The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I saw Lieberman talking a little bit about McCain today on the news.  They are good friends, and word was that Lieberman was his first choice to run with him, but he took Palin to shore up the base.

I don't think that it would've made a difference in the outcome of the election (Obama was lighting in a bottle), but I think that Palin did have a big hand in greatly reshaping the Republican party.  I also think that she's been a big part of McCain's irrelevancy, and that the left/middle that did respect McCain saw the Palin pick as reckless.  He's not the admirable figure that he once was.  I don't think that either side likes him all that much.

McCain's "maverick" image went out the window with Palin, and he's had to go way right just to stay in office, but it's not really working for him.

I wonder if he'd be better off now, had he chosen Lieberman.  Like I said, I think that they'd still have lost, but I bet he'd be a more influential politician today, if he had.

I don't think he would be more influential..what is Gore and Kerry up to now a days?   

I think a Lieberman would have helped him with moderate voters, but completely alienated his base on election day.  Palin did the opposite. 

Maybe if he had taken Lieberman...both stay in the senate...neither caucus with their party the two of them could be the pair in the middle brokering deals....but I doubt it. 

^ I'll give you Kerry, who seemed to disappear entirely from the face of politics after his presidential run, but I disagree with Gore.

First off, Gore was already a VP, so it's not like he had a political career to go back to, really.  On top of that, I think that Gore became very influential, but just not using politics as a forum.  He went on to win a nobel prize and an academy award pushing his environmental agenda.  He is hardly insignificant.

Meanwhile, McCain still seems to be striving to be an important member of his party, but I don't see that working for him.  Lieberman isn't really liked by the left all that much, but he definitely gets his face out there and is sorta the bridge to the Republicans, along with Olympia Snow, Lisa Murkowski, Scott Brown, etc.  I think that McCain would be more powerful if he were in that list, like he used to be.

I think this last run for president,McCain was thought of as old....Palin was also supposed to help him seem younger,Wouldn't Lieberman, been another Two old white dudes ticket?

That is true.  More so than youth, she did grab some of the Hillary Clinton base.  (Despite that their isn't a single thing they agree on politically) 

Oh, for sure.  ...and they would've lost.  That's not really the point.  I think McCain could've run with Superman and still lost.  The GOP was too damaged a brand at that point, no matter who it was.  But I think that Palin really hurt McCain's credibility.  I think that Lieberman would've strengthened McCain to the independents, and would've made McCain not look like a GOP lackey, which he eventually did.  McCain had to go way right to avoid defeat when all of the "establishment" candidates were going down, from both sides.  I think that McCain/Lieberman would've looked less establishment, despite having two guys that've been there forever, since they were from different parties.  I think that would've have been the story: people over party.

Lieberman is a man without a constituency.  He will be evicted from office in his next election.

Under "normal" circumstances, his antics would preclude a defection to the GOP, but with the current RINO-hunting Tea Party scalpers roaming the primaries, he'd be dead the moment he hit the water.  So he really has no vehicle to avoid being ousted.

In hindsight, his best chance would have been to run to the left (like Specter did), but he was busy trying to play kingmaker and triangulate in 2009.  I will be happy to see him gone.

As for McCain's situation today if he had picked Lieberman, I doubt it would have mattered.  What happened to Bob Dole after 1996?  The Republican party brooks no losers (that's not to say that the Democratic party does, either).

Palin was a blatant attempt by the GOP to grab the female voters who were pissed Hillary did not get the nomination.

I guess it's my theme. Like the Dolphins this country needs real change. I pick Thigpen and Ron Paul. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.............

I do think the country needs a new direction, a sort of get back to the beginning or get back to the basics feel. 

I don't know that Lieberman is a bad choice or that Lieberman is a poor choice and here's why. 

A lot of conservatives like myself feel like the country is better off with Lieberman active in politics.  He is as they say "our kind of Liberal."  That may be an oxymoron but you get my point.  That might win him points with independant voters and the kinds of people you want to capture to win an election.

That said, he surely is not a fit the bill conservative either.  I don't know that the country would vote for something like that, a sort of bipartisan ticket.  It seems like it would repel as many voters from one party or another than it would attract.

just my thoughts.

I think your position could be alternately worded as, "I don't mind having Lieberman as a member of the opposition."  I can also say that I'd have less of a problem with Lieberman as a Republican, particularly if he took the job of an existing Republican.  In short, Lieberman is the type of guy you want in the other man's party.  But Republicans would be even less likely to vote for him than Democrats would.

To be honest, I just want to see him gone.  I'm tired of his grandstanding, much as I'm sure that conservatives are sick of Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe being treated as the most important Republicans on the planet.

^^^^

Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe are RINOs at best, much like Arlen Specter was.

Sure, but you'd rather have them than two Democrats in those seats, right?

So ultimately, it's not much different than Lieberman.  The only real difference is that the Dems already tried to kick him out in 2006, and he created a political party to hold on to his seat (because CT has no sore loser law).

I do look forward to seeing whether the GOP will have the balls to primary out Collins and Snowe, though.  If you wanted to replace them with "real" Republicans, you just missed your best shot.

While I don't like Lieberman...I think we need more Lieberman, Snowe, Spector, Chafee, Jeffords, Zell Miller types and less of the extremists in both parties. 

I half-agree with you.

I think we need more of them in the Republican Party.  :P

Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman yes, none of the other names above impress me very much. 

the other names on that list didn't impress me very much. 

Basically, you and Spider said the same thing.  You hate the moderates in your own party but wish their was more moderates in the opposition. 

I will probably cause a shit-storm by saying this, but what liberal extremists are there in Washington right now (or ever)?

When I think of liberal extremists, I think of PETA...people who want to make eating meat illegal...weird crap like that.  Where as I think that there are many conservative extremists that are active in politics NOW.  What constitutes a radical liberal agenda, anyway?  I know that people hate Pelosi (the face of hatred on the GOP side) and they can disagree with her plenty, but it's not like she's a radical.  They moved along with health care and a few other changes, but they're all things that the Democratic party has been running on for the last 100 years.  It's nothing that's really all that "out-there", in terms of extreme politics.

I think that we're being dishonest if we say that extremism is equal in both sides.  It's just not.  There are some idiots on the Dem side FOR SURE that use stupid tactics, poor analogies in their rhetoric, etc, but there's nothing in their platforms that I can think of that is all that crazy, even in the most liberal people.  In fact, I think that Barney Frank (possibly the most liberal guy out there) is very sensible and not a nut job.  My point is that there are no Michelle Bachmans on the left.

^^^ I guess that depends on what you consider radical. 

To some one feels that the minimum wage, social security, or requiring daycare centers to have fire exits is communism...pretty much the entire democratic party is radicals. 

In fact the notion that bathrooms ought not be segregated at one time was an extremely radical idea.  As was the idea of social security.  The idea that men and women be treated equally was a radical idea.

Today many consider the idea that homosexuals be given equal rights as heterosexual regarding marriage or service in the military as  radical ideas.  And just like folks use to think that food stamps was a radical idea, some think that universal access to health care is too radical.  Or permitting women who are feeding their children to do so in public.   

For me, you and spider....the dems make sense and the republicans are the radicals.  For Big Daddy Fin the repubs makes sense and the dems are the radicals. 

I don't think the Republicans are radicals.  By and large, I think the vast, vast majority of elected officials in the party are sound thinkers, though I don't agree with many things in the platform.  They get caught up in the rhetoric and say stupid crap to save votes now and then, but for the most part, I don't think they're lunatics.  However, I think that the GOP (at its end) leans way, way more right than the Dems do lean left.

I'd say that's a probably accurate assessment. 

That's your opinion only because of where you sit. To a conservative, accepting abortion is about as far left as you can go while to you it seems normal. To you, being against abortion is as far right as you can go while it would not seem extreme to a conservative.

There are many people who say we are against abortion so lets see how we can lower the rate on the conservative side. There are many people on the liberal side who are for a women's right to choose but realize that abortion should not be used as an excuse for birth control. Those are the people that can work together and would be considered moderates.

I know I've said this before but something came up recently that brought it to light again. My pastor is a white Republican who is very much against abortion and gays rights to marry. He is also one of President Obama's advisors and spiritual leaders. He prays with him weekly and works with him on his personal devotionals. He would have never been in a position as this if he had not realized how to work together with people who completely disagree with his views but he teaches that you find common ground, whatever that is, and work from there. I wish more people were like him as that would most benefit us as a country. 

(http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID20686/images/hunter_obama.jpg)
That's him to the right of Obama ... or to Obama's left.

Nice analogy, but there are almost no left wing nut jobs and over half the republican party is a nut job if you use that as your example......

Almost no one feels that abortion should be used as birth control.

A moderate position of reducing abortions without making them illegal would included:

* safe sex education in schools (reality opposed by many on the right)
* condemn availability in schools (mixed availability;  opposed by the right; supported by the left)
* Foodstamps, WIC, healthcare, child care etc for high school women who are mothers so they can keep their baby and finish school instead of aborting. (same)
* greater awareness and ease in accessing adoption programs for young women (only one supported by left and right)

You want to use abortion as an example, and although it's controversial, it certainly isn't radical.  It's been legal for over 30 years and more than half of the country agrees with it.  It's not like being pro-choice is a fringe position.

That's all I mean.

I totally understand why people would be against abortion.  I also understand why people support it.  I think it's probably the "grayest" issue that society faces today.

Really?  Accepting a constitutionally-protected right is "as far left as you can go"?

As far left as the eco-nuts who chain themselves to trees and boat in circles around oil megatankers?
As far left as the honest-to-goodness Communists that want to abolish capitalism and private wealth?
As far left as the the Code Pinkers who protested with coffin displays outside of Walter Reed Medical Center?

This is an excellent example of what we're talking about.  To conservatives, constitutionally affirmed rights are "positions of the far-left fringe."  The equivalent would be if I said that owning any gun puts you at the far edge of right-wing extremism.

We have a fundamental problem in that the right-wing seems to categorize any item they disagree with (even the ones that the judiciary specifically affirms as constitutional) as "far-left," but considers virtually none of their own positions to be extreme at all.