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Which candidate serves middle class America?

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Wow, an almost actual consensus among posters here in ATPN! I realize that voting for middle class representation is not the only issue at stake here, but it seems pretty fundamental to the maintenance of a stable economy within the country. Too bad people can't abandon the parties they actually don't even believe in to vote for a candidate that would represent the middle class. Is there one of those around?
 
HomerJS said:
Presidential candidates with the most money win 96% of the time.

Last elections 93% of the house and 94% of the Senate.


This needs to change.
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No, you have to accept it or change it yourself. YOU have to change it, not this has to change.
 
My pragmatic vote would be for Ohio Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, my idealistic vote would be for Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
 
The better question is: 'Which candidate that actually has a chance of getting elected will not fuck the middle class?'
 
There is no credible third party that can challenge the R or D.

And you guys fawning over Ross Perot... I voted for him the first time believe it or not. But aside from being right over the 'giant sucking sound', I specifically remember Gore destroying him in a debate the next election cycle. His defensive posture and his plan for 'grabbing one of them great plans in Congress' and getting it to work after Gore asked him to be specific on what he would do and he couldn't answer revealed him to be the phony he was.

Now on Ron Paul, I like some of his ideas. But his ideas for drastically cutting military spending and turtling up (i.e. going isolationist) in addition to cutting Israel loose are NON starters in my book and disqualify him from consideration, IMO. With defense related money floating through our economy, WTF do you think would happen to GDP if we make those drastic cuts all at once ??

Finally, here's the thing. How many of you honestly vote for a candidate that would be good for the country as opposed to you or your family's best interests? Be honest. I'm older, very cynical, and frankly vote wallet above all else. I'd like to be inspired, but I'm a highly practical, non-emotional person who has been scarred by the battles of the real world and I don't simply trust people to do the right thing. The idea of me voting for someone based on nothing more than 'hope' would never happen.

Flame suit is zipped up and ready. Bring it.
 
brencat said:
There is no credible third party that can challenge the R or D.

And you guys fawning over Ross Perot... I voted for him the first time believe it or not. But aside from being right over the 'giant sucking sound', I specifically remember Gore destroying him in a debate the next election cycle. His defensive posture and his plan for 'grabbing one of them great plans in Congress' and getting it to work after Gore asked him to be specific on what he would do and he couldn't answer revealed him to be the phony he was.

Now on Ron Paul, I like some of his ideas. But his ideas for drastically cutting military spending and turtling up (i.e. going isolationist) in addition to cutting Israel loose are NON starters in my book and disqualify him from consideration, IMO. With defense related money floating through our economy, WTF do you think would happen to GDP if we make those drastic cuts all at once ??

Finally, here's the thing. How many of you honestly vote for a candidate that would be good for the country as opposed to you or your family's best interests? Be honest. I'm older, very cynical, and frankly vote wallet above all else. I'd like to be inspired, but I'm a highly practical, non-emotional person who has been scarred by the battles of the real world and I don't simply trust people to do the right thing. The idea of me voting for someone based on nothing more than 'hope' would never happen.

Flame suit is zipped up and ready. Bring it.
Click to expand...
Anybody that would flame you for voting for your family's best interests is retarded. But, do you consider what might be good for your family in the short term might be bad for it in the long term, and vice versa? That is the problem I have with many people, they are too willing to sell out the future of this country to spare themselves some minor short term pain.
 
brencat said:
There is no credible third party that can challenge the R or D.

And you guys fawning over Ross Perot... I voted for him the first time believe it or not. But aside from being right over the 'giant sucking sound', I specifically remember Gore destroying him in a debate the next election cycle. His defensive posture and his plan for 'grabbing one of them great plans in Congress' and getting it to work after Gore asked him to be specific on what he would do and he couldn't answer revealed him to be the phony he was.

Now on Ron Paul, I like some of his ideas. But his ideas for drastically cutting military spending and turtling up (i.e. going isolationist) in addition to cutting Israel loose are NON starters in my book and disqualify him from consideration, IMO. With defense related money floating through our economy, WTF do you think would happen to GDP if we make those drastic cuts all at once ??

Finally, here's the thing. How many of you honestly vote for a candidate that would be good for the country as opposed to you or your family's best interests? Be honest. I'm older, very cynical, and frankly vote wallet above all else. I'd like to be inspired, but I'm a highly practical, non-emotional person who has been scarred by the battles of the real world and I don't simply trust people to do the right thing. The idea of me voting for someone based on nothing more than 'hope' would never happen.

Flame suit is zipped up and ready. Bring it.
Click to expand...

How the F do you think we could continue to fund all of these wars and provide so much foreign aid to countries when we're on the verge of bankruptcy? And no, getting rid of Bush's tax cuts wouldn't come close to being able to cover for it.
 
Attic said:
I like the above mention for a shout out to Ross Perot.

From 1992 Presidential Debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OKYVH2Gaec

Hind sight is 20/20, but I can't help but indulge in the idea of what may have been if Ross Perot was elected. The treatment of Ross Perot by the media also highlights the disastrous effect the media has in the political landscape. It is clear the media is not serving the interests of what would help the majority of Americans achieve better government representation.


Middle class is in a catch 22 as has been described by the other posts in this thread, we would need a paradigm shift in government in order to see the middle class be legitimately represented.
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its rather scary how he nailed it.
 
dank69 said:
Anybody that would flame you for voting for your family's best interests is retarded. But, do you consider what might be good for your family in the short term might be bad for it in the long term, and vice versa? That is the problem I have with many people, they are too willing to sell out the future of this country to spare themselves some minor short term pain.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But to your comment about people willing to 'sell out' the country. Actually, I'm not so sure they are consciously thinking about it long term and maybe that is where the problem is... people REALLY need to start thinking a bit more before pulling the voting lever. A lot of people live day to day and are unable to connect the dots or look ahead 10-20 years. Frankly though, if we assume we have no viable 3rd parties that can win, it has been a lesser of two evils choice for years between R & D.
 
Attic said:
I like the above mention for a shout out to Ross Perot.

From 1992 Presidential Debate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OKYVH2Gaec

Hind sight is 20/20, but I can't help but indulge in the idea of what may have been if Ross Perot was elected. The treatment of Ross Perot by the media also highlights the disastrous effect the media has in the political landscape. It is clear the media is not serving the interests of what would help the majority of Americans achieve better government representation.


Middle class is in a catch 22 as has been described by the other posts in this thread, we would need a paradigm shift in government in order to see the middle class be legitimately represented.
Click to expand...

I voted for Ross Perot in 92, the only time I voted for a 3rd party candidate.
 
I voted for Perot in `92 and `96. I remember listening to him and thinking that what he said almost sounded prophetic. Turns out I was right. If we could somehow transport the man through time and get him into the next election he'd win, maybe by a landslide.
 
I was mocked voting for Perot in '92 and '96, only to be repeated with Paul in 2008 and possibly 2012, if I'm not completely apathetic by then. If it weren't for the eventual public outcry, we would have a Trans-Texas Corridor today... scary.
 
astroidea said:
How the F do you think we could continue to fund all of these wars and provide so much foreign aid to countries when we're on the verge of bankruptcy? And no, getting rid of Bush's tax cuts wouldn't come close to being able to cover for it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'm a pretty damned conservative person, and even I realize that we need to start cutting Defense if we're going to survive this. Start with an across the board 40% cut in defense spending by closing half of our foreign bases and pulling out of the M.E. entirely. Then we turn marijuana into a cash crop and levy a 100% federal tax on it. I'll bet we'd be running a budget surplus in under 3 years.
 
spittledip said:
Wow, an almost actual consensus among posters here in ATPN! I realize that voting for middle class representation is not the only issue at stake here, but it seems pretty fundamental to the maintenance of a stable economy within the country. Too bad people can't abandon the parties they actually don't even believe in to vote for a candidate that would represent the middle class. Is there one of those around?
Click to expand...

The problem is both sides of us are more interested in and focused on it NOT being the other party, to compromise on what we really want (someone for the middle class) and vote for the party we like 2nd best (republican/democrat).

IE the leftists are too interested in sticking it to the rich, and the rights are too interested in keeping the lefties from sticking it to the rich, and rather think you should just "work harder" instead of sticking it to somebody.

Both sides have solid examples of why their ideology is better. There's a hundred examples of government messing crap up-> hence the libertarian or conservative party. There's hundreds of cases of companies shafting the lower class-> hence the leftists.
We have to stop looking at only those scenarios and settling for "not that" though before we'll see the parties for who they really are.

I'm pretty sure we shouldn't count Hillary Clinton out yet. Bill was a master of doing enough of what both sides wanted, to make them happy. That's what people would be voting for if they saw "Clinton" on the ballot.

It could happen.

It seems everybody in Highschool was taught "well if you vote for a 3rd party you throw your vote away", everyone nodded it made sense. It wasn't until halfway through college I read a comment on slashdot where someone said, "no, the only way you throw your vote away is if you vote for someone you don't agree with 100%". +1 to that, too bad that nobody is able to come up with that themselves or else we wouldn't be stuck where we are now (rock and hard place between the left and right).
 
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astroidea said:
How the F do you think we could continue to fund all of these wars and provide so much foreign aid to countries when we're on the verge of bankruptcy? And no, getting rid of Bush's tax cuts wouldn't come close to being able to cover for it.
Click to expand...

The total cost of wars since 2001 has only been a little over $1T. If you want to count the entire military industrial complex, that's how that number changed into $4T over night (about 6 months ago someone did that and everyone jumped on the bandwagon). But if you're to count the retirees and vet benefits and all the F-22 planes in that number, that doesn't fall under generally accepted accounting principles. Yes, the wars were superfluous, but not having gone there wouldn't have saved us from that a 1:1 debt::GDP ratio.

and edit: just to be clear I'm not opposed to cutting defense spending, it's a giant black hole in a lot of ways...I'm just against dis-honestness regarding the war in Iraq & Afghan; or to be specific saying if we hadn't been there our country wouldn't still be $13T in the hole.
 
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