birdog1960

mondale was the son of a minister and part time teacher. so no. will have to check on dukakis. kerry is a yes. still looking like old money is better represented by the grand old psarty in recent years. dukakis wa son of an obstetrician who got his md 12 years after immigrating. so, no. unless my kids would be classified old money. and they most certainly wouldn't.

hmmm, bush, bush, quayle, cheney (i don't know. is he old money?)=3/4 or 4/4 old money. clinton,gore,obama,biden =1/4 old money

so what your both saying is that people who come from money are often weenies. yep. i'll buy that. but which party puts more of those weenies up as candidates?

i'm enjoying the company.

just read it. worth reading just for the writing. the guy's a true wordsmith. but he's also correct. dems should be thankful for the likes of limbaugh and hannity. they're a big part of the republican problem.

yall forgot pbs. looks like big bird will continue to influence unsuspecting toddlers

very cool car. just wonder how it will do in snow. same with the focus st. really the wrx is it...maybe i can convince her.

clutch - she's european. she , in essence, wants a luxury rally car. wrx are too "boy racer"- her words

trying to test drive the new focus st. don't need another car but with a turbo,6 speed, tight suspension and recaro seats, i think it would do well in my real world test. hard to find right now and likely hard to find a deal on (though there pretty reasonable at 30k) but masybe i can get meazza to negotiate a deal if i want one. in all seriousness, i'm looking at awd sporty cars for my wife who now has a legacy gt subaru turbo that's as fast as a wrx. her must haves include manual trans, leather seats,awd and fast. not so many cars that fit. wrx, x series bmw, audi's and vw gtr. theoretically volvo does some but practically ,standard trannys are hard to find even in bmw's and audi's. the audi 3 for example doesn't come with leather and a standard tranny. american market analysts apparently think most people are looking for inexpensive if they want a manual trans. any other ideas? the focus st doesn't have awd.and i'm not spending 37k for a dressed up golf.

does it surprise you that i like innovative, might i say, progressive design? plus i like turbos. apart from the torque steer it was a fun car to drive and when it first came out it turned heads. we have a german owner over a restasurant in my town and as i drove by one day he came out on the sidewalk and saluted...not kidding. never went for vettes or mustangs or camaros. recently drove a cts 2 door awd and didn't like it.but whatever floats your boat. my test for a car is how fast i can go on a curvy mountain road near where i live without crapping my pants. the audi did 80. doubt a "macho" muscle car would have.

my experience was that i bought one of the first ones available in 2000. 2 year warranty (i think) which i agree was very good and included maintenance. after that things started to go. electrical problems mostly. and repairs and parts were very expensive (gouging imo). nevertheless, still not making sense out of negotiating a lease deal that way, especially in a highly sought after car with limited supply. maybe it's different in canada but if you want an s4 here your on a waiting list and be prepared to pay list (which is probably still less than what you'd pay in canada after taking the exchange rate into account). maybe a vanilla a4 or a3 has a little wiggle room but not much.

so you went in and out of dealerships threatening to walk away from a lease deal?

not so sure. virginia is clearly purple at this time. significant defections from the rural poor (far away from fairfax/loudon) and it's blue. nc same thing. what the rural poor are thinking, i have no idea.

if they didn't know o had the ground game in place, they should have. the obama campaign started working against romney early in the primaries. they started the bain attacks. perry and gingrich picked up the ball. if they truly underestimated their abil;ities, then they deserved to lose. really? if you don't live in nyc, i call bs http://cars.audiusa.com/dealer-directory. used to have a TT. good luck with repair bills.

a leopard can't change it's spots. many republicans i've met in the rural south (and some up north) are dualists. yes/no, right/wrong. there's no nuance and without nuance, tolerance is difficult if not impossible. this ignores the fact that many folks are republicans primarily for the reasons you're wanting them to stop supporting. i'll point again to the rural south. how well will the repubs do without the southern states support?

whew! ok then.i've alluded to this demographic snippet several times on ppp but in the context of your mother teresa comment it takes on a diiferent meaning: there must be a lot of saints in the well heeled suburbshttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/obama-wins-8-10-wealthiest-154837437.html. "truly progressive" means what it says. those who make more pay more - like those well above average earners in 8/10 rich counties that voted for a candidate that will increase many of their taxes. to the reply on minimum wage poster: of course it's artificial and not market drive. public assistance is artificial as well. but i'm willing to bet that some of you posting here complain about those lazy bums on welfare, all the while complaining that an artificially set minimum, living wage is too much for business owners to pay. so what would you have those folks that are qualified for only minimum wage jobs do (there will always be a percentage of society at this level). starve?

so how many audi dealers are there in your area? most major us cities only have 1. occasionally 2. not really a good choice for negotiating usually.

the analogy was meant to convey the idea that negotiating a win - win is usually the best option. especially if you're likely to tangle again. now that "stop obama from reelection" is off the table it makes even more sense (not that that whole thing was very wise or successful) to aim for this from boner. but we'll never see it...

so i bought a car recently. i knew the dealers cost. i knew what my trade in was worth. i knew what others had recently paid in the area for the same vehicle. so i told the salesman that i'd buy the car at that price for that trade in - done deal. but your saying that if i told him that i wanted to pay 5k less than everyone else did. id have done better? seriously doubt it but even if i saved a few hundred would it be worth the hassle? a pi$$ed off dealer when i go for service? losing the "everybody wins" goodwill? maybe to you and boner but not to me.

i've negotiated many things...honestly and successfully. it gets easier when you're trusted.

loudon county has a median household income of about $110,000...hardly koch bros money. were talking about two very different groups of people. no doubt there's some very high wealth individuals there but overall we're talking much less wealthy people than those contributing to rove's pacs. olive branch? he all but ruled out the dems plan for increasing taxes on over 250k households. "revenue increases" but only without tax hikes. sounded more like a burning bag of shite left on a doorstep than an olive branch to me.

and your only possible interpretation of those wealthy counties voting for obama is that there was a quid pro quo? that they voted out of self interest, knowing they'd be paying more income taxes and likely higher cap gains taxes. did you consider that many really thought that obama was the best choice for the country? while I may be naive and idealistic i'd choose that over your cynicism every time.

too bad it wasn't virginia ham.

love the comment: "karl is at a crossroads. he needs GPS"

this one documents the whole embarrassing (for people capable of embarrassment) episode very well- http://www.wbur.org/npr/164586847/video-an-awkward-moment-as-karl-rove-objects-to-foxs-ohio-call