Consider it a public service.
Anyway, the official kickoff to this year's Presidential election takes place today in Iowa, where a caucus is being held to… well, here from the official caucus site is a description of what it's all about:
On caucus night, Iowans gather by party preference to elect delegates to the 99 county conventions. Presidential preference on the Republican side is done with a straw vote of those attending the caucus. This vote is sometimes done by a show of hands or by dividing themselves into groups according to candidate. In precincts that elect only 1 delegate they choose the delegate by majority vote and it must be a paper ballot. Democratic candidates must receive at least 15 percent of the votes in that precinct to move on to the county convention. If a candidate receives less than 15 percent of the votes, supporters of non-viable candidates have the option to join a viable candidate group, join another non-viable candidate group to become viable, join other groups to form an uncommitted group or chose to go nowhere and not be counted. Non-viable groups have up to 30 minutes to realign, if they fail to do so in that time, they can ask the for more time, which is voted on by the caucus as a whole. If the caucus refuses, re-alignment is done and delegates are awarded. A "third party" may hold a convention to nominate one candidate for president and one for vice president as well. The results of this caucus activity on both the Democratic and Republican sides are not binding on the elected delegates, but the delegates usually feel obligated to follow the wishes expressed by the caucus-goers. Thus the initial caucus results provide a good barometer of the composition of Iowa's national delegation. There will not be a quiz on this in the morning, I assure you. Anyway, in the pursuit of winning this first event in the campaign people can actually vote on, all candidates from both parties have expended great amounts of time and money, mostly money, in an effort to drum up support translated into people trundling out to their local caucus to fervently support their guy or gal. The estimated turnout for the caucus is between 120,000 and 150,000 for the Democrats and 80,000 to 90,000 for the Republicans. In other words, slightly more than the average attendance for the Daytona 500. Another way of looking at it is there have been approximately three hundred and fifty-seven blog posts about the caucus per individual actually attending same, said individual having read none of the three hundred and fifty-seven posts. They are the better for it. The five major Republican candidates are:
It has become apparently mandatory for conservative bloggers to align with either Thompson, whose campaign to date has been so low key it has been speculated Thompson has yet to be informed he's running, or Romney because he's using all the appropriate buzzwords; never mind how he's flipped positions more often than a buttermilk pancake at IHOP and please don't ask him if he really believes Jesus and Satan are brothers. It has become equally mandatory to tiptoe around Giuliani despite his liberal views in certain areas such as abortion due to the job he did after 9/11, and absolutely positively mandatory to hurl the hate at McCain and Huckabee for not being conservative enough. Which explains why their campaigns are gaining strength on a daily basis. Ignoring what the pundits say the latter two candidates believe, let's take a look at their platforms/mission statements/whatever you want to call it said candidates have on their respective Web sites. Huckabee's campaign slogan is (quote) "Faith. Family. Freedom." Simple enough. You can read the rest here, and then try to figure out why conservatives hate his guts so much when 99 44/100% of his views agree with theirs. As to McCain, his stance on the issues are… well… refer to the comment about Huckabee wondering why conservatives hate his guts so much. As a final note on Huckabee and McCain, the latter survived five and a half years as a prisoner of war at the hands of the North Vietnamese while the former has been endorsed by Chuck Norris. Okay, I'd say that covers any "are they tough enough for the job" questions. On the Democratic side, the three main candidates are:
Edwards has declared himself a champion of the working class, doing his part to personally support them by making sure those who charge four hundred dollars for a haircut never go home hungry at night. Clinton believes she should be President because she is the one most qualified and deserving of the job. It must be true; she said so. And then there's Obama, whose platform expounds what can be considered basic liberal views yet laces it all — all — with a sense of treating others as having value and considering them equally worthy of dignity regardless of ideological affiliation. Imagine that, treating others as you wish to be treated. Now where have we heard that before… We all have our own thoughts on who should be the next President. I believe it should be McCain, in case anyone's interested. That said, wouldn't the country and the world be far better served if we all turned off the news analysts and political blogs and found out what the candidates have to say, along with where they stand, by checking it out directly for ourselves? Forget the haters. Seek the truth. Disagree with the policies without demonizing the one holding views opposite to your own. You will be so much the better for it.
