Comments on The First-In-The-Nation Presidential Caucus...

Amen, brother. Support who you like through the primary, but vote Democratic in the fall!

Good idea. I certainly wouldn't want Sherman Alexie to be calling me out again in the 2015 Regrets issue.

If you're registerd in the state of Washington, it doesn't matter who you vote for in November's presidential election.

It's depressing how much the two-party system affects how we vote; I, too, will vote for WHOMEVER the Democratic party nominates. Even if it's a tree. It's interesting, though, that most people I talk to seem to treat that fact as "I don't need to pay attention to the primaries since I'll vote for the Dem. candidate no matter what" instead of "I'll vote for the Dem candidate no matter what, so the primaries are the time to try to make sure it's someone I want to be president."

hey dan--i'm the guy from iowa who had the ITMFA license plates (which were later revoked, but i held onto them & sent you one via the stranger's address--i hope you recvd it)

my wife & i are in fairfield, ia, we are having a hard time deciding between obama & edwards (i see that edwards was here early this morn, stranger blogger eli sanders was no doubt here too)

from what we've seen, i predict that huckabee & ron paul will be the repub winners. obama & edwards will be the dem winners.

love your column & blog!

Hillary Clinton hella sucks but I'll vote for her over any republican except Abraham Lincoln/

I'm totally supporting Geraldine Ferraro in the primaries (the only true urban liberal who 100 percent supports gay marriage) but will vote for any Dem who wins the primary.

Andrew @6: Hillary Clinton hella sucks but I'll vote for her over any republican except Abraham Lincoln

My sentiments exactly. If it were Hillary-McCain, I'd be tempted by McCain, but I'd still check the (D). And if it were Hillary-Romney, I'd be thinking a lot more charitably of a Bloomberg presidential bid than I am now.

Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, the next best thing to Honest Abe is running in this election. And his name is Barack Obama:
http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tydfsfSQiYc

The stakes are too high NOT to vote third-party, Dan. None of the Democrat or Republican candidates who will survive the primary-process will deliver change.

@10: But none of the third party candidates who will finish third (or worse) in the final election will deliver change either.

No delegates will be elected from the caucus tonight though.

Voting third party is the last refuge of the criminally insane and the insanely criminal.

If Clinton wins the nomination, I would vote for third party Ron Paul. Paul is a Cracker Populist, but he would end the war, and bring our troops home from around the planet. The war is bankrupting our country, and supercharging global warming. Clinton would not end the war, no matter what she says now. The only “D” I would vote for is Edwards. I don not trust Oboma, he is all about compromise. Could you imagine Wall Mart Clinton defending net neutrality? Neither can I. As Kooky as Paul is, Clinton is worse.

@12: Paul is not a populist. That's an even worse description of his politics than ECB calling him a fascist. Nor is he a cracker; he's a medical doctor. It's true that Paul would end the Iraq War. Wars end. Then other wars begin. If Ron Paul had been president instead of FDR we'd all be speaking German and ECB would have first-hand knowledge of what fascism really is.

This is a dumb view to have but it's mine...and I'll live by it

last presidential election i voted for kerry, I had to get drunk before pushing that button for him and that afternoon, before the results were even in....that i would never vote for someone just because there not someone EVER again

so if it's hillary vs. hukabee
I'll either stay home and eats chips
find the most obscure canadite on the ballot and vote for him.....
or god forbid vote for huckabee....he's likeable and progressive in many ways, and represents regular people far more then that bitch

KK, I can see you are still a Clinton fan. War’s end? Yes they do, and Vietnam ended when congress stopped funding it. The Dem congress in power now has that option, yet refuses to use it. What if scenarios are weak. Osama and his bunch are not Nazi Germany, and neither war Saddam. There is no imminent “foreign” threat that can destroy America. Excluding 9/11, we have suffered more infrastructure damage by weak levies, and decrepit bridges, then terrorism. A vote for Clinton is a vote for Blackwater Death squads in Iraq, and not something like the Viaduct. If Clinton gets the nomination, I am voting for Paul.

A President can't deliver change alone, and none of the leading jokers in either party is particularly apt to change a fucking thing. I'm leaving that part of my ballot blank.

We need to stop paying so god-damned much attention to the shiny bauble that is presidential politics. It's making us collectively dumber.

Congress is where it's supposed to be at. Darth Vader himself could be elected president as long we have a decent fucking Congress. Article I, bitches! There's a reason the Founders put it first!

@9. Voting for a third party candidate is accomplishes nothing.
In two-party America (even in multi-party countries), no one candidate will ever exactly match your belief system. unless you're voting for yourself, you will always have to compromise on some issues. It will ALWAYS be the lesser of two evils. if you can't deal with that, go start your own fucking country. Contrary to popular belief, voting third-party isn;t throwing your vote away. It;s giving it to the other party. You KNOW the nonDem you want to vote for isn't going to win. You aren't making some heroic "fuck this system, I;m better than this" statement. All you're doing is announcing to everyone around you that you are throwing support to the Huckabees and Romneys of the world. You're lobbying indirectly for laws against the right to choose, the right to marry whoever you love, the right to breath without a church telling you it's a sin, and whatever the fuck else Huckabee wants to take away from us. Third-party candidates will not win in America, so why the hell wouldn't you at least vote for the candidate that is closest to your views in one of the two parties? Better to have Hillary in than Huckabee, even if I disagree with her on a lot of points, because I disagree with Huckabee/Romney/McCain, etc. on ALL points. So hold your nose and vote for a candidate with a shot.

I continue to be amazed at the vitriol "progressives" have for Hilary Clinton. I have said before and I will say again that there is not a GNAT'S ASS difference between her positions and Obama's. And compared to the Republicans, Clinton/Edwards/Obama are one fucking point on the map.

Not to be judgemental, but those of you who say "I'm a Democrat/Progressive/Hippy, but if Clinton is nominated I've leaving the country and/or voting for the Republican" should grab a steak knife, take the elevator up to the top of the Space Needle, and hurl yourselves off while simultaneously eviscerating yourselves. Really.

If Hillary Rodem Clinton wins the nomination, the Democrats are going to loose the election. Accept it, and act accordingly. A vote for Ron Paul will seem rational, and a third party will form, because Clinton is a war mongering, republican bitch with a D before her name.

hey! If we're going to refer to any of the candidates as 'bitch' let's use it universally with all of the candidates. It's harsh that you're all dropping that on Hillary and it's obviously because she's female. I haven't heard Obama or Edwards referred to as a 'dick' or 'prick'on the slog. If Hillary's politics are not your cup of tea, awesome. Speak your mind. Just leave the sexist rhetoric out of it.
- Not a Hillary fan

Big Sven,

There is an oceanic difference between Barack and Hilary, starting with: he would go talk to Iran about going nuclear, and she would bomb them. This she said just prior to finding out they had stopped their nuclear program years ago. Gnats ass? I think not. She changes her mind every time a focus group tells her to, he keeps his own council and goes out on a limb, telling Detroit some things have got to change. She walks on to stage and treats her colleagues like lepers, (how high school can you get?) and he treats everyone, even "rivals" like potential friends. The guy is presidential, he is someone other leaders can not only work with, but repect. May we finally have real leadership in this country!

I'm in, unless it's McCain vs. Hillary, in which case I vote for McCain, and so what, because it's Washington, and invitably Dem. But there are a lot more people just like me in other states, so if you really want the Dem to win more than anything else, pick Obama in Feb.

I continue to be amazed at the vitriol "progressives" have for Hilary Clinton. I have said before and I will say again that there is not a GNAT'S ASS difference between her positions and Obama's.

HRC's not a progressive and never was. There is not a GNAT'S ASS difference between her positions and Giuliani's. My concerns about Hillary is her inability to lead. I believe she would be the least effective president since Hoover, making W. and Carter look like FDR and Eisenhower. Her need to show she's not a pussy will get us into war with Iran.

If HRC's nominated I would vote for Fred Thompson or McCain. I might even vote for the weasel Mitt Romney. She gets my vote over Giuliani, Huckabee, or Paul.

@21 and @23-

Please take a candidate test...

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/ongoing/select_a_candidate/poll.php?race_id=13

...or similar before you say more idiotic things in public.

Better for you, better for us.

Thanks Sven. I took the quiz and it turns out I'm right in line with my two favorite candidates: Barack Obama and John Edwards, my dream ticket (second only to Gore/Obama). What exactly do you find so idiotic? I admit I wrote a typo- I meant respect on comment 21.) I think threatening Iran with bombs is significant, and Obama has taken a risk by eschewing militaristic rhetoric in favor of diplomacy. Huge difference, especially in light of recent intelligence. Among other differences. This does not seem like nuance to me, so please explain what you find so idiotic?

hope@25:

I'm confused as to how you can be right in line with both Obama and Edwards- they have different positions on a couple of issues. When I took the test, for example, I had a score of 9 for Obama and a score of 8 for Edwards and Clinton (I made to not change the default importance factors so that they wouldn't effect the score.) Shouldn't I have gotten the same score if they were on the same page?

But really, I got 8.5 +/- .5 on Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson. Because all five have very, very similar positions. The differences between Clinton and the rest of the Democratic pack are *miniscule* when compared to their collective differences from the Republicans. And that's what this poll shows.

I agree that probably the biggest difference between Clinton and Obama on policy is with respect to Iran, but the differences are not as large as you imply them to be. In the 9/26 debate, Obama said that "we will do everything we need to do to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. One of the things we have to try, though, is to talk directly to Iran." It emphasizes diplomacy, but leaves the door open to military action. The emphasis is different, but the policy is the same: military force if necessary.

Most of my venom was aimed @23. But at the risk of responding to your very polite email boorishly, I will attempt to respond to your question "what exactly do you find so idiotic?":

"She changes her mind every time a focus group tells her to..."

Example, please?

"She walks on to stage and treats her colleagues like lepers..."

Um, what? All the candidates have been pointed but polite in every debate I've seen. Was there a group hug that she opted out of that I missed?

"He treats everyone, even "rivals" like potential friends..."

Oh come on. All three of the major Democratic candidates have dumped on each other during this race. And that's healthy! It shows they have the intestinal fortitude to take what the Republicants will be dishing out in a few months and give it back to them! But to suggest otherwise is disingenuous (though I will admit, not idiotic.)

Congratulations on your candidate's win last night. The enthusiasm all you Obama fans show for your candidate is very impressive, and if you can keep it up, I'm sure he will take not just the nomination but the Presidency. But for now I think I can continue to support Clinton without surrendering either my ACLU or DSCC cards.