Who are you voting for and why?

[Ivor Karabatkovic]

Post your candidate(s) of choice and why you are voting for them.

Please be constructive in your posts if you wish to engage in conversation between another poster and yourself. Everyone has their right to support a candidate and position, and I'm starting this thread to see patterns in what issues are important to fellow posters and how they're the same or differ from party to party, person to person.

Again, this thread is to voice why you're backing a candidate, not to bash the other posters, their views and candidates they are choosing.

It's OK to say something like "Well, I support this candidate because he/she is closer to my beliefs than the other candidates" because that's a constructive opinion, but something like "well I support my candidate because I'm not an idiot and would waste my vote on the others" is a heavy opinion that we all can't really benefit from.

Make it civil, constructive and we'll all gain something from this.

I'll start.

I'll be voting for Barack Obama in this primary and election because I think he is a strong candidate to bring back the bi-partisan government that we should have. His stances on the war, abortion, economics, enviroment, alternate energy, EDUCATION, free trade, and stem cell research all impress me.

I'm a firm believer in Universal health care and I'm a bit mystified about Barack's plan for health care. While I believe it will work, I think that health care should be mandatory for everyone to have. His belief that everyone should be under their parents health care plan until the age of 25 is right on target with mine. That point, to me, outweighs Hillary's universal Health Care plan (which isn't bad either).

I believe that we should bring the troops home, and so does Obama. His stance on abortion is moderate, while he doesn't want to overturn the Roe vs Wade decision (which is part of the 'law of the land' now like the Miranda rights) he isn't the biggest fan of it. I'm pro-choice, but to a degree.

I think I as a student would benefit the most from Obama's education plan. Having witnessed the failures of No Child Left Behind and being the first graduating class of that act, I feel most comfortable having Barack Obama in office and helping our education system.

If I didn't vote for Barack Obama, I would vote for John Edwards. He's out of the race, but he is impressive as well.

Barack is a very confident candidate and isn't swayed too much by the other candidates. I think he can be the fresh start that will spark change in this country. Having coined the "vote for change" movement, he's my candidate.


your turn!

[Bryan Schwegler]

I'm supporting Hillary Clinton at this point. I agree with most of her positions and I think she's done a tremendous job in the US Senate. I think her experience will be invaluable helping us clean up some of the mess that our country currently is in

To be honest, I also like Barak, I just don't think he's experienced enough and that's important to me. In the end, if he wins the nomination, I have no problem supporting him.

I often thinks it's funny that Hillary and Barak fight so much when in reality they share the same vision on so many things.

[Ivor Karabatkovic]

Bryan,

I agree with you completely.

I wouldn't mind seeing a Obama/Clinton and vice versa campaign. I would vote for Hillary if she receives the nomination.

If you take what happened in Lakewood's election for Mayor and multiply it to a presidential election, I'm not surprised that Barack won the straw poll here.

I'm just using our election as a comparative tool to a much broader race. FitzGerald might not have all the experience and age that Tom George had but he represented "Change" and a "New Face" to city hall politics. Then we learned about how Tom payed for his commercials and the rest is history.

Dennis Kucinich said it best in our interview last night. "People tend to tie money to truth, and that's rarely the case."

Bryan,
How do you feel about a Clinton/Obama campaign? Or, who would you like to see as her running mate?

[Brad Hutchison]

Obama's "inexperience" is one of the things I like most about him.

[Jim DeVito]

Obama's "inexperience" is one of the things I like most about him.

You got it. He has not had the chance to be corrupted yet.

[Brad Hutchison]

What's lost is that, if you include Obama's time in the Illinois state legislature, he has held elected office for 4 more years than Hillary Clinton.

Although many of their stances are close to identical, Obama is a uniter, Clinton is a polarizer. The nation needs a uniter.

[Joe Ott]

[Stephen Eisel]

Romney or Obama... It is time for a change..

[Todd Shapiro]

I am a registered Republican and I was originally a supporter of Mitt Romney.Seeing the GOP race has been decided and there are no compelling primaries on the Republican side and I am going to cross the line and vote in the Democratic primary for three reasons.

First, I am going to vote for Hillary Clinton to become the Democratic Presidential nominee. Why?, you may ask. 1. Unlike Obama, she actually has some experience in government and fore gin affairs. Because if there is another 9/11 style attack on America or a fore gin policy crisis in our hemisphere (Cuba, Hugo Chavez) I don't want my president talking about hope I want him or her to talk about action. 2.My other reason for voting for Hillary is more selfish and diabolical, the longer the Democratic nomination process drags out into the summer the harder it will be for the party to unify behind its eventual candidate in time for November, thereby helping GOP nominee John McCain get a head start on the campaign.

Second, I wish to vote for Lakewood municipal judge Patrick Carrol in quest to win a seat on the Court of Appeals.

The final and BIGGEST reason to vote Democrat is a chance to vote against Dennis Kucinich. I would probably wait in the line for 3 hours just for this opportunity. I know many of my fellow Observers love Kucinich and while I don't doubt he is a kind and generous human being his politics are another matter. If Joe Cimperman wins the primary that will leave Kucinich more time to travel to the middle east and provide and meet with the heads of terrorists states (SYRIA) while failing to support the troops of the United States of America. I know it is a long shot, but if Dennis Kucinich loses the primary the night of March 4th will be a bigger party than New Year's Eve, St. Patrick's Day and Super Bowl Sunday all rolled into one for the right thinking residents of the 10th Congressional District.

[Stephen Calhoun]

I have no idea if Barack Obama will be a good President. My guess is that someone of his intellect will promote to his A team other persons of intellect, vision, and courage. Then, given a Democratic Congress, this new team will be able to address both longstanding problems, and, begin the arduous process of rolling back the anti-Constitution, anti-Democracy, anti-citizenry, policies and gains of our current administration and its cronies and oligarchs and militarists and spooks and war criminals and torturers and sinners.

The idea that McCain will pull 10-15% of the electorate back into the fear-based 'defeat Islam' at any and all cost to our Republic seems remote as a snow flake in hell.

He is a paradigmatic old white guy. Everything seems to be trending away from the currency of 'joyful shopping while we eliminate Islam.' I have yet to read of a cogent argument made on behalf of: "A better, more competent version of Bushism."

It seems basic. McCain represents more years of Bush-like mendacity, cronyism, and destruction of the US Constitution. McCain's cynical argument that 100 years of war is okay as long as the casualties don't open eyes too wide is cowardly if he's also unwilling to spell out how the enemy is to be actually defeated.

He mentions zip about this on his web site. And he can hardly run against hope because on his web site it is written, about Iraq,

"John McCain believes it is far better to describe the situation just as it is - difficult right now, but not without hope."

***

But at the end of the day, Obama's mental superiority wins, for me, hands down.

[Ivor Karabatkovic]

Obama/Edwards in '08?

does this seem like a bigger possibility now that the momentum has completely shifted to Obama?

[ryan costa]

I will probably decided by flipping a coin. If that fails there is "eeny meeny miney moe".

[Mark Crnolatas]

I don't see anyone in a leading position yet, that I would vote for, at least at this point.

Mark Allan Crnolatas

[Bret Callentine]

I will probably decided by flipping a coin. If that fails there is "eeny meeny miney moe".

I think the second is more apt, seeing as our choices are basically down to either; Larry, Curly or Moe.

I'm leaning more toward a write in vote for Shemp Howard.

[Stan Austin]

I always hated it when they had Shemp in there instead of Curly