undecided centrists, Hillary Clinton just found that way. If she keeps going like this, she's liable to lose the votes of hard core Democrats in the process.

She apparently thinks she's being clever, and is attempting to court the middle. What she doesn't seem to understand is that many centrists and conservatives are on the fence because of Iraq. Many of us see Lieberman/Kyl as the next step in that abysmally flawed process of "thinking."

Lieberman/Kyl was essentially a declaration of war on Iran.

A vote for Lieberman/Kyl was a vote for disaster.

As if we need to specify Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization." with all of the power that we've already ceded to the Executive Branch when it comes to use of the military. Did they really need to do this?

Of course not.

Why did they do this?

Should be pretty obvious. A very powerful lobby who wants us to fight another war.

Having seen Hillary's giggle-thon on every Sunday morning gabfest this week, I was already wondering if she's on something.

After reading her rationale for voting in favor of Liberman/Kyl, I'm convinced she's in the pocket of someone. I don't care who that someone is. I don't need to know.

I've seen enough and heard enough from this two-faced creep.

If the Republicans nominate Rudy Giuliani, and the Dems nominate Hillary Clinton....I'm an undervote again, just like in '04.

None of the above.

How in the hell is Hillary Clinton the Democratic front runner?

I thought Hitchens might have been drunk when he wrote of a potential Al Gore entry into the Democratic race. Now I'm thinking he's very possibly correct.

If Al Gore is indeed considering another run, Hillary Clinton just gave him a great big push.

Here's how the vote went......

Yea

Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Graham (R-SC)

Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lott (R-MS)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)

Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)

Nay~

Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Dodd (D-CT)
Feingold (D-WI)

Hagel (R-NE)!!!!!!!!!!
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lincoln (D-AR)

Lugar (R-IN)!!!!!!!!!!!!
McCaskill (D-MO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Webb (D-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Too busy to vote on war with Iran~

Obama (D-IL)
McCain (R-Az)

I hope that Al Gore joins the race and brings Wes Clark with him as the Veep. Those two would obliterate the field across the board. As for Hillary, she stands for nothing but herself. I am a lifelong liberal and will have a very, very hard time voting for her. In fact, I would vote for Ron Paul before her. Rons ideas about libertarianism are not as wacky as they seem and besides, he will never get what he wants anyways. We need no nonsense, no bullshit, no waffling folks now.

I hope Gore runs too. I'd vote for him.

Edwards. Yes.

Biden. Yes.

Rudy? No way.

Mitt? No.

Newt? Yech.

Fred? Another actor? No thanks.

I'll vote for any Dem except Hillary, over any Rep except Ron Paul. My hunch is that Ron Paul won't get nominated because he lacks party support.(voters seem to like him though)

So naturally, Hillary's the Dem front runner.

Ron Paul makes more sense than the combined fields of both parties. Straight talking, strict adherent to the US Constitution, and no bullshit/waffling.

...choose Joe Lieberman for a running mate? I like Gore less than I did in '00, but on the whole, I agree with you. If it comes down to vile Democrat vs. the more vile Republican, I just might throw my vote away on some unwinnable loon for the sake of my conscience. I need a medium-grade crazy between the Greens and the Libertarians.

As bad as this is--and it's fucking bad--I still think the Democrats failed a lot more spectacularly on electronic surveillance. The odds of caving on lawsuit protection for telcom collaborators is high (link to m'man Thoreau). Nobody seems unwilling to say no to executive authority for any reason.

Passing a law that says you can't be sued!! LOL. Doesn't that just say it all?

Yes, I'm afraid Al chose Joe, thanks for the reminder K. I don't care....I'll do it anyway. Agreed, my one vote, and it doesn't count for much, but still....

You're right. It's real bad right now. We are in bad shape when it comes to politicians.

What's startling to me is that this thing is even close (thus far.)

Why is this not a Democratic slam-dunk?

Hillary Clinton, who can't admit she made a mistake voting to invade Iraq, who votes in favor of Lieberman/Kyl...front runner.

Speaking of Thoreau...I'm going to go check out that "Into the Wild" flick.....maybe this would be a good time to grab my guitars and head for Alaska.

Oh wait...that's Stevens country. Never mind. That crazy old bastard would probably build a bridge to my island.

The problem with these candidates is that they keep trying to woo some mythical voter in the middle and have no clue who that person is, its a ghost figure made up by pundits and consultants. Look at you and I. I am a liberal and you seem to be more of a conservative yet both of us are more interested in someone that is smart, has principle, explains how they make decisions and wants to rock the boat. You and I are the middle. There are millions like us all over the place. We could care less about either party, we just want a competant person who will try to fix this mess.

I can play an OK rhythm, so long as there aren't too many funny chords. (Three is all right.)

Nah, strike that, the kids would miss me. Plus I like more than two sunsets a year (and more than two seasons).

Followed your post about building one.

I'll stop by and pick it up. You can teach me some Grisman licks and I'll be on my way.

North to Alaska. Screw it, Stevens will be gone by the time I get there.

I agree with you Woolley. We are the middle....tens of millions of us.

Yes, I am a conservative. Strangely enough, neocons piss off conservatives like me as much as, or more than they piss off liberals.

And you are a liberal.

That doesn't make either of us totally stupid. Both, and we can count Keifus as well, are willing to vote for the best candidate.

Now all we need to do is find one.

Events in the U.S. are now beyond liberal vs. conservative.

Don't mean to butt in, but you are touching on what might be the solution to the looming disaster in this country, which is: a new governmental party that eschews all that we have been participating in for the last couple of hundred years. It calls for a reassessment of political alignments, and a challenge to our "leaders" to abandon the bloody dictates of some powerful influences that will, soon, take a toll on U.S. citizens in the form of a one party system.

Dubina, in a response to Apollonius brought up a military rebellion, which may be our only hope. We are past voting for a decent candidate. None are capable of bucking the system in place.

Why not declare war on them?

Wouldn't be especially costly. Take out that one refinery with an air strike. And sink that navy they were so damned proud of last year. Gosh, our navy's not busy at the moment. That'd take at most two days.

Perhaps then they might just think twice about the consequences of tangling with a superpower.

Uh-huh. Two days, tops.

Look at how this superpower has made quick work of that minor Iraqi annoyance.

Two days, and then it'll be "mission accomplished."

What could possibly go wrong?

Time to stop finding bullshit reasons to fight Israel's battles Urq.

Jingos like Urpquart rule the day. Their boy Bush let them down by being so fucking incompetent, but that hasn't changed their minds bout first principles. And it ain't only Republicans. The Democrats want the war, they just want to get to blame somebody else if it goes wrong. Danton described political principle as "something that lasts no longer than what I show my wife every night." Good description of Democrat principle, anyway.

She voted in favor of this shit. Is that amazing?

No, I guess it isn't.

$ talks.

Well, I've always seen Israel as an ally, but that alliance has become too costly. The have a military that would mop the floor with Iran. Let them do it.

As the Chambers Brothers said..."Time has come today."

what they are votig for in the Senate.