McCain's love affair with the telecom lobby

[Chilly]

There was an interesting article a little while ago that goes through JM's voting history. I think that it may have been written by David Brooks of the NYT, but I do not recall specifically.

 

Basically, JM's voting history has shown that he has been rather independent regardless of any support that he may have received from the telecom industry.

 

McCain's voting record. Can look at specific votes, votes he went against the party with, etc. He votes with his party 88.3% of the time, compared with Clinton (97.2%) and Obama (96.7%).

 

He also has missed 56.7% of the votes this session, compared to Obama at 37.4% and Clinton at 26.8%.

[Booster4324]

Crayonz, I don't know who you are, but you be one funny MoFo!!!!

 

Personally, I think it is DCTom.

[RI Bills Fan]

Personally, I think it is DCTom.

 

Nope it's Ed.

 

But it is possible that DC Tom and Ed are the same person.

[Booster4324]

Nope it's Ed.

 

But it is possible that DC Tom and Ed are the same person.

 

Really? That makes a fair amount of sense.

[DC Tom]

Nope it's Ed.

 

But it is possible that DC Tom and Ed are the same person.

 

 

Actually, I'm either Ed nor crayonz. I believe Wacka is crayonz. I don't know who Ed is, though.

[Chilly]

 

Actually, I'm either Ed nor crayonz. I believe Wacka is crayonz. I don't know who Ed is, though.

 

Any comments on the American party system, and ways to change it?

[Booster4324]

 

Actually, I'm either Ed nor crayonz. I believe Wacka is crayonz. I don't know who Ed is, though.

 

Further confirmation...

 

So Tom is Ed, yet not Crayonz. Wacka is Crayonz yet not Tom. Tom and Ed are confused as they are the same person, yet don't know one another.

 

Wow that whole Rkfast = Pasta Joe thing was much easier.

[DC Tom]

Any comments on the American party system, and ways to change it?

 

Not really. I think as long as people put their party before the country, it's a moot point anyway. But if you want to talk about US government reform, I have some ideas:

 

- All laws must pass by a 2/3 majority. Any law that 2/3 of Congress agrees on is probably not completely horrible.

- Any may be repealed by a simple majority. It should be easier to repeal bad laws than pass good ones. Also, this combined with the above should ensure that Congress never accomplishes anything, which is a distinct improvement over the current situation.

- The president is not allowed to spend any money. Ever. Anything. He can ask Congress to spend it. Since a 2/3 majority of Congress will need to agree to the expenditure, but only half of Congress is needed to deny it, this should ensure that the President never accomplishes anything...which is a distinct improvement over the current situation.

- Term limits. Any elected officials may serve two terms without penalty. He may opt to run for a third, but if elected he is publicly executed at the end of his term.

- All ethics regulations in Congress are eliminated. All of them. Introduce duelling instead. With swords. If you honestly believe that the dinner invitation from a lobbyist your counterpart across the aisle accepted is materially different from the dinner invitation from a lobbyist you accepted, offer to run him through with a cavalry sabre. Save time, money, and bull sh--.

- No Clinton or Bush may ever run for public office again. Ever. Chelsea, Jenna, Barbara...sorry. Blame your parents.

- Change the constitutional eligibility for the office of the president to include the ability to pronounce "nuclear". If you're going to have the authority to launch 'em, you should at least be able to pronounce it like a !@#$ing adult.

- Corporate "donors" are no longer called "donors". We call them what they are: sponsors. And all politicians are required to wear their sponsors' logos at all times, and end all speeches with "This statement is brought to you by..."

 

I've got others...but it's late...

[DC Tom]

Further confirmation...

 

So Tom is Ed, yet not Crayonz. Wacka is Crayonz yet not Tom. Tom and Ed are confused as they are the same person, yet don't know one another.

 

Wow that whole Rkfast = Pasta Joe thing was much easier.

 

I'm also KRC, who's not Darin, though Darin is me. And I'm boomerjarhead, but only on the phone. Too tall to be VABills, though.

[Booster4324]

I'm also KRC, who's not Darin, though Darin is me. And I'm boomerjarhead, but only on the phone. Too tall to be VABills, though.

 

So is KRC Ed, or is Darin? VABills is obviously a "Secret board" member who plays the foil to all of you guys. Molsen too for that matter. I mean you really expect me to believe those guys are that silly?

[Wacka]

I am Spartacus!

[DC Tom]

So is KRC Ed, or is Darin? VABills is obviously a "Secret board" member who plays the foil to all of you guys. Molsen too for that matter. I mean you really expect me to believe those guys are that silly?

 

I believe Darin's molson. KRC is both Hitler and Stalin. And I'm you. Don't know who you are, though.

[VABills]

So is KRC Ed, or is Darin? VABills is obviously a "Secret board" member who plays the foil to all of you guys. Molsen too for that matter. I mean you really expect me to believe those guys are that silly?

No I am Thirdborns conservative personality. Get it right.

[Chilly]

No I am Thirdborns Republican personality. Get it right.

 

fixed

[VABills]

fixed

Nope. Not registered, and rarely vote one party exclusively in an election. I am conservative not republican.

[Sirius99]

Nope. Not registered, and rarely vote one party exclusively in an election. I am conservative not republican.

 

I'm registered with the People's Front of Judea.

[SD Jarhead]

Hey, this is like one of those Wonderlic questions!

[KD in CA]

Of course there are, but look at PR systems, where each party represents a much smaller segment of the population than one of the big two parties. As a result, many more parties get elected, and many more viewpoints have to be taken into account in order to do anything in government.

Which I think would be a good thing. Most of what government does is wrong and wasteful anyway, so it might help if they had to take in more viewpoints than what passes for multiple viewpoints now.

 

Fund-raising (wealth and popularity of a candidate would have even MORE effect if political parties were lost), organization and practicality (especially with the primary system), decline in participation in the political system, increased governmental influence (as parties are private entities, the government would completely control all elections, instead of the semi-private primary system), increased regionalism and pork (historically, candidates in non-partisan systems have organized by region, to bring as many resources to that region as possible, instead of organizing in other ways), increased vote splitting, letting less-popular candidates take an election.

I have a hard time believing that there could possibly be a greater influence of money on the process than there is now. I think the 'organization' that would go away is a big part of the current problem. What that does now is allow a national organization to raise millions of dollars which then control the local candidate selection and election process. In CT we have a very popular moderate Senator. But thanks to the current system, the big Dem machine threw him under the bus in favor of some idiot who would tote the 'party' line about the war. Fortunately, CT is one of the few (maybe the only?) states with a plurality of Independents, who reelected Lieberman. But isn't something wrong with the process when we have POSs in Washington telling us that 'we're a blue state so we need to vote for the official blue candidate' instead of a guy whose done a good job for the last 20 years? If there is one thing that the gov't should control instead of private interests, it's elections.

 

I'm not saying we couldn't reorganize the process; have runoffs rather than winner take all primaries, etc., but the current process is entirely money driven and at a national level. There is no local voice in local elections and that's wrong.

 

You think that they would? Most people are not engaged enough in the process to do so, and thus TV advertisements and the media's influence on the political process would increase.

I think that only people who were actually informed would bother to vote -- which would be a good thing for two reasons. First, more people would get informed and second, the idiots wouldn't vote at all. I'd rather have fewer people voting if I knew that everyone had made an informed decision. I also think that voting eligibility should be based on whether or not you filed a tax return that year, but that's another story.

[DC Tom]

I'm registered with the People's Front of Judea.

 

!@#$ off! We're the Judean People's Front.

[Chilly]

I have a hard time believing that there could possibly be a greater influence of money on the process than there is now. I think the 'organization' that would go away is a big part of the current problem. What that does now is allow a national organization to raise millions of dollars which then control the local candidate selection and election process. In CT we have a very popular moderate Senator. But thanks to the current system, the big Dem machine threw him under the bus in favor of some idiot who would tote the 'party' line about the war. Fortunately, CT is one of the few (maybe the only?) states with a plurality of Independents, who reelected Lieberman. But isn't something wrong with the process when we have POSs in Washington telling us that 'we're a blue state so we need to vote for the official blue candidate' instead of a guy whose done a good job for the last 20 years? If there is one thing that the gov't should control instead of private interests, it's elections.

 

I wasn't arguing that there would be more money in politics, but rather that a candidate's individual wealth would play a much larger role. When you don't have an organization that helps with fund raising, you're going to have to raise that money somehow to run a campaign - which would likely come out of their own pockets.

 

Massive wealth would become a prerequisite for running for office, which I do not think is a good thing.

 

I'm not saying we couldn't reorganize the process; have runoffs rather than winner take all primaries, etc., but the current process is entirely money driven and at a national level. There is no local voice in local elections and that's wrong.

 

Getting rid of parties would not change that the process is money driven. The ONLY thing that would change this would be to hold completely publicly financed elections.

 

I think that only people who were actually informed would bother to vote -- which would be a good thing for two reasons. First, more people would get informed

 

Why? What is the incentive to become more informed? Why would someone that is relying on television commercials, talk radio, or cable opinion shows change their way of researching candidates? What is the new incentive, for all of a sudden getting rid of parties?

 

and second, the idiots wouldn't vote at all.

 

Why wouldn't they vote? The campaigns themselves are the ones that drive out voters, and they would find new ways to do so without the party label.

 

I'd rather have fewer people voting if I knew that everyone had made an informed decision.

 

I don't see campaign strategies in this area changing all that much without parties, and I don't see the effect that you are talking about.

 

Elections would become MUCH more candidate-oriented than they already have become in the U.S. What a candidate looks like and how they present themselves personality wise would become larger factors.

 

Ideology ID would replace Party ID. "I'm a conservative, this guy in these commercials made himself out to be the most conservative candidate out there, I'm going to vote for him."

 

The media and television commercials would play an even larger role, with the media pimping candidates who are running on a pro-media agenda even more.