WatchRon Paul is scheduled to announce his formation of a Presidential Exploratory Committee today.
As much as I am loathe to discuss politics these days, I just couldn't resist! Besides, we're not that far off from the 2012 presidential campaign so increased levels of political discussion are inevitable.
Ron Paul Explores, World Reacts
http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/26/ron-paul-explores-world-reacts
And I think his David-and-Goliath bit with that 'Wall Street dandy' Trump will only help to ratchet up his popularity. Especially since Trump is most likely going to go out Perot-style once he's forced to publicly confront everyone he's ever screwed on real estate for the past 40+ years.
Although Paul is not currently the most popular Republican candidate (this varies poll to poll... with Romney currently in the lead... maybe?), there was a head-to-head poll (Paul vs. Obama) done by Rasmussen 2 years ago that put them both at ~41%:
Is Ron Paul Neck in Neck With Obama in 2012?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002497-503544.html
Note, don't read too much into this article, as Nate Silver demonstrated that Rasmussen showed a detectable Republican bias some time ago:
Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/
So is anyone else game? Intrade has Ron Paul pegged at 3.0% for the Republican Nominee in 2012 (For comparison, Trump is at 9% and Romney is at 25.8%):
http://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=669534
This will make for some great political theater... and C'mon now... even if he could get elected president, he won't REALLY dissolve the Fed!
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shrekgrinch says
That could be why no one asks you...
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iwog says
$1400 a month I'll be MANDATED to pay for Obama care.
I don't have one single monthly expense no where near that.
My mortgage is only $800.
A family of 4 has never seen the hospital since our babies delivery.
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At this rate I suspect it will be more like $2500 a month while Obama watches the health care industry run the clock out, raising premiums unimpeded.
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"Nobody cared about Bush’s bankruptcies, why should they care about Trumps"
Because Trump is "running" based on his business experience. Bush did not. He ran as the anti Clinton... the family values guy who would keep his pants on in the oval office.
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HousingWatcher says
I remember quite well the mention of the Baseball outfit he ran, more than a few times, during his campaign.
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Tenouncetrout says
You don't carry health coverage for your family now?
"Obamacare" is just private health insurance, ya know? It's not some socialist plot that sends your money to Hugo Chavez.
Now, the price subsidies to people who can't afford their family's health coverage -- that's something that honest conservatives can rail about (once they realized their 1993 plan required subsidies, they quietly shit-canned it).
Plus of course higher costs since the insurance pool is going to have many more sicker people in it due to the reduction in rescission and exclusions for pre-existing conditions.
I seriously doubt your household will see $1400/mo for health insurance costs. Households up to 400% of FPL will have their premium cap at 10.2% of income, so if you're making under $90,000 per year your maximum annual premium will be $9000, or $750/mo, with the taxpayers picking up whatever remains.
And if you make over $90,000/yr, shame on you for propagandizing about something that you can easily afford.
The mandate is a very conservative thing, to force people to be responsible.
All the conservatives were for it until Obama pushed it, then it becomes bad.
Buncha slimy hypocrites conservatives are.
raising premiums unimpeded.
The only impedance is the 80-85% medical loss ratio -- the big insurance companies will be required to pay that much out in care not overhead or profit. This is generally good, though it gives HMOs like Kaiser a big advantage.
if things get out of hand we can revisit the law and perhaps just fight the insurance companies with single payer.
I bet you're a big fan of government single payer, LOL.
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@Troy
>All the conservatives were for it until Obama pushed it, then it becomes bad.
Apparently what Obama's plan ending up as, is very close to something Romney (Republican) proposed years earlier.
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Troy says
No it's far cheaper for all of us to go to the doctor once a month and pay out of pocket, if we are sick or not.
Troy says
And still even cheaper than that. Insurance is the Corporate succubus and is not Healthcare you Lemming freaks. Don't kid your self, if you get a catastrophic aliment your fate will be the same as mine, you Suckers. That is ultimately you'll lose your job, your insurance, and will be forced to sell your house. Just like the Two people I know now who's wives are going through Cancer treatments.
Health insurance isn't the gold card 5 star treatment you think will be when you "REALLY" need it. Sure you go once a month and you let the Doctor fondle your Balls and you cough, and you leave feeling secure some how. Well guess what I do that out of pocket for a fraction of your premium. But really get sick, I mean really get sick. The insurance game will expect you to still Pay your part...
"NO TICKEY NO RIDE!" why do you think the hospital gowns are open in the back?
Easy access when they need to insert items in, or kick you in the ass when they done with you. Like you can no longer pay your premiums.
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If Ron Paul is going to run I'll have a reason to vote.
Of course I'm in California, voting Republican here is purely a symbolic thing. This state always votes Democrat for whatever the reason regardless of the candidate. Adolf Hitler can carry California if he claims to be a Democrat.
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ChrisLA says
Right......which is why our Governor is always a Democrat.
(stay tuned for canned RINO reply)
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iwog, ChrisLA's point was about presidential votes.
Bush Sr was the last Republican to win California (by 350,000 votes), though in 1992 the Bush/Perot vote won 700,000 more votes than Clinton, good thing there were 2.3M morons voting for Perot in 1992 : )
I didn't realize 1992 and 1996 were so close for Clinton:
1996 Popular vote
Clinton: 47,401,185
Dole: 39,197,469
Perot: 8,085,294
1992 Popular vote
Clinton: 44,909,806
Bush: 39,104,550
Perot: 19,743,821
In 1992 the Perotistas threw the election to Clinton, at least on the popular vote side!
That almost makes up for the Green-voting FL/NH morons in 2000.
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Troy says
I've got the distinct feeling TOT would feel quite comfortable carrying one of those "Don't touch my Medicare!" signs.
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Suppose Ron Paul becomes POTUS.
How long will it take before he becomes co-opted by the Very Serious People (=the corporatist Republican establishment)?
Most of the tea party has been coopted already.
Tell me I'm wrong....
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No if there's going to be a health scam system, that does not deny existing conditions,
that also subsidizes those that can't afford it. Then I'll skate along and take my chances until 2012.
If something catastrophic was to happen, then I'll sign my house over to my wife and divorce her, then get on the Obama dole. I understand mathematics enough to know that I'll be better fucking the system, rather than bending over and letting it screw me.
More short sighted Liberal bullshit, that screws the hard working middle class, while giving white glove gratis service to the poor.
I see how it works, I'll go stand in that line, then when nobody is looking I can stand in this line.
But when Liberals make a system, one thing for sure, everybody gets some, on the middle class's dime.
Obama care is fucking Joke that falls grossly short of its mark. It is not a healthcare system it is a Healthcare profit center.
See how that works? But in the mean time, it's far cheaper, to pay out my own pocket to go see the optomatrist, general practitioners, my kids get doctor check ups. We're all fit as a fiddle.
Which 99.9% of Americans are, $1400 a month premium for healthy American families like we've got festering boules on our backs, and is in need of 24/7 medical care, Are you insane?
Troy do me a favor will ya, pay my part for me, I'm really losing sleep at night fucking the Obama system out of fucking me and my family over.
And by the way PAL, push comes to shove, I'll go to Peru one of hundreds of countries for major surgery if I need it. But Wall street and the clueless 401K pensioners, aren't getting one cent of mine. Not for MY Health. Greedy ass Bitches!
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iwog says
Based on the Duck's amazing ability to be wrong on just about everything, it appears Obama will be taking early retirement.
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Tenouncetrout says
That couldn't possibly happen, could it? I mean, Obama, being a Democrat, cares. How could a caring President FORCE the American people into paying a premium that high (to the benefit of the caring PRIVATE insurance companies)? It just can't be, can it? Maybe that's what was meant by "Yes WE Can?"
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shrekgrinch says
Agreed. This is all old news.
shrekgrinch says
Nah... I don't think this will work. He's a long-established member of the NY financial elite and lives in a gold plated penthouse for crying out loud!
And even if this angle does work for Trump, his number is up when the public finds out that thing stapled to his pate is actually Jimmy Hoffa's scalp...
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Troy says
This isn't too surprising if you consider that California didn't become a 'blue state' until the Clinton years. Before that California generally voted along with the rest of the western states, and often for Republicans. The website below has a great history of the electoral vote running back to 1789!
http://www.100bestwebsites.org/alt/evmaps/electoral-maps.htm
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@Terri
>Rasmussen Polls Were Biased and Inaccurate; Quinnipiac, SurveyUSA Performed Strongly
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/rasmussen-polls-were-biased-and-inaccurate-quinnipiac-surveyusa-performed-strongly/
Thanks for this link!
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No problem. Enjoy!
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Tenouncetrout says
So your plan if something really bad happens is to stick everyone else with the cost since you don't want to take responsibility to insure yourself or your family against catastrophic illnes. Perfect, people like you are one of the reasons that health care insurance is so expensive.
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bob2356 says
and why there's the mandate in the first place.
though I just got billed $250 for a simple pituitary hormone blood test (one of three taken in one sitting) so my hatred of the current system did get bumped up a notch.
Thing is, I realize to get to a Canadian or Eurosocialist system here is going to require going over the dead bodies of anti-government idiots like TOT.
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bob2356 says
The health care system is so expensive primarily because Americans have one of the worst diets in the entire world. Americans rank right up there with being the most obese in the world, which leads to all kinds of health problems that they think can be "cured" by going to some quack Dr. that will prescribe them some magic pills to make them better. Big Pharma and the medical community thrive because of like you that support this rediculous system that will force us to comply by mandating insurance premiums.
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terriDeaner says
1) I think the Republican bosses will make him appear to be a crackpot, a la McCain, because he is not thei candidate of choice. They'll kill the baby in the crib.
2) Does Wall Street really like laissez-faire capitalism? I think not---watch the oil companies cry about their potential lost subsidies, and the American voter's reaction. The idiots will cry "socialism" if subsidies are removed!
I think Obama v. Paul would be an interesting race, but I know the power of the GOP power brokers. Their candidates rarely get in without the establishment's blessing.
While we're at it, I don't think Clinton or Obama were the establishment's choice on the Democratic side, but this is an example of the right's being better at party orthodoxy than the left's. As Will Rogers said, "I belong to no organized political party...I'm a Democrat!"
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CL says
We'll have to wait and see on this one. Both Paul and Trump have yet to attend the court of this boss in NH (nytimes):
A White House in New Hampshire Lures the G.O.P.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/30house.html?_r=1&hp
Mr. Lamontagne said he expected the parties to continue into the fall, with a break in July and August because his house gets too warm. Mr. Romney wants to come, he said, as does Representative Ron Paul of Texas. He endorsed Mr. Romney in 2008, but in staying neutral for now, he is guaranteeing that his parties stay red-hot and that his own name does the same.
“It’s a smart strategy on his part,” said Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, pointing to Mr. Lamontagne’s possible run for governor in 2012. “I’m sure he’ll drag it out as long as he can.”
Donald J. Trump has yet to reach out, but Jorge Mesa-Tejada, a friend of Mr. Lamontagne’s, joked that Mr. Trump’s main goal in visiting New Hampshire this week was to get on Mr. Lamontagne’s radar screen.
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Wonder how that happened? With his name sounding all French-y. :)
justme says
I'd say before the 3rd primary.
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An interesting quote from a recent nytimes article:
Republicans Are Pursuing a Wider Field for 2012 Race
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/politics/01republicans.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The party lacks the establishment-anointed candidate that has led it into every presidential cycle for decades.
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Romney is the only one in the field that has any business running for president, and he's unelectable because Christian fundamentalists believe Mormons are satanic. This isn't a fringe view, it's a mainstream view and can be found in almost any "bible believing" church across the country. The fact he'd be seen as a RINO is another minor liability.
Palin, Trump and Michele Bachmann are all clowns and would be ridiculed mercilessly despite massive sustained support from Newscorp. Newt's claim that he's born again and would NEVER cheat on his wife (this time) will not play well with the moralists or women. Rick Santorum comes off as a huge prick and has more skeletons in his closet than Newt. Huckabee might be a factor, but he doesn't seem to have any heart in running this time and he's getting fatter.
The wildcard of course is Ron Paul, who may be able to unseat the rest. However Ron Paul has an extremely radical and racist past that has yet to be revealed to the general public.
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Iwog ... thank you for your absolutely brilliant analysis. I like the way you have generalized entire groups and pigeon holed them into what you think they think, of course you know how they think because you, well, think. And your take on Huckabee illustrates further your amazing ability to grasp threads of evidence that others simply miss, kind of like CSI or maybe a throwback to that craggy Columbo. Your brilliant observation that Hukkabee is out as a candidate because he "is getting fatter" just further illustrates your amazing insight. I mean, who would have thunk it that with Hukkabee getting a little chunky is proof positive that he is not running? Simply amazing. Congratulations Duck. You have everything figured out.
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Mitt Romeny has a very slim chance of becoming the nominee. I only see him getting the nomination if something devestating comes out about Pawlenty at the last minute.
And no mention of Mitt Romney is complete without a link to a RomneyCare article:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2011_0412romneycare_a_big_bust/
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terriDeaner says
h
If it were not for the Time Warner Center in the background, I would have mistaken that photo for one of Saddam's palaces.
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The scariest words in the English language:
"This is President Trump. Give me the launch codes."
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iwog says
Romney is a real possibility. He was a 'blue' state governor AND he has genuinely conservative views. His LDS affiliatation will hurt him with some of the voting public, however, and I don't think his CEO or health care background will be particularly helpful either with others. Still, plenty of folks thought 2008 was going to be Gulianni vs Clinton and it wasn't.
Palin is done. Bachmann is a lesser train wreck waiting to happen. Santorum IS a prick and doesn't have a chance. Newt Gingrich is delusional if he thinks his sins have been forgiven, at least by the voting public. Huckabee isn't a bad guy, but he has limited appeal outside the south and midwest. I still think that Trump is not an electable candidate, and he wouldn't like the job if he had it (think "Congress... you're fi'erd"...)... and I think he'll figure that out long before election day. And so on with most of the others (like Pawlenty) So that leaves...
iwog says
I think that 2012 is the IDEAL year for a 3rd party candidate incarnated as a major party nominee. SO, the Republicans have to decide whether to run someone who has a third party background (Paul) or pick a newcomer (?) who has the 'outsider' edge.
As far as the racism charge goes, I'd like to see some more substantial evidence. Wikipedia has this to say on the matter:
Ron Paul newsletter controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul/Newsletters_sandbox#Ron_Paul_newsletter_controversy
On January 8, the day of the New Hampshire primary, The New Republic published a story by James Kirchick quoting from selected newsletters published under Paul's name.[67][68] The publications had various names bannering "Ron Paul" prominently in the title, such as The Ron Paul Survival Report. Kirchick said that the writings showed "an obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry", and were "saturated in racism", charges echoed by Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog.[69] [...]
In 2001 Paul gave his own account of the newsletters, stating the documents were authored by ghostwriters, and that while he did not author the challenged passages, he bore "some moral responsibility" for their publication.[75] Paul's 2008 presidential campaign repeated these assertions when the challenged passages resurfaced again in Kirchick's January 2008 article.[68] Paul "never uttered such words and denounced such small-minded thoughts," saying Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks were personal heroes because they stood for individual rights, and that he had spoken highly about Parks in a 1999 floor speech in the House of Representatives.[76] Paul took the position that the Kirchick story was a "rehash" of a political attack received during his 1996 campaign.
In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Paul asserted that racism is incompatible with his beliefs and that he sees people as individuals, not as part of collectives. He also dismissed the attack as an attempt to accuse him of racism by proxy, claiming that he has collected more money among African-Americans than any other Republican candidate. Blitzer stated that he was "shocked" by the newsletters, as they did not seem to reflect "the Ron Paul that I've come to know, and the viewers have come to know" over the course of several interviews during the campaign.[77]
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HousingWatcher says
Nice...
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iwog says
He is a very reasonable man. He already addressed those attacks by the radical left.
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ChrisLA says
I haven't seen any attacks by the radical left, but I've seen plenty of quotes by Ron Paul.
Are you saying they are all fictional?
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i'm saying these quotes are reasonable. attack by the left is a false interpretation of them.
Those blacks that were rioting were pillagers and looters, the only thing that stopped them were hand outs and Koreans with guns. only reason my dads store did not get ransacked was because he had a dog with a loud bark and a shotgun. The same mentally sick (mostly blacks) people that were rioting back then are the same kind that go rioting and pillaging every time Lakers win a championship.
The liberal hit job is when they try to take that reality and make it sound like it is being addressed toward all the blacks that exist when we all know it's not the case and that the statement is only meant for those who are guilty as charged. It's what the ultra left does, takes sentences out of context and plays them to extreme to prove a point.
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terriDeaner says
Folks on these forums have really bad track records when it comes to making predictions.
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Nomograph says
To be fair, it was qualified with LONG SHOT not dead certain "why can't the rest of you dolts see how obvious the outcome is".
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Nomograph says
I knew you'd say that.