While I was in the shower I realized I should have also have submitted the "Undecided" question too. Were there many undecideds in previous polls who moved to Huckabee because he proved to be viable earlier in the day?

Just from adding the poll totals of the three, in most cases the Undecideds were fairly small, in the 8%-13% range. In the case of Tennessee though, there were 22% unaccounted for by the top three, mostly due to the Thompson factor I would imagine.

True, but in a tight race, it doesn;t have to be many. take a look at your Alabama above:

AL --
Huckabee:33/41 (+8)
McCain:38/37 (-1)
Romney: 18/18 (n/c)


Romney stayed the same, McCain dropped one, and Huckabee pulled in eight. The poll has (based on arithmetic) 11% of those polled chose other or don;t know or whatever. On the day of the vote, only 4% voted someone else.

Huckabee pulled virtually all undecideds or others in Alabama, and it got him the election. Why or how? Especially since you;d have thought that at least some conservatives would have coalesced behind the more viable (at the time) candidate of Romney), especially after the hammering McCain got in the media and the bump Romney was getting from Limbaugh and others.

Did WV play a part in that? I have to think it may very well have had.



Here's GA:

GA --
Huckabee: 26/34 (+8)
McCain: 32/32 (n/c)
Romney: 29/30 (+1)


Again, Huckabee pulled heavily from the undecided/other category, and did so enough to win the state.

The same is true elsewhere. Why did Huckabee get such big bumps on the day of election? I have to think WV may have played a part.

-Abe

Or did he? I mean, we've got to account for margin of error in the polls (or in the case of the RCP numbers I used where available, the average of the most recent polls).

Take a look at the exit poll numbers (granted, they're as prone to error as anything on earth but still, we work with what we've got).
http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/alaba...can-exit-poll/
Decided today: Advantage McCain 37-36
Decided last three days: Advantage McCain 43-40

And those combined to allegedly account for 25% of all voters ... and yet
McCain loses a point while Huckabee gains eight. Obviously either somebody is lying or else the original polls were off for some reason(s).
OR ...
Decided in the past week: Advantage Huckabee 44-31




We start with 13% unaccounted for, of which 4% went to other candidates.
17% say they decided today: Advantage Huckabee, 36-34 over McCain, 28% to Romney
16% in the past 3 days: Advantage Romney, 40-31 over Huck, 28 for McCain

And yet Romney's numbers barely moved while Huckabee jumped (although I swear the numbers I saw last week showed him winning here all along)


To be honest, I'd say you're seriously overestimating how much attention 99% of the voters pay to anything that happens in another state on same day.
And even more so when you consider the significant number who voted early and couldn't have had WV (or anything else) as a factor.

Then again, read this and tell me anything in the polls - exit, early, or otherwise -- makes much sense in Georgia GOP primary.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met...lysis0206.html

You are certainly right that in one state, a Margin of Error could apply to the numbers. However, a consistent theme throughout the day in numoerus states with different polls and polling people is a trend we have to consider. Soemthing accounted for most undecideds in these keys states to break Huckabee

Now, like any social phoenomenon there are likely multiple factors, but I suspect WV may have been a strong one.

Know what we need? Polling data showing when Huckabee voters voted, which would be retrievable from the Exit Polls if they were sorted by hour or such. If there was a heavier contingent of Huckabee voters later in the day than earlier, my thesis has some serious support.

I agree with you are GA is an odd state in that sometimes it trends along with other southern states and sometimes it has its own trends. I certainly would not classify it exactly the same as Alabama or Mississippi or Tennessee.

Oh, and I think if WV had gone McCain or Rmney, you'd be right, no one would notice. But WV was only the second state to go Huckabee if I recall correctly and the first was an awfully long time ago. It showed he was still pertinent.

I don't think there's a solution that exists. Bush has been a wet dream for your wing of the GOP but he's been a complete clusterfuck in terms of being fiscally responsible or cutting government. Worse than any Democrat.

The only way to be fiscally conservative is to a) scale back the military and then b) have a divided presidency & congress. The fiscal conservatives and leave me the fuck alone coalition all moved toward Paul in the hope that maybe, possibly, he could affect GOP party policy. Since obviously that's not happening, Obama is probably the best (still slim) hope of anything resembling progress.

Did anyone predict a split anything like this?

Obama: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah
Clinton: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee

Coming it, it was pretty much "if Obama does well in (not necessarily win) California, he has a shot, otherwise, he's probably done". He doesn't even have that good of a showing there but then goes out and dominates in states like Idaho and Kansas, which would have just left you scratching your head coming in. This race just keeps getting more interesting.

SI

Obviously several of those words don't mean what you think they mean.

No. No he is not. Beneath all his glitz and charisma, he's a Democrat, and is still going to gleefully throw money at various nanny state programs, and tax the holy hell out of us to do it.

McCain preaches fiscal conservatism, but will likely bend over multiple times to please Congress (assuming it stays in Democrat control - are there even enough seats open for congress to realistically move back to a GOP majority?). Of course, he's also the one preaching about national ID's and apparently has no problems with Big Brotherizing the country, so he's got plenty of things to throw money at just from his own agenda. The only thing he probably won't do is make the people pay for it - he'll just drive us into further debt.

I'll admit, Huckleberry carried himself very well in the last debate, and I actually gained a little bit of respect for him. Not that I'd ever want him in power.

Oh, I don't know - there are some good nuggets on Daily Kos. Some of the polling analysis is pretty good, for example. You have to take that site for what it is. ;)


The thing is, you can say the same thing for McCain. I'd suspect a lot of the "moderates" who are voting for McCain don't really understand how solid he is on some issues that might otherwise matter for him. For instance, abortion. For another instance: Iraq. McCain's on record as planning to stay there for 50 or 100 years, whereas a majority of the country wants to get out. And so on and so on.

McCain's record on the issues is pretty clouded, and has become less clear over the past 8 years. Once the press starts looking at him as the GOP Nominee, I think a lot of people are going to start finding things not to like.


The thing is, I think your McCain argument works better for Obama and your Obama argument for McCain. Obama's inspiring, McCain is not. Obama's got a pretty consistent record, McCain's is pretty cloudy.

I think we might see a trend (we see anecdotal evidence already in this thread) of people finding a reason to vote for Obama even if they don't agree on all the issues, and people finding a reason not to vote for McCain and staying home (the people JiMGA is talking about).


How about this one:



:)


Exactly. If Obama's the nominee, McCain is going to need to spend more of his energy convincing people to vote for him than dissuading everyone who's been starstruck by Obama.

Wow, we totally disagree on this one.

I'm even hearing Dems around here routinely talking about voting (R) if Obama is the nominee. He pretty much scares the hell out of most people who actually listen to him and the key to beating him will be simply to hammer home everything he actually says/has said instead of letting people just look at him and hear Charlie Brown's school teacher.

I don't believe there's any hope for the GOP (the party, not McCain) to beat Hillary at this point, after seeing the alternative she simply isn't all that scary any more. But Obama? Definitely beatable if things are handled properly & with a little luck (which his inexperience should provide along the way).
Whether he's beatable by the lackluster McCain becomes a different question, and it's one that I'm not sure the GOP will figure out in time to do it.

edit: What I'm getting at here is that Obama has to be revealed as a much worse prospect than Hillary ever was (and oh God is he ever). I'm getting the feeling that at least some people have figured that out already (look at the crossover voting thing in Missouri in one of the threads from last night).

DC, without reading further (got to go to work), you have been all over the place the past few weeks. I really don't know where you are coming from. Saying that McCain has alienated everyone is not right. We want a leader to make smart decisions, regardless if they perceive to make everyone happy. (Being smart also means not being arrogant.) McCain bucked the status quo in questioning the war's aftermath, and decided to forge some alliances on immigration, which no one seemed to do. Very few is going match up well against anyone (thus, the rise of the anti-votes) but you look for things that are positive and McCain certainly has some, esp. if the Dems keep Congress.

My point is that Bush, led by the Christianist wing, has been worse than any Democrat since LBJ in terms of throwing money around/away. I find it hard to imagine Obama/Hillary being much worse.

I dunno. I can easily see either of them (Hillary in particular, with her health care madness) just shifting all that spending directly to something else.

Honestly, of the Big 3 at this point (McCain, Hillary, Obama), McCain is the one who is least likely to go batshit insane with spending. And that's not exactly saying much.

On the other hand, McCain DOES have a history of bucking the party orthodoxy on votes. People may disagree with McCain on things like abortion and the Iraq war (I think people know his position on Iraq... it's been big time news), but they also know that he's pissed off conservatives for his views on campaign finance, Bush tax cuts, etc.

So, I can go ahead and discount your opinion on this topic? kthx

Huh? Because he's right you want to discount his opinion?

Clinton & Obama may spend on a greater number of programs, but as McCain's in favor of a pretty aggressive foreign policy, and given what we know now about the cost of operations in Afghanistan & Iraq, I'd imagine he'd end up spending much more overall during his term(s). We spend what, a billion a day in Iraq?


Well, I'm in Illinois, so my view might be skewed. ;)

Oh, it's entirely possible. Which killed me during the last debate when he went on about fiscal responsibility, and in the next breath talked about keeping up operations in the Middle East. And THEN proceeded to talk about one of my other hot points, national ID's w/ biometric data. Just shoot me now. :)

Saw something on another site aboutPaul's supporters mostly switching over to Huckabee in WV in exchange for 3 of the delegates there. There were a couple of stories they sourced it with, but I"m on my crackberry at the moment so no link.

Most of McCain's 160 or so delegates switched to Huckabee to defeat Romney in WV. I think about 30 of Paul's went to Huckabee, 60 to Romney, and the rest just left.

I still don't know who won New Mexico. Looks like Obama, but it's very close.

Anyway, Hillary still has a 76 delegate lead with those superdelegates added in. She really cleaned up in California as did John McCain who is up by 360 delegates and is more than halfway to the win. Obama has a favorable schedule coming up, but maybe Hillary can hit the big states like Ohio and Texas and still come out ok.

I'd be interested to hear what you have heard that is so bad about Obama. I am an Obama supporter, and even from around here I have not heard anybody say anything bad about him. The only thing I have heard from Dem's is that they are conflicted between Clinton and him and when I ask why they are unsure... Clinton and Obama share similar policies, the only major difference is their public persona..

Ok, so someone inform this Canadian please. I am still trying to wrap my head around your primary/caucus system although I think I have the idea. What is behind the dislike of McCain among many conservatives? Is it one thing in particular or is there a laundry list of issues? Also, as an outsider, I can say that I just don't like the look of Romney. It has nothing to do with the Mormon issue, but he just looks and acts....I don't know....greasy.

McCain is too liberal for true conservatives and well Romney is greasy, his a flip flopper that changes his mind on a whim.

Think this may sum it up pretty well.

Religious Conservatives don't like him because he's not religiously conservative.

Fiscal Conservatives don't like him because the fiscal policies he has been shown to support are not fiscally conservative, contrary to his stated positions.

Conservatives don't like McCain because of the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, he was part of the Gang of 14, McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, his closeness with democrat Joe Liebermann including the McCain-Liebermann global warming bill, his position on the Bush tax cuts. He called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson agents of intolerance. I think I covered it all, but I may have forgot some.

Fixed.

By true conservatives do you mean the folks who favor lower taxes and less government or the pro-torture right wingers?

EDIT: thinking about this it doesn't really matter.

But....Falwell and Robertson ARE agents of intolerance...or am i missing something?

TRUE conservatives DO NOT speak the truth! Ron Paul IS NOT a true conservative. :p

Couldn't help myself...

I don't disagree, but I think one part of the Republican party probably took that the wrong way. Especially when he said they had an evil influence on the party. I think he's right on that, but it probably wasn't a necessary thing to say. I think Falwell has since mended fences with McCain though.

It was a better day for Hillary than for Obama. The perception was that Obama had all the momentum going into the day, but Clinton wins in MA, despite the Kennedy endorsement, NJ and CA were big. Obama may have won more states, but with all due respect to our fellow Americans in Idaho and North Dakota, only the narrow wins in MO and CT matter at all.

The only thing saving Obama right now is that Democratic primaries/caucuses are not winner-take-all like those of the GOP. If they were, Obama would be done today.

But he lives for another day, and the primary schedule plays to his strength. He'll be able to spend more time in each of the remaining states, and that appears to work very much to his advantage.

On the Republican side, assuming Romney and Huckabee both remain in the race, McCain appears to be the nominee. JiMGA becomes a very interesting case study in campaign effectiveness.

Traditionally, Republican candidates run to the right in the primary and to the center in the fall. The way this has developed, McCain has been able to run more from the right of center position. He hasn't been able to devote all his attention to galvanizing the base to be there for him in the fall. He'll have to make up that ground at some point.

My sense is that about 60% of McCain's campaign in the fall will be devoted to making sure JiMGA goes to his polling place in November and pushes the button for McCain. If he (or the various JiMFLs or JiMOHs out there who reside in swing states) sticks to his statement made in February -- that he could never vote for McCain -- it becomes very difficult for McCain to win in the fall.

I heard someone say it on CNN last night as well (Don't remember whom), but it seemed like the wins in NJ, MA and CA seemed to show to them that Clinton had a great night and "won" super tuesday.

Did anyone actually think Obama was going to win NJ or MA? I thought both of those were forgone conclusions for months (even with Kennedy and Kerry supporting Obama, no one around here really cares too much about that anyways). The only win of the night that seemed big to me for Clinton wasn't her winning California, but that she won it by a pretty good margin. It seemed likely that Clinton would win CA all along, but for a while it seemed Obama could keep it close which he really didn't.

Is this all just spin? To me as an independant who is highly interested in seeing who ends up winning the nomination, super tuesday was a big win for Mccain on the Republican side, and was a push for both democrats (Obama getting Missouri and Connecticut was big, but Hillary in California was big too)..

Maybe I am just out of touch..

One question I have is what do all of the ultra conservative right voters who say they won't even bother going to vote for Mccain feel about the possibility of it being a Mccain - Huckabee ticket? It was tossed around alot last night that Huckabee could be a potential VP candidate to try to bring back some of the right that Mccain alienated..

I'm not a fan of Huckabee, and the only way I'll vote Mccain is if Clinton gets the Democrat nomination, but just curious how that would "mend fences"

Huckabee would turn me off to that ticket quicker than McCain would. Much, much quicker.

Obama had momentum in MA, but simply ran out of time to counteract Clinton's huge lead.

Alan T: The 24 hour news media needs something to talk about, so presidental primary elections are a battle of expectations -- kind of like college football. It has become, not so much whether or not you won, but whether you covered the spread.

The GOP results show this perfectly. I heard a number of folks say on TV last night that they thought Huckabee was the real winner last night. By any empirical measure, he came in third, in both states won and in delegates earned. But you won't find one person out there that would say that Romney had a better night. Huckabee crushed his expectations, Romney did not reach his. It is all about where the bar is set.

With the Obama-Clinton race, the polls were showing, and the media was talking about, how much Obama was closing the gap on Hillary in many states, notably NJ, MA and CA. When all 3 resulted in pretty decisive victories for Clinton, the media was surprised. Again, Hillary jumped over her bar, Obama came up short.

But Obama is still within 100 delegates of Hillary with a long way to go. It is very possible that both candidates will go to the convention without a majority if the election continues in this direction.

Hmm, guess then the media should be dissapointed in their performance then. I don't think NJ or MA went much different than I expected. I think for the two, Clinton should be able to hang her hat on California, and Obama can hang his on Missouri and Connecticut. I personally think the day was a push, and it just feels like anyone who says otherwise has an agenda they are trying to push.. (ie: someone favoring Clinton saying she won, or someone favoring Obama saying he won).

I think if anything, yesterday just cemented the idea that it is going to be a two person race up to the convention on the Democratic side.

A lot depends on public perception. A lot of folks are projecting Obama to sweep the next six states on offer (mostly caucuses), and that Hilary will need to win both TX and OH to counter that momentum

I don't think that conservatives hate McCain because of his closeness with Liebermann. I think it is actually a strength. However, the global warming bill is a big reason why we don't like him.

Also, as someone mentioned previously, cutting military spending is not the only way to be fiscally conservative. I would argue that we need to increase our military spending. Our military spending as a percentage of GDP is something like 4.9%. That is close to historic lows. If our military spending was in the 7.5% range we'd be much better off right now.

That said, the only way to be really fiscally conservative is to balance the budget through government cuts, not tax increases. Unfortunately, no one on Capitol Hill has the intestinal fortitude to do it. We spend so much money on crap it isn't even funny. We put in programs that have growth of 5-10% per year. How can we continue to do that when we only have growth of 2.5% per year in GDP? We have a spending deficit. We borrow more and more. The problem isn't the military spending, it is the amount we pay on debt service and entitlements. That is where the cuts need to be made.

Here's an interesting thing from a CNN.com column why a good percentage of the base PROBABLY will still vote for McCain in a general election:

Let's be clear -- conservatives don't like McCain. But with conservatives one seat away from having a majority on the Supreme Court and the next president having the power to name up to three justices, do you actually think the folks who've fought two generations to re-take the Court actually want to see three Clinton jurists?

You're right that there need to be cuts in many programs, but HALF of our tax dollars go toward military spending. You don't see a problem there?

Where the heck are you getting that info?

Regardless, read up on how much other countries are spending upon their military... We're spending a small fraction of our wealth on our military.

The 2008 budget has $583 billion for the military. 2007 spending was $529 billion.

Compare that with the Department of Human Services Budget alone: 2007 spending: $670 billion 2008 budget: $707 billion 2009 budget: $736 billion

So I think you need to review your facts. I haven't gone into any more depth on this, but I think it is telling.

This info was pulled from:

http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov/usbu...budget/hhs.pdf

http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov/usbu...et/defense.pdf

After looking at the other departments of the government, it appears they add up to around the total of the defense budget. So we are probably looking at military spending being approximately 30% of the overall government budget.

Now, if you think that is too high fine, but keep in mind, national defense is specified in the Constitution as one of the roles of the Federal Government. The other programs are not, most especially those of the entitlement programs.

I found it the same place I found the percent of military spending as a % of GDP. http://www.truthandpolitics.org/mili...ative-size.php

If I'm wrong on the percentages then please forgive me. And I agree with you on the entitlement programs. I just can't fathom how anyone could feel that there's waste everywhere in the government except for the military.

I'm interested to see how much more mileage McCain is going to get from promoting his support of "the Surge" in Iraq.

Did anyone not think that throwing significantly more money and resources would not be helpful? I mean, if we are just going to write blank checks for things and then celebrate when it works, why don't we have a "Surge" for education, poverty, the environment, dilapadated roads/bridges, etc.? Almost any problem improves with unlimited money/manpower/resources -- it isn't exactly a genius strategy to be plugging.

I think hanging his hat on "the Surge" working is a bunch of BS and would like to see someone call him on it.

This article is slanted, but brings up my point in much better detail:

"...As I have noted before (and, I'm sure, will again), the budget has been divvied up this way, plus or minus 2 percent, each and every year since the 1960s. Is it remotely conceivable that our national-security needs coincide so precisely—and so consistently over the span of nearly a half-century—with the bureaucratic imperatives of giving the Army, Air Force, and Navy an even share of the money? Again, the question answers itself. As the Army's budget goes up to meet the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force's and Navy's budgets have to go up by roughly the same share, as well. It would be a miracle if this didn't sire a lot of waste and extravagance.


Congress exposes this budget to virtually no scrutiny, fearing that any major cuts—any serious questions—will incite charges of being "soft on terror" and "soft on defense." But $536 billion of this budget—the Pentagon's base line plus the discretionary items for the Department of Energy and other agencies—has nothing to do with the war on terror. And it's safe to assume that a fair amount has little to do with defense. How much it does and doesn't is a matter of debate. Right now, nobody's even debating.


Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said recently that, quite apart from the wars, the nation should get used to spending 4 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. This isn't an unreasonable sum in terms of what the nation can afford. But the same could be said of many other functions of government. It has very little to do with what the nation needs. The $515.4 billion in the base line Defense Department budget amounts to 3.4 percent of GNP. Is that not enough? Should we throw in another $85 billion to boost it to 4 percent? The relevant question, in any case, should be not how much we spend, but what we buy."

I'm not saying that there isn't waste there. There's waste all over the government.

My contention is that if there is going to be waste, it should be in an area where the government is supposed to be sticking its nose rather than other areas.

I believe that military spending is also much more valuable to the country than other types of spending. Education, transportation, and commerce are all investments into our future. Military is more of a here and now form of spending and it results in money going into the private sector. Its not just a redistribution of wealth like we have in the entitlement programs.

I have contended before and continue to do so, that if we eliminated social security and medicare/medicaid that things would actually be much better for this country. Families would be forced to support each other, and you better not piss off your kids because they might not be willing to support you when you need help. It would also take a lot of power out of the hands of the politicians because that would not be a stick that they threaten us with. You could easily support the additional family members from the fewer dollars that you would be giving to Uncle Sam.

I mean let's look at national health care. How in the world are we going to pay for that? I don't care what the initial cost is, once Washington gets done with it, it will be 3 times the size it needs to be, plus it will increase at a rate of 15-20% per year as mandated in the bill that eventually gets signed, etc., etc. It doesn't solve the problem, it just moves the problem from that of the companies and people of this country to the government.

How is military spending NOT wealth redistribution, just like any other government program? It's exactly the same thing. Money is going from taxpayers to private companies/contractors and their stockholders/employees. Just because there are middlemen and the recipients differ doesn't make it any different.

Couple of things:

You worded your first point incorrectly previously, the military is not 1/2 the budget or 1/2 of the tax income of the government, it is nearly 1/2 of the discretionary spending of the goverment.

That is a big distinction because 53% of the federal budget is mandatory spending (entitlements, etc.).

The article that you mention is kind of funny. Many people are complaining about stretching our forces too thin. If we allowed more funding for the military, that would pay for more troops (if we so desired). If we had more troops, we would not be stretched so thin.

Military spending is an investment that you hope you never have to use. However, the ramifications of not spending are enormous. Look at the period between WWI and WWII. The democracies of the world scaled back their military spending. When Hitler came to power, their militaries were ill-equipped to combat him. Equipment was antiquated. Military theory stagnated to a large extent.

The result was the single most damaging war in the history of man. Over 20 million people perished during 1939-45. It all could have been averted if at any point prior to September 1, 1939, France and England had stood up to Germany. Had the Allies resisted the reoccupation of the Rhineland, there was the distinct probably Hitler would have been ousted from power.

Our current levels of military investment are minute compared to our historical expenditures there. They are also minute compared to what nations have spent on their militaries going back hundreds of years. The Military Reolution Debate edited by Clifford Rogers has a number of articles dedicated to the subject and the impact on the growth and evolution of goverment.

Should we spend 20% of our GDP on the military? Probably not. But spending 6-8% on our military is not ridiculous. When you think of the technologies that came out of military or space exploration needs you will see the positive impact that spending here has on the population. Velcro, dehydrated foods, computers, and lightweight materials are all developments from different lines of research in the military and space departments.

Do we get this type of return from any other government activity? Outside of the department of transportation, I do not know.

Simple. Military spending buys a tangible product. Social Security and most other entitlement programs do not provide anything. They just move wealth around.

When the military buys a jet, they pay General Dynamics, Grumman, McDonnell Douglas, etc., (ok, these may have been bought in the last few years) a ton of money for that jet. Those companies turn around and subcontract to various suppliers for the necessary materials and parts to produce the aircraft. Ultimately, this spending produces jobs for a large number of people.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather we had more money going towards "investments into our future" than propping up failing 20th-century industries.

While we've been spending billions on a massive, bloated military infrastructure (which was so inefficient it couldn't provide adequate equipment to soldiers until several years into the Iraq War), we've lost ground in the overall education levels of our children, the quality of our infrastructure, and our lead in technology and innovation.


I don't think you can equate the inter-war period to the threats and responses that exist today. As both the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq Invasion have shown, there is no conventional force that can mount anything but a cursory defense against American military technology and force. Even were we to scale back military spending, we still have such a technological lead that we need never fear another "Germany-type" encroachment or invasion. It's simply no longer a credible threat.

The types of threats we're going to continue to encounter are insurgencies, and to be successful here we need a very different type of force than we've had. All the stealth bombers haven't helped us in Iraq, for instance, and arguably the carrier groups aren't a big help either.

Of course, if you're arguing that we should vastly expand the number of soldiers we have so as to wage "preventative war" all over the globe in the hopes of nation-building, then you're welcome to that idea and yes, it will probably require even more money (see the bills for Iraq & Afghanistan).

But if you're arguing for the original goal of the army as set out in the Constitution then I'd say we can probably slash our military budget in half and still fulfill the stated goal of protecting the homeland.


Grants to innovative technology, biotech and pharma companies, as well as joint government-corporate research has provided quite a lot of return itself, and return that can be capitalized at a much higher dollar value than things like velcro.

And therein lies the problem.

Jobs = people who aren't beholden to the government for everything ... and that cannot be tolerated.

Thanks for correcting me.

The place where I get my panties in a wad is that we're stretched too thin because we don't spend enough. We're stretched too thin because we're everywhere. And wherever we go, we tend to fuck things up.

I know you've seen the chart that shows how we spend roughly the equivalent as the rest of the world on military expenditures. If we didn't spend stupidly, like the Slate article describes, we wouldn't need as much either. 6-8% seems like a reasonable number. 20-25%, or more, is not.

You make a really good point on the return on investment for military and infrastructure spending. At least with the military they are producing something. It's still wealth redistribution though. ;) The difference is companies and their employees/stockholders are the beneficiaries instead of individuals who fit 'X' criteria.

In either case, no one with a chance to become President is going to change much of this.

I phrased that wrong. I have no problems with spending in education, transportation, and commerce.

Much of what needs to be done in the education level of our children is a focus on education. I would argue that most suburban children would test favorably with children across the world. Our higher education centers are respected around the world. The problem is that we have large portions of our population that does not push education and the value of an education. Will extra dollars translate to a better educated work force? I'm not sure. Finally, aren't the majority of these dollars to come out of the local and state tax coffers, not the Federal coffers?

Regarding infrastructure, what infrastructure are you referring to? If you are talking about roads, I have no problem putting more money into the budget there. However, we do have a problem with the way that funding is allocated. Rather than keep up the roads we have, our politicians make more hay by building new ones.

Again, you want to argue these points, I will agree in principle with most of them.


I'm not too sure about that. China is a growing threat. They also have a great first strike capability...against our satellites. That severely handicap the ability of our forces. What we saw in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War is that we have a military that can kick the ass of any banana republic. We have not been measured against the first class militaries of the world.


First, the way to defeat insurgencies is a high force to area ratio. We do not have that capability right now. You can have all the high tech weapons you want, but unless you have the troops on the ground, you cannot fight or will have great difficulty in waging an anti-insurgent campaign.

I am not arguing that we need to increase the military to wage a preventative war anywhere. But, if the nation deems it necessary, we need to have the forces necessary to wage that war.


Yes, I am, but not entirely. We have decided that we must be a part of several defensive alliances as a matter of national security. As a result, we must have an army that is willing and able to carry out those tasks.


You are exactly right. Many of these joint research contracts have been due to the military. Many innovative technologies have spun off the military-industrial complex is my point. Why has our civilization come up with many of our metallurgical advances? The military. Why was margarine developed as a butter substitute? The military. I can go on and on.

My point is that the military gives us far greater return than our entitlement programs. You want to argue education, transportation, and commerce? I'll probably agree with you on those matters. But, many of the issues that we face in those areas are not a matter of funding.

Finally, the issue is not an either or equation. We are not cutting spending on transportation to put money into the military. Nor are we cutting spending in education to put money into the military. My contention is that we should cut entitlement spending and put that into other areas or pay off the debt.

This is probably the difference between us. I have no problem with someone who produces something as being the beneficiary of anything. Where I have issues is where someone gets something just because he fits 'X'. I have no problem helping the less fortunate out on my own free will. I have a huge problem being told that I am supposed to help these people out because they are there.


I agree with you here.

But defense contractor jobs are substantially beholden to the government by definition, aren't they?

I guess this could go into either thread - from my favorite columnist (Roland Martin)


I know what I wrote this morning was too hurried and not thought through but one thing still sticks in my craw is that there must be one issue for some of the conservative's hatred of McCain? Is it immigration?

I think actually the thing that turned off the GOP was McCain working with Clinton on foreign policy in Kosovo. The rest of the party was freaking out, and McCain was saying "no, this is a good idea. It can work."

Or, it's just irrational. But I don't understand what anybody sees in Romney.

As a libertarian and a believer in Christ, my views expand beyond the one-dimensional reb/blue spectrum. Some of my views are to the right of Jon, some are deemed moderate (mainly because they really are not the important) and some would be considered left-leaning. I would look at it as a true independent voter and I would take exception to those staking a claim on an extreme saying that such a voter lacks principles. It simply cannot be listed in a series of talking points that the media and those in opposition like to tear down. That's why I have always taken great exception to the label 'religious right' or 'evangelical right' as if they are all a homogeneous group of voters (or any bloc of voters for that matter). Some are as exactly as you would stereotype (Bubba comes to mind) but you would be surprised at some having very different set of views, including those that are libertarians.

He was a Senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was he not? Was he have supposed to be in lock-stop opposition to everything like most are?

I believe in constant opposition to expanding the powers of the federal govt (as in not piling onto existing bills and not introducing new entitlements that costs way more than the marginal benefits). But realistically in this inter-connected world we live in, one chooses the battles and look at opportunities where the benefits can outweigh the costs (whether in foreign policy, security, domestic aid, standardization, etc.).

I'm not saying I understand it or agree with it. I'm just pointing out the first time I remember hearing about friction between McCain and the GOP.

I don't think the issue can be immigration; he basically has the same views on immigration as Dubya, which were widely known and understood by the party before his first nomination. I think it is not a philosophical difference between McCain and "conservatives", but an objection to something stylistic or aesthetic. Like he doesn't use the right code words or something. I honestly don't know, because I think he's actually the most conservative of the three candidates left.

The "right code words"? Seriously? Maybe it's federal spendings but that would be hypocritical, wouldn't it?

I don't actually know, I'm just guessing.

The things I've seen mentioned are:

The Gang of 14 deal
Immigration
Possible opposition to Alito
Flirting with becoming a Democrat
Campaign finance
Opposition to waterboarding
Closing Guantanamo
Belief in global warming
Desire to work with Democrats
Calling out religious leaders
Opposition to Bush's tax cuts

They may or may not be rational arguments, but there are a lot of specifics mentioned by hard conservatives.

I do disagree with him on Campaign Finance Reform, but that's just one of a million things that Congress have passed that was unconstitutional.

I keep hearing Romney talking about how he's different from McCain on Guantanamo, but I haven't seen anything on their respective websites, or heard anything from the horse's mouth about *how* they differ.

May I take this to mean that McCain supports closing it, and Romney supports keeping it open?

Romney has said he would "double" Guantanamo.

And McCain wants to close it? Or leave it as is?

I am not up at all on McCain's policies, but the one thing I saw that stuck in my mind was a scuffle between he and Paul regarding who had the support of the troops in the military. Paul supporters presented some solid evidence of fundraising totals from troops that well surpassed McCain's. When presented with this McCain basically said that he was right and was the Republican choice of the troops regardless of anything else presented to the contrary. I've basically stopped listening to the guy since I saw that.

I've had enough idiocy, deceitfulness and arrogance from my chief exec to last me the rest of my lifetime. I will NOT be voting for someone else who looks to be from that same mold regardless of party affiliation.

I believe he wants to close it, but I admit I'm not sure.

Depends upon when you ask him apparently.

If you Google "McCain and Guantanamo" you get a variety of things over a year's time (give or take). From talking about closing it to wanting more Congressional oversight of it to what appeared to be granting due process rights to those interred to Lordonlyknowswhatelse (after just a brief spel, even skimming the various articles got tedious for me)

How far back would one have to go to not have such characteristics in the chief exec? Ike? Coolidge?

And what is your view?

That might actually be the first positive sign I've seen out of him. The idea that we need to completely deny human rights to anybody we think might be involved in a terroristic plot against us, even if it turns out "oops, wrong guy," has never sat well with me. We can fight the terror war without being fascists about it.

Probably not enough for me to vote for him in November, but it's nice to see there's something substantial I can agree with him on, if that's how he feels.

Of what I think McCain thinks about Guantanamo?
Or what I think about Guantanamo?

(I'm not shooting for obtuse here, I'm braintired & genuinely don't know which one you're asking about)

What you think about Gitmo.

And I know we'll disagree here, Jon, but I actually think that's a good thing.

My thought is, if they're that dangerous, they aren't going to be carrying out terror plots while locked away. I don't have a problem with locking folks up, but there should be protections for the innocent so that we aren't taking away ten years of a man's life just because Joe Schmoe with the Feds is angling for a promotion.

Closing it? Might be a little drastic. Congressional oversight? Due process? Those are good things, not bad things. Doesn't mean you need to get silly and start throwing cases out on a technicality because somebody didn't get read their Miranda rights, but if the government stacks the deck against everybody who's in there, how are the innocent supposed to defend themselves?

Somebody who believes in "if you're in there you must have done something wrong" over "innocent until proven guilty" is not a man (or woman) I want running the country in the first place.

That is a good question. My 31 years hasn't seen it before, but perhaps going back it's more common than I'd like to think.

Have we ever seen such abuse to this extreme though?

Josh, remember that McCain probably had some experience on confinement and torture, you think?

Yeah, Bucc, I do remember that.

Haven't really heard him speak out on Guantanamo, but if the things being attributed to him in the last page or so on that topic are true, I don't have a problem with it.

Seen? No, but our history is full of it. Just look at the Alien and Sedition Act of the late 1790s, as well as the American Civil War and Jim Crow, not to mention countless abuse of immigrants, natives and those of different religious persuasions. What had happened in the past makes today's "extreme" abuse look very tame by comparison. But then again, most people don't anything happened before 1980.

I've mentioned it before, but it really is shameful that for many on the right support for torture and indefinite detention have become litmus tests.

(And I use torture because I've seen it used over the past several days on a number of prominent conservative blogs/web pages.)

I have to imagine that you could accurately predict my general take on it.

Probably the biggest problem I've got with it is that anybody outside a need-to-know basis is even aware of it. In these non-traditional circumstances (as well as some of the traditional too I suppose) I'm rather fond of having bad guys simply disappear without a trace. Might as well sow a little confusion as well as removing an enemy asset, more bang for the buck that way. I'm still downright bewildered that we have so little control or common sense that this is such a public situation.

As for closing it, that's fine by me ... as long as it's replaced with something more efficient and infinitely more discreet.

edit to add: To bring this back to McCain, I believe you raise a very relevant point about his background with the subject. I believe he's simply too close to it to be able to make a decision that's in the best interest of the nation and I trust his judgement probably at little as anyone in the potential sphere of influence. Basically, I have too much concern that he's suffering from something akin to Stockholm Syndrome.

Thank you Jon. I am still trying to come to grasp with a certain segment of conservative voters favoring Clinton over McCain, unless it truly is a scare tactic.

It's too bad almost no one here was old enough to remember the Vietnam War era. McCain did make news back then, being an Admiral's son and all. I just read a travelogue on Vietnam and it struck me what a change that country has become (for the better). One can visit Hanoi Hilton (which McCain did in 2000 but I don't know any details).

Unbelievably the votes are still not counted, but it looks like New Mexico is going to barely be Clinton's, meaning I was wrong. There are, however, some reports of some crazy shit going on all over the state, like Bernalillo County (which went heavy for Obama) running out of ballots at 3 pm. Also Arriba County (which went heavy for Clinton), their votes were apparently reported in a very irregular way.

Also every national site keeps calling New Mexico a primary state, but its actually a caucus. I'm not sure why they are getting it wrong.

If it was a caucus state there wouldn't be ballots though, right? We're a caucus state and there are no ballots involved.

Although there is some validity to points that you have made, I have to correct the numbers.

HHS budget figure you cited earlier was almost exclusively mandatory spending -- Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. Proposed HHS discretionary spending was only $71 billion. Non-defense discretionary spending has been set at about $480 billion for the current fiscal year. The DoD bill was for about $460 billion, but that didn't include full operational finding for Iraq or Afghanistan. Congress already appropriated another $31.5 billion for that, and Bush just asked for another $110 billion. If you are scoring at home, that comes out to about $600 billion for DoD and $480 for non-defense discretionary funding, functionally every other department and agency in the government.

You made the mistake of linking the argument to the President's budget proposal. It is a phony document. He does not include money for the wars in that part of it. He hides it in a table at the end.

You've been moving back and forth with bringing mandatory spending into and out of the argument. For those not familiar with the difference between mandatory and discretionary spending, mandatory spending programs are those that, under the law, if an individual qualifies for benefits, they get them. Think Social Security. Discretionary programs are those that are subject to appropriations, like the FBI, who have to wait for Congress to approve their budget each year.

Long-winded explanations aside, the President likes to divide his budget into security funding and non-security funding, essentially lumping in homeland security with defense. He doesn't include the war funding to this, which I think is disingenuous. For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to include security funding + war funding. In this fiscal year, that adds up to $750 billion if the President's most recent war funding request is approved. Projected outlays (spending) for this fiscal year are $2.9 trillion (mandatory+discretionary). So, that comes out to a little more than 1/4th of the budget being spent on defense and security.

I really take issue with your contention that military spending is better for the economy than investing in domestic infrastructure. Military spending provides 1 short term shot in the arm with no return on investment in the long-term. In fact, most defense assets have a short shelf life requiring replacement and almost invarialbly, once used, are completely gone and, again, require equal or greater expenditure to replace. The only reason to spend on the military is because you must to ensure safety. Economically, it is of limited value.

Conversely, investments in transportation and education provide short term boosts through employment and procurement, just like defense, but leave you with a long-term asset (a road or educated person) that continues to produce and facilitates economic activity. There's really no reasonable comparison is the economic value of either.

Just saw a report on CNN.com that it looks like Romney is pretty much deciding to suspend his campaign

What exactly does that mean? Euphemism for dropping out?

In otherwords, he's going to stop spending all his money, and hope that there's a groundswell of support that pushes him back in.

Heh. Tuesday night I was talkin' to a friend, and I told 'em "New Mexico is the baby Florida. It's just that Florida screws up so spectacularly every election that nobody notices."

It's a dropping out, for now. He basically is saying he could restart it at any time if he wants, but he's done campaigning for now.

Edwards also "suspended" his campaign rather than ending it.

On The Dem's side, Edwards suspending instead of dropping out means he holds on to his delegates until such time as he formally drops out (to throw support behind one or the other)

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE! Sorry for shouting but too many people have missed that point. Transportation, education and commerce are all parts of the budget that I agree with. I may argue with you about the amounts of that spending, but I have no problem with any of it. We could double the amount we are spending there and I wouldn't have too much of an issue with it.

The economics of the military depends on what you look at. Would there have been a big push to shrink the size of computers if not for the military and space programs? Look at the computers that we had in the 40s and 50s. Heck, even the computers in the 40s were developed for what? Solving military problems. ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables. If not for the military pushing things, would computers have advanced to what they are today? The space program required many pieces of equipment to be reduced in size and power consumption. I can go on and on.

You're going to argue that it has a negligible effect on the economy. I disagree because the immediate effects are slight (I agree with you on that), the long term effects are huge. There is a lot of things that are originally developed for the military that wind up being used in the civilian sector. Some of the new scanner techologies that we are seeing were originally being designed for the military. That technology that was designed to find chemical weapons and nuclear weapons is being used in mining operations, airports, etc., to detect other types of materials. So again, sure we might only use the F-15 for 30-40 years, but the technologies that went into developing that aircraft spread into other industries and benefit us all. Also, the reason why we have the best military in the world is because we invest the amount of money we do in it. Imagine the casualties we would have had in Iraq if our military was not of the quality it is.

The fact that the numbers might be slightly off does not defeat the main point of my argument. My primary point was that our military is not more than 50% of our government's spending, or even close to that. Entitlements alone require spending of more than $100 billion over the military budget. Compared to our GDP, we are at historic lows for the amount of money that we are spending on our military. However, the amount that we are spending on entitlements is near all-time highs and will get worse when national health care gets installed.

The fact that one is mandatory spending and the other is discretionary spending is irrelevant. Our Congress deemed that entitlements will rise by X% each year and the government must pay that amount out. That is what makes it an entitlement. The other significant portion of mandatory spending is debt service. Depending on the graph you look at, discretionary spending is less than half of the overall government budget. What is a correct statement is that the largest chunk of our discretionary spending is the military, you'd be dead nuts on.

The question though is how do we spend our money? Should we just put tons more money in transportation? We can all agree on that. But, we already have roads and bridges to nowhere. Just throwing money at the department is not going to mean we are spending the money wisely (essentially the same arguement flere(?) made about the military). Now, if we put extra money in the department with the express purpose of resurfacing roads and improving existing highways, I would be all for it. But that is where the system breaks down.

What Congressman or Senator comes back and says, "I've improved the condition of our roads!" None. They want to say, "I built a road to X and made it easier for them to reap the benefits of Y." There's no glamour in putting more money into inspection of bridges and existing roads. We had all sorts of people saying that we need to increase spending so we can inspect bridges and do work on failing ones, but where is the outcry now? We won't hear about it until we have another major failure somewhere. The Tombigbee Waterway was a huge deal down here. Yet, how many barges really make use of it? Not many. Sure there is some traffic on it, but has the traffic on the waterway offset the cost of constructing it? I would be extremely surprised if it had.

We can throw money at education. But what is that money going to get us? Is that money going to mean that we get better teachers at failing inner-city schools? We educated my generation and most of the people here with 30 kids per classroom. Now most classrooms are at 15-20 kids per teacher. Has the quality of our education gone up? Again, I have no problem with increasing funding, provided that we know what we are getting for it.

We can all agree on what we need to spend money on, but the fundemental question that separates many of us is what the actual breakdown of the spending and how we monitor it.

I don't know, but the local Democratic party calls it a caucus. I suppose its possible, even likely, that they got that wrong.


You're not kidding. During the last congressional election, it also took days and days to count the votes, and every time they got close to calling it for one candidate, somebody "found" a bunch of votes for the other candidate that had been lost on a truck or something.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2.../index.html?hp


What a dickhead. I'm glad he's out.