2016...Christie vs Cuomo

[Ben]

Santorum ? the guy who thinks contraceptives and gun background checks are the work of the devil. doubt even Republicans would be stupid enough to nominate someone who would loose electoral college 50 to zip
We have to assume GOP wiants a candidate that has some semblance of a broad ideological appeal. That's why Chritie seemed like the early favorite before the traffic scandal

They went with Mitt in 2012 of course. A lot in the Party saw him as being too moderate.
And he is a moderate within the Republican Party.
So, I think they -- being the base -- want someone with, well, crazy credentials.
Anyway, I see American politics as simply consisting of one party. The Republican Party.
The Dems are now merely moderate Republicans. Like Obama. Obama is a moderate Republican... like George Bush the Father.
And both wings of the Party have been captured by big business.
But the extremist wing of the Party don't wish to participate in a parliamentary system. They want nothing to do with democratic governance.
So, when voting realize you're voting for one party. But be cognizant of the fact that there are extremists and moderates within that business party --
A shame Bruce Lee wasn't still with us. He would've been a kick ass Prez --

[Ben]

Feds investigate Christie's use of Sandy relief funds:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/13/politi...ing-sandy-ads/

[Ben]

Santorum ? the guy who thinks contraceptives and gun background checks are the work of the devil. doubt even Republicans would be stupid enough to nominate someone who would loose electoral college 50 to zip
We have to assume GOP wiants a candidate that has some semblance of a broad ideological appeal. That's why Chritie seemed like the early favorite before the traffic scandal

Santorum, of course, appeals to religious crazies.
It'll probably be Jeb Bush.... I mean, why not. First the father, then the son... why not the other son --
Or, hell, bring back Mitt Romney.
But would a Santorum presidency really go after the porn industry? Well, look at Iceland.... Look at, too, the United Kingdom....
And he'd have the backing of religious zealots.

[Dino Velvet]

Santorum, of course, appeals to religious crazies.

He totally does. As someone who is more of a Conservative he has no appeal to me at all. Religion is just more manipulation and we have more than enough control of our thoughts and actions now. Another layer of bullshit makes the corral stink more, not less.

[trish]

Anti-porn = un-American.

[Dino Velvet]

Anti-porn = un-American.

Anti-weed = un-American also.

[Ben]

[Odelay]

I've seen some 2016 election horse race threads sprout up since this one, but I think Flabby's thread deserves to be the de-facto one because he was bold enough to go out on a limb in his prediction of both nominees, days before the 2012 election was even decided.

And as silly as the Cuomo prediction was, my own elevation of Rubio in the 2nd post of the thread was almost as bad.

Despite Republican struggles over the last 2 years, from Bridgegate to Cantor's surprise defeat, and despite an inexorable demographics trend working against the Republican Party, I've never been one to believe the hype from some in the Left that Democrats have some kind of lock on the White House. All it takes is for the GOP to nominate a decent candidate and many people in the middle and even some on the left will migrate back to the GOP ticket.

The "decent" candidate du jour is obviously Rand Paul. And he's staking out some distinct positions from Hillary, which is not in any way a coincidence. Further he's attempting to chip away at some of the Obama coalition of voters, specifically, minorities and youth. The $64,000 question (a sum that's over a 1,000 times too small to win the GOP nomination) is whether his populist foray towards the political center will hurt him during the GOP primaries.

Hillary looks like a 95% probability of running and I don't believe there will be any serious challengers for the Dem nomination. But as Hillary triangulates away from the Left, as the Clintons always do, it opens up a possibility for someone like Paul to peel away a significant layer of Obama's and the Democrat's natural constituency. That would turn the election into a true horse race.

It will be said by many, but this election will be Hillary's to lose, and I do believe she is capable of fucking it up, Clinton-style.

[fred41]

I think Cuomo can pretty much kiss even an attempt at the primary goodbye now- http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.2090219

...and I'm really only posting this because, not wanting to start a whole new thread that only deals with NY local politics, I am tickled pink about U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara finally nabbing, in my view the poster boy of corruption here in N.Y., Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver ....and vowing to go after more.
This will affect every branch of government in the state of N.Y. ...including the court system: http://nypost.com/2015/01/25/silvers...tracks-claims/

...and I am happy.


P.S. I don't have any hate for Governor Cuomo...but he shouldn't have disbanded the Moreland Commission

[broncofan]

I don't know anything about New York state politics but that was a good read. I'm going to google Preet Bharara once a week to read an update cause I think he's my new hero. On these corruption cases I never am sure what's illegal and what just stinks but I counted something like ten things in the article about Sheldon Silver that fell into the category of "should be illegal, probably is illegal". So I'm interested to see where this ends and if Cuomo gets nabbed.