2008 US presidential race

“To put [the "undecided" voters] in perspective, I think of being on an airplane.  The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat.  "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks.  "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? “To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.” — David Sedaris, October 2008

Overview

This page is for information about the race (i.e. the candidates and their stands on various issues) for the upcoming 2008 US presidential election, which is bound to be a watershed event whichever way it goes.

Related Pages

This page is written from a standpoint of assuming that the voting process will proceed properly and democratically; for details and concerns about the actual voting, see 2008 US presidential election.

Status

The Party Nominees

2008-08-30

• Democratic nominee: Barack Obama, VP Joe Biden
• Republican nominee: John McCain, VP Sarah Palin

The Numbers

• pollster.com: who's more popular, day-by-day
• InTrade: a prediction marketplace currently focusing on the election

History

Early candidates included:

• Barack Obama (D)
• Chris Dodd (D)
• Dennis Kucinich (D)
• Hillary Clinton (D): hated by Republicans, despite being rather like them in some ways; David Brin says "No senators!" (but ultimately backed Senator Obama)
• Joe Biden (D)
• John Edwards: conceded the race to Obama, and then was caught in a sex scandal a few weeks later
• John McCain launched presidential campaign on 2006-04-25; has pledged to continue Bush's idiotic/failed policies
• Mike Huckabee (R): insane Christo-fascist
• Mitt Romney (R)
• Ron Paul (R) - former Libertarian, heavily supportive of the US Constitution
• Rudy Giuliani (R), ran on a 9/11-Terror platform

Links

Reference

• SourceWatch (U.S. presidential election, 2008)
• Wikipedia (United States presidential election, 2008)
• Campaigns Wikia (United States presidential election, 2008)
• RationalWiki (2008 U.S. Presidential Election)
• table of issues x positions
• Pick Your Candidate: lets you pick your position on about 20 issues, then shows you a list of candidates ranked by how closely their stated views agree with yours
  • statistics from the above survey
• Pennsylvania (relevant to the kerfuffle over Obama's remarks on PA rural voters):
  • Pennsylvania Polls: Democratic Primary (article dated 2008-04-03, but seems to be continuously updated)

Related

• 2008/05/11 [L..T] Three Names Shock Me... A substantial list of economists sign a statement supporting McCain's economic policy, but it is revealed that they are nowhere near the majority in their profession.

Articles

• (no date) A Letter to My Republican Father
• 2007-07-27 What Are the Democratic Candidates Really Saying about Iraq? by Ira Chernus: how to decipher the doublespeak (related: US invasion of Iraq)

News

• 2007-10-14 Groups on left, right ask candidates to reject Bush's wider powers: "President Bush's drive to expand executive power over surveillance, detention, interrogation and the meaning of new laws has drawn largely ineffectual protests from Congress. But a group of liberals and a handful of prominent conservatives are pressing would-be successors to renounce those powers before they take office."
• 2007-06-05 GOP Candidates Weigh in on Scooter Libby Pardon (Related: 2007-07-02 Libby bail-out)

Humor

• 2007-07-14 I Drew This looks at the 4 main GOP candidates

joke candidates

• Michael Palin for President: the Palin we really wanted (instead of Sarah)
• Tigh-Roslin (running on the Battlestar Galactica platform)

Miscellaneous

• Goldwater-Miller '08: the granddaughter and daughter of Barry Goldwater and Bill Miller make the point that George W. Bush's Republican Party is not truly conservative

Quotes

A rather telling quote, assuming it is genuine, from a comment on this article (with proofreading corrections):

As a Persian-Armenian woman, I am voting for Sen. Clinton. Me & my family voted for her 2 times & we will vote again & again. She has the brain, intelligence & experience to run this country. She will be ready to from the 1st day. She will work on stem cell [research], she will fix the budget. Remember President Clinton's era? He fixed the budget & left with a surplus; what was wrong with that? His personal lifestyle is not my business and it didn't affect me a bit. He will be an asset in the White House; he was one of the smartest presidents in past 30 years that I know of (living in this country). Obama is not up to par for this position yet, maybe in 12 years when he gets some experience. As for as republicans, I respect John McCain as a war hero, but I can not see all the hard tax payers' money get wasted in Iraq, I can not see us there for another 100 years. We will probably fix Iraq & then they will turn around and charge us $300 for oil. Romney? You must be kidding me. He wants to run this country as a corporation. I have worked with big corporations, and with them everything is money; they don't care about the employees & it is my way or the highway – similar to Bush's way. They can cheat us big time. Huckabee is a joke, he wants to abolish the constitution & create a religious base of laws, if I wanted that , I would have stayed in IRAN. Religion cannot be mixed with the current laws. We are living in year 2008, we have laws; we are not living in the 10th century were there were no laws. Religion can not play a role in this country. If it does, then what will be different between us & the religious idiots running Iran? Go Hillary!