McCain is such a poor choice for President. It's unimaginable why so many uninformed republicans voted for this weak figure to represent the party, my own sister included. She's as uninformed as they come, and very typical, I'm afraid, of the idiots voting out there in this country. This whole mess is further proof that it's time for a test, to be able to vote. I'm so sick and tired of idiots like McCain getting a vote at the polls, just because his name sounds familiar. It's wrong for people to be able to vote when they cannot pass the same test that new citizens have to pass to show any knowledge of how our system of government works. Most people voting cannot even name the three branches of the federal gov't., or recognize a picture of those who currently run the gov't. or give their names. They can't even name the current V.P. or Secretary of State, muchless how many supreme court justices there are. Who's the Speaker of the House, and what is the house? Hard to believe that they are allowed to decide for me, who the next President will be. These are the idiots driving on the road to work everyday who never once turn on their radio in the car, because they don't want to listen to it. When they're at home, they watch survivor or some other stupid reality garbage available. They never once turn to a news channel to find out what's going on around them. Suddenly, someone at work mentions something that's happened and an opinion about it, and that's the info. they remember. Some idiot tells them where the polling place is and they stumble in there and cast a vote just because someone told them they could. Their response is, "well it's my right, ain't it? I mean, I think some guy told me that, or something?" My future and the future of my informed family is being decided by these idiots, and it's not right. It happens over and over again in different segments on the Tonight Show when Jay Leno goes "J-Walking" or when Sean Hannity does his "Man on the Street Thursday". I have yet to see a segment where people actually knew the answers to basic questions about our gov't. We need a test at the polling places before a vote can be cast. If they cannot demonstrate basic knowledge of civics and current leaders, or current candidates or issues, they shouldn't be able to vote. It's time America started taking this valuable act seriously. This following along to the polling places and casting a vote a certain way just because everybody else is doing it, has got to stop. Lets here someone in the press start spreading that movement. When an entire state like Florida can be lost to a 72 year old, handicapped, doddering old bald short guy, who has been in Washington for atleast 35 years just because he can't figure out what else to do, something's very very wrong with this system. I don't even want to imagine him standing next to world leaders who are younger and stronger. McCain can't hardly even shake hands with anyone. He doesn't even look presidential. Looking Presidential is VERY important in gaining respect among world leaders. Even his head looks deformed, for heavens sake. Yeah, I know that they broke his jaw as a POW but looks matter, perceptions matter, looking frail and weak matters. He goes into office as President and this country will just look weak, beat up and broken down. The rest of the world will just laugh at us. Then he opens his mouth to speak and we will hear either the f-word come out along with some other uneducated manner of speech, or we will hear the weak tone of voice he uses when he begins with, "My friends...". So many other great leaders out there like Mitt Romney, self controlled and disciplined, intelligent, eloquent, strong and Presidential, and idiots had to vote for someone hokey like Huckabee, who looks and talks like he just came in from the corn field with some husk hanging off his pocket and his Goober Pyle smile (when he's not angry and losing his temper, talking before he thinks). His wife looks like she should put her apron back on and go back to canning the peas. Those two just could not look more hokey if they tried. You can just picture them in an apron and overalls, standing there with a pitchfork. This is the saddest election season I've seen in my lifetime and I've been voting for almost 30 years. I've never before experienced such a feeling of disappointment in the candidates left in the republican field. I wish I could find that this is all just a bad nightmare, but I know it's reality. People, people, what have you done. Huckabee's poor judgement of the situation and his choice to stay in the race when everybody is laughing at him and he's still spending money, is embarassing. I can't stand Huckabee and his goofiness or silly ideas, but I keep waiting for someone to hit the gong or come on stage with a hook or cane and pull him off, because he was to ignorant to know when the show was over and it was time to go. I think a lot of people who wanted to give an endorsement to Romney, sadly thought there was going to be more time, or that they were afraid of how it might look to back someone who hadn't run for President before. Now all of a sudden, the republican party is faced with what's left and the fact that Hollywood, Washington insiders, and the Press all conspired to pick McCain for the republican party and the people didn't choose for themselves. Don't people have eyes? Can't they see when they're picking someone who doesn't even look Presidential? They say, that if there had been television in America almost 70 years ago, that this country wouldn't elect a man in a wheel chair. I say, obviously if they had the right people trying to promote him, they would. They would promote him for their own self interests, not for the good of the country. People in the republican party are obviously too stupid to figure that out for themselves. Now we're left with McCain, who half of the republican party just cannot in good conscience support. He will lose for sure, unless he starts doing something smart, and that would be a first in a very long time. He desperately needs to ask Mitt Romney to be Vice President and add much needed credibility to his own campaign. A McCain presidency doesn't stand a chance without someone smart like Romney to run things. I'm not sure that Romney would accept. McCain is nowhere near his equal. It would be very hard for Mitt to watch McCain screwing things up everyday. Mitt's not used to that. Mitt only knows how to be efficient and successful. Mitt is the one with all of the executive experience, McCain has none. What a colossal mess! There's pretty much no way to save this party this time around. This is a disaster!!!

I think you need to return to junior high and relearn the concept of a "paragraph." Talk about ignorance. Who would possibly read through all that?

Anyway, from what I gather is that if people don't agree with you, they're stupid. On the evidence of what you've written, you don't seem that bright yourself, actually.

At any rate, I am a Democrat and will vote for McCain if (and only if) Hillary is the nominee. I would not cross over to vote for any other Republican. McCain is a man of integrity who says what he means. I can respect him, even if I don't always agree with him.

Wow.

Just...wow.

And they call the liberals the elitist snobs.

Okay, seriously, dolsen, I get that you are upset and I hope that you are using hyperbole. But here's the thing: I am a reasonably well-informed, intelligent (hopefully) individual. I can name the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judiciary. I know that Dick Cheney is vice president, Condoleeza Rice is Secretary of State, Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House, and there are nine Supreme Court justices (Chief Justice Roberts, and Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens, Breyer, Kennedy, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas). And I think that McCain is the best Republican candidate for President, which is why I was really hoping Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Thompson, or (there's still hope) Paul would have won the nomination.

I'd like to think I'm not stupid or uninformed, although I don't make a lot of money. I hate "reality" TV (except for Top Chef: that show is great!) But I guess I'm one of "the great unwashed:" one of the "idiots" you rail against.

But I do know a few things. First, when Jay Leno does a "J-walking" segment, he interviews dozens, if not hundreds, of people. He only shows the people who gave funny answers to his questions. There are many more people with correct answers who don't appear on the screen, because the correct answers aren't particularly amusing. I'd bet dollars to donuts Hannity encounters the same thing.

And since when is "35 years" of political experience (actually, just 24: two terms in the House and 3 full terms plus 2 years in the Senate) a bad thing? As for his "doddering old man" status, yes, he'd be the oldest (by two years) president to be inaugurated, but Reagan was 74 when he was re-elected by a landslide. And if you don't like funny-looking presidents, well, we'd better get impeaching, huh?

You talk a lot about the way people look (McCain, Huckabee, Romney), but don't even mention their policies or detail their experience. You talk as though you were judging some reality show like "Biggest Loser" or "The Swan," not a presidential contest. You talk about a test to vote, forgetting (or ignoring) that it's a right, not a privilege, guaranteed by our Constitution (which, if you don't like, you should move to someplace that doesn't have one...like Antarctica). In short, you talk like one of those "idiots" you profess to abhor. Must be mighty lonely up there on that pedestal for you, watching all of us "idiot" slugs toil miles beneath.

Okay Maroci and Salient man, I can see we have a couple of genius candidates here. First of all, no one said that it had to be just a paragraph. You want to stick to that , it's up to you. Another person crossing over party lines to the other side of the isle. No wonder you can relate to McCain, he doesn't just reach across, he jumps and becomes one of them. He's as liberal as any democrat out there. No wonder you both like him. I realize that I didn't get into the issues between the candidates. I was discussing purely what's visible to start with. Don't act like you're surprised that someone would mention that. Even the commentators after every debate, as well as the members of the focus groups, discuss first of all who looked presidential. Physical perception matters in this world and you know it. Having said that, it is not the only thing that matters. John McCain cooked himself recently with the outright lie about Romney wanting a timetable for withdrawal. Every major media outlet condemned the lie, including the ones that had endorsed McCain. He used it in a surprise attack designed so that there would be no way for Romney to respond before the Florida primary, and all because the media had Romney ahead in the polls in Florida, and Romney had once again, won the debate in Florida according to the polls and the media. McCain saw his chances eroding away and slipped that lie in to bolster his ratings that had been drastically dropping for a week. Don't tell me that McCain is a man of integrity who says what he means. You need to read the article in Newsweek about McCain. That man is a scoundrel from one end of his life to the other. He has bullied and harrassed most everyone who has ever known him. He is as beligerant as they come. A total foul mouthed jerk who physically shoves other senators while shouting the f-word in their face in front of several other senators. The man should have been thrown in jail for disorderly conduct, not to mention assault. Several sources gave plenty of information, but asked not to be named out of fear of the retaliation others have liberally received. Tearing through the pentagon, screaming and yelling at the Secretary of Defense and getting employees fired and threatening everyone in Washington with his wrath if anyone hired them. He came within a hair of being thrown out of the U.S. Naval academy for the same behavior. Couldn't get along with people, bullying and harrassing. He made it out by the skin of his teeth because he knew just how much he could get away with, and then graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. He got himself shot down out of the sky over Hanoi. He could have avoided it, but that same beligerant behavior that he is famous for, landed him in a POW camp for many years. He knew the missile was coming and stubbornly decided to make that missile wait until he decided he was good and ready to get out of the way. He admits it. He just doesn't change his behavior. McCain flies in the face of republicans and especially conservative values. He voted against Bush's tax cuts twice, came up with the amnesty bill. He was working with Kennedy. That pretty much says it all. McCain doesn't compromise with liberals, he just agrees with them. He voted against a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. He took a serious whack at the first amendment with his campaign finance reform bill. He works with Feingold, that says a lot too. He actually entertained the idea of being John Kerry's running mate in 2004. People complain about Romney changing his mind, McCain flip flops so much he ought to apply for a job with IHOP. It's all thrown at Romney by the media, when McCain deserves the title most of all. Like it or not, I am one of the judges and McCain is the biggest loser with conservative republicans. I am conservative because I have values, principles, and I know where I stand on the issues. I'm not going to change my values for anyone. By the way, Salient Man, Sean Hannity does his show live, and America hears the real answers people give. Can't say the same for Leno. McCain was in Washington working as a Liason for the Pentagon before his political work started. That's how he became interested in politics. He has been there for 35 years. You may be one of the few that can answer basic answers on a naturalization test, but to support McCain after he lied recently to the American people is fool hearty. He lied to you once, he'll lie to you again to get what he wants from you. His American hero badge has no bearing here. It's not a free pass to get to the oval office. You're probably one of the ones who felt that Bill Clinton shouldn't have been impeached for lying in front of a grand jury. Being lied to is a serious wake up call, and if that doesn't get your attention, nothing will.

Physical perception matters in this world and you know it.

Yep. Could that be why the relatively good-looking Hitler won the war against the cripple Roosevelt and that tub of lard Churchill?

P.S. Think about how comedy works. Stupid people are only funny if you're smart enough to recognize their stupidity. Leno's goal (and Hannity's to some extent, perhaps less so) is to be funny. So the average audience member must be smarter than the people who can't answer the questions on Jaywalking or Man on the Street.

Hi dolsen,

This is fun. Thanks for replying.

Far be it from me to criticize someone for lengthy posts (all you need to do is look at a few of mine). Don't lump me in with maroci on that one.

I am fully in favor of your right to vote for whomever you please, whether it's based on the issues you have with a candidate (and you obviously have plenty with McCain), or their outward appearance, or whatever. I also fully agree that physical appearance is extremely important both in a campaign and in everyday life, whether one is president or not. I'll even give you a stat that helps your case: about 80% of our decision-making and learning are based on what we see rather than what we hear. And, when people are trying to determine whether they are being lied to, they pay attention to visual cues over aural cues about 93% - 7%! So, yes, appearance is certainly important.

What I take offense to is your blanket judgment that people who have opinions divergent from your own are "idiots." Clearly, everyone who voted for McCain is not an idiot. Everyone who voted for McCain is not ignorant. Some certainly are, but it seemed like you were saying: "Everyone who voted for McCain is an idiot because they voted for an old, funny-looking guy."

I think that it's incorrect to assume that someone funny-looking can't appear presidential. John Kerry looked like Herman Munster, and I (and many others) felt that he appeared much more presidential than Bush in the debates and elsewhere. And he lost to a guy that looks like a chimp, so anything's possible.

Every policy issue you raise about McCain (and I cannot speak to the personality issues--the "bullying"--because I have heard nothing about them from one side or the other), I see as a plus. I'm glad he opposes a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The Constitution is supposed to be a set of guiding rules and principles for our government, not a list of social dos and don'ts. There's only been one time in history that social ills were "corrected" by the Constitution: the eighteenth amendment, a.k.a. prohibition, and we all know how that one turned out.

I'm also glad he voted against tax cuts. No civilization in the history of mankind has ever cut taxes during wartime...except one. Our government and our troops need funding: funding with real money, not credit from Chinese banks, and the only way to get it is through taxation. I'm really surprised that more people in the GOP--"the party of fiscal responsibility"--don't feel the same.

Finally, I'm glad he works with Democrats. Even Kennedy. Even Feingold. I think the GOP and the Democrats need more people willing to work with those across the aisle (McCain's not alone in this. Olympia Snowe of Maine is another, Mike Castle of Delaware in the House...the names of others escape me, but I know they're out there).

As you may have guessed, I don't watch Hannity, but if his show is live and he's in the studio, wouldn't his "person on the street" interviews have to be taped? I'm not saying you're lying, I just know that Leno's and Conan's are pre-taped and screened for laugh value, and I figured Hannity's were probably likewise.

I can nitpick about whether his tenure as Navy liaison (1976-1981) counts as "political experience," or whether it all adds up to 35, but I guess it's not particularly important.

Actually, I didn't think that Clinton should have been impeached. I think lying to cover up an affair doesn't meet the legal standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors." I realize there is much debate about this. If Bush did the same, I think I'd feel likewise. I think Bush should be impeached for other reasons.

And if you don't like bullies who drop F-bombs left and right, you must hate Dick Cheney, who has been caught several times swearing on tape, and is by all accounts a bully. I believe Bush has dropped a few cuss words into various dialogues as well.

Finally, the lying. Bush lied to get us into the war in Iraq (among other things), and people voted for his re-election. Reagan lied about the Iran-Contra scandal and is still regarded as a bastion of the conservative cause. Nixon lied repeatedly. Clinton lied, too. Gore stretched the truth (I can't honestly say I know of any specific lies from him). George H.W. Bush lied in his campaign ("read my lips, America..."). Many, many, many, if not all, politicians have told lies, misspoke, distorted the truth, etc. I've lied. I bet you have, too. Are some lies more egregious than others? You betcha. But to say one politician is worse than another because he lies is like saying that Chili's is worse than TGI Friday's because it's a chain restaurant.

You'll have to forgive me for the "pedestal" comment earlier, but I was annoyed at being called an "idiot."

I love the irony you complain people vote because of name recognition but then go on and complain how Mccain looks. Yes, appearance matters, which will factor in how people will vote. Apparently it doesn't matter enough, given that he's winning.

So if Hillary wins, you will vote for McCain because of his integrity? Well, I think you'd better start reading a little bit more about him. Check Wikipedia (Charles Keating and John McCain).