Steve Culpepper

I totally agree with that.

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SCUL

donnie

So every disgruntled dope that had to come out on an otherwise nice lazy day off who doesn’t know the least bit about its political candidates comes in and Christmas-trees their ballot and actually gets counted? Wow, I don’t know if that is the best system, I do like the idea of the runner up thing, no primaries would be neat, but would lay waste the Electoral college, which would be bad, by the way.

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Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
When the man comes around- Jhonny Cash

donnie

hmmm, no

Ironduke

As the dominant English-speaking nation in the world, I have a suggestion: all other English-speaking nations in the world whose populations total little more than a mere third of the United States, should abandon their governments and join the United States.

Among states, England would have the second-largest GDP, just behind California. Not bad.

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The Buck Stops Here

donnie

dalem

It should be harder to vote, not easier. I want people to have devoted some thought and energy to the idea.

-dale

dalem

For those wondering why I like Romney, Ann Coulter (yeah, I know, buit I love her style) sums it up pretty well for me:

Linkydink.

Hee hee!

-dale

gunnut

Yeah, he kept them both, along with a few others too...

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

gunnut

I'm sorry sir. As much as I dislike and distrust Obama, I have to set the record straight. Obama was not and has not ever been a muslim. He is a christian. It was only a rumor. You can varify that by looking up snopes.com.

astralis

i loved how romney went and pandered like mad to those michigan voters by advocating protectionism, when on his campaign website he proclaims "Are we going to stay ahead of the world, are we going to lead the world, or are we going to instead pull up the drawbridge and try to hang on to everything we've got and say we can't compete with the world?".

or how he tried to play himself off as the social conservative, only to change tacks when he realized that wasn't really going to win over the suspicious evangelicals. then when hillary had her teardrop, he suddenly changed to talking about how "personal" the fight had become for him. or when he figured out how popular obama was getting with his "change" theme, suddenly he too is the candidate for "change".

there's a lot to be said for flexibility, but romney's portrayal of himself changes a ridiculous amount.

to be sure i'm biased as hell- i'm going to vote mccain.

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

astralis

well, mr. hitchens i believe a few of our members have quoted in the past; now i'll post something he wrote about mr. romney.

Mitt Romney needs to answer questions about his Mormon faith. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Mitt the Mormon
WHY ROMNEY NEEDS TO TALK ABOUT HIS FAITH.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Nov. 26, 2007, at 12:23 PM ET

Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney appears to think that, in respect of the bizarre beliefs of his church, he has come up with a twofer response. Not only can he decline to answer questions about these beliefs, he can also reap additional benefit from complaining that people keep asking him about them. In a video response of revolting sanctimony and self-pity last week, he responded to some allegedly anti-Mormon "push poll" calls in Iowa and New Hampshire by saying that it was "un-American" to bring up his "faith," especially "at a time when we are preparing for Thanksgiving," whatever that had to do with it. Additional interest is lent to this evasive tactic by the very well-argued case, made by Mark Hemingway in National Review Online, that it was actually the Romney campaign that had initiated the anti-Mormon push-poll calls in the first place! What's that? A threefer? Let me count the ways: You encourage the raising of an awkward question in such a way as to make it seem illegitimate. You then strike a hurt attitude and say that you are being persecuted for your faith. This, in turn, discourages other reporters from raising the question. Yes, that's the three-card monte.

According to Byron York, who has been riding around with Romney for National Review, it's working, as well. Most journalists have tacitly agreed that it's off-limits to ask the former governor about the tenets of the Mormon cult. Nor do they get much luck if they do ask: When Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation inquired whether Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is or was or will be in the great state of Missouri, he was told by Romney to go ask the Mormons! However, we do have the governor in an off-guard moment in Iowa, saying that "The [Mormon] Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. … And then, over a thousand years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri. … The law will come from Missouri, and the other will be from Jerusalem."

It ought to be borne in mind that Romney is not a mere rank-and-file Mormon. His family is, and has been for generations, part of the dynastic leadership of the mad cult invented by the convicted fraud Joseph Smith. It is not just legitimate that he be asked about the beliefs that he has not just held, but has caused to be spread and caused to be inculcated into children. It is essential. Here is the most salient reason: Until 1978, the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an officially racist organization. Mitt Romney was an adult in 1978. We need to know how he justified this to himself, and we need to hear his self-criticism, if he should chance to have one.

The Book of Mormon, when it is not "chloroform in print" as Mark Twain unkindly phrased it, is full of vicious ingenuity. From it you can learn of the ancient battle of Cumorah, which occurred at a site conveniently near Joseph Smith's home in upstate New York. In this legendary engagement, the Nephites, described as fair-skinned and "handsome," fought against the outcast Lamanites, whose punishment for turning away from God was to be afflicted with dark skin. Later, in antebellum Missouri and preaching against abolition, Smith and his cronies announced that there had been a third group in heaven during the battle between God and Lucifer. This group had made the mistake of trying to remain neutral but, following Lucifer's defeat, had been forced into the world and compelled to "take bodies in the accursed lineage of Canaan; and hence the negro or African race." Until 1978, no black American was permitted to hold even the lowly position of deacon in the Mormon Church, and nor were any (not that there were many applicants) admitted to the sacred rites of the temple. The Mormon elders then had a "revelation" and changed the rules, thus more or less belatedly coming into compliance with the dominant civil rights statutes. The timing (as with the revelation abandoning polygamy, which occurred just in time to prevent Utah from being denied membership of the Union) permits one to be cynical about its sincerity. However that may be, it certainly makes nonsense of Romney's moaning about any criticism or questioning being "un-American." The Mormons have already had to choose—twice—between their beliefs and American values.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has had to be asked about his long-ago membership of the Ku Klux Klan (which, I would remind you, is also a Protestant Christian identity organization), and he was only a fiddle-playing member, not a Grand Kleagle or whatever the hell it is. Why should Romney not be made to give an account of himself? A black candidate with ties to Louis Farrakhan could expect questions about his faith in the existence of the mad scientist Yakub, creator of the white race, or in the orbiting mother ship visited by the head of the Nation of Islam. What gives Romney an exemption?

There is also the question—this one more nearly resembles the one that John F. Kennedy agreed to answer so straightforwardly in 1960—of authority. The Mormons claim that their leadership is prophetic and inspired and that its rulings take precedence over any human law. The constitutional implications of this are too obvious to need spelling out, but it would be good to see Romney spell them out all the same.
So phooey, say I, to the false reticence of the press and to the bogus sensitivities that underlie it. This extends even to the less important matters. If candidates can be asked to declare their preference as between briefs and boxers, then we already have a precedent, and Romney can be asked whether, as a true believer should, he wears Mormon underwear. What's un-American about that? The bottom line is that Romney should expect to be asked these very important questions, and we should expect him not to obfuscate and whine anymore but to give clear and unambiguous answers to them.

Ironduke

Including that out of place strand of hair that's been dangling over his forehead after his all-too-perfect hair was brought to prominent attention.

I think Romney is a demagogue. Michigan, tell me that wasn't pure demagoguery.
Last spring, a couple Mormons approached me on the campus bridge and asked me if I'd be interested in learning more about Jesus. I asked them for their copy of the Book of Mormon and they gave it to me. Brought it home, opened it, saw a picture of Jesus spreading the gospel to the Aztecs, closed it.

gunnut

If Jesus really is the son of god, and god, then by definition he can do anything he wants. Space and time constraints do not affect him. He could have taken some time off in Jerusalem and visited the Americas in the 1200s. He could appear as black, white, brown, man, woman, just about any form he wants and we wouldn't be the wiser.

Personally I don't believe in any religion, but South Park did say Mormon is the correct answer.

dalem

Yeah. Let's disagree and work against the guy for what he is and what he wants to do, not flakey internet rumors and unreasoned fears.

-dale

dalem

Umm, he did. He gave a speech. It was well-received.

-dale