Iowa Hiho!

[Rorschach]

Clinton - lying womaniser.
Romney - Mormon moron.
Obama - progressive dreamer.

Hmm... tough choice outa that lot.
looks to me like the US and Australia are both going through a dearth of political talent.

[IQS.RLOW]

The Romney/Ryan ticket looks far more impressive as an economic management team (which the US is in dire need of above all else) than Obama/Biden

[Rorschach]

excerpt...

Consider this a list of the top 10 verbal misfires under the pitiless glare of the national political stage.


John McCain, 2008: ''The fundamentals of the economy are strong.''

This off-key attempt at reassurance, delivered in mid-September as Lehman Brothers was collapsing, helped seal the fate of a losing campaign. The beneficiary was Barack Obama, who had endured his own embarrassment over a secretly recorded remark to donors that some working-class voters ''cling to their guns or religion'' as reasons to support Republicans.

John Kerry, 2004: ''I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.''

The comment about money to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan helped cement Kerry's reputation as an equivocating politician after President George W. Bush's campaign exploited it in mocking television ads.

Al Gore, 2000: ''I took the initiative in creating the internet.''

Critics seized on this clumsy assertion, made during a CNN interview, to lampoon Gore as a brazen embellisher taking credit for the innovation. The attacks later helped Bush's campaign to influence media post-mortems after a debate in which Gore made minor misstatements.

Bill Clinton, 1996: ''You think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too.''

With that acknowledgment at a Houston fund-raiser, Clinton roiled Democrats, Republicans and his own aides. He won re-election against Republican Bob Dole easily anyway.

George Bush, 1992: ''Message: I care.''

Stung by accusations that he was disconnected from the economic struggles of average Americans, Bush fuelled them by giving New Hampshire voters this piece of political stage direction. Clinton's ''It's the economy, stupid'' campaign withstood publication of a 1970 letter in which he acknowledged having avoided fighting in Vietnam without resisting the draft ''to preserve my political viability''.

Michael Dukakis, 1988: ''I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.''

This emotionless response, to a debate question whose hypothetical premise involving the rape and murder of his wife, fixed Dukakis's image as a technocrat at odds with most Americans on the high-voltage issue of crime and punishment.

Walter Mondale, 1984: ''Mr Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.''

Intending to impress with candour, Mondale handed the Republican incumbent, Ronald Reagan, a weapon with this stunner in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. Reagan won in a landslide.

Ronald Reagan, 1980: ''Approximately 80 per cent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation.''

Democrats used this so-called killer trees statement to cast Reagan as a know-nothing, extremist retired actor. But Reagan swept to victory.

Gerald Ford, 1976: ''There is no Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.''

The misstatement, intended to signal solidarity with those under the Soviet Union's thumb, allowed his opponent Jimmy Carter to question the incumbent's foreign policy acumen. Carter won a close race despite his own awkward confession to Playboy magazine that he had ''committed adultery in my heart many times''.

George Romney, 1968: ''When I came back from Vietnam I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody can get.''

This remark, about Romney's conversations with US diplomats and military leaders on the Vietnam war, led to the collapse of his challenge to Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination.

That gaffe produced a striking bit of recent political analysis - from Romney's son Mitt. During his failed bid for the 2008 Republican nomination, the younger Romney said his father's experience was ''probably not that applicable to today''. ''Running for president in the YouTube era, you realise you have to be very judicious in what you say,'' Romney said in 2007. ''Any time you're running for the presidency of the United States, you're on.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/open-mouth- ... z27ARGFZ4C" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Super Nova]

It's going to be harsh for the rest of the planet if Romney wins...

Romney would be worse than Bush, although Tony Abbott might get on with him.

What utter partisan nonsense. This constant catastrophization and demonization of the contrasting political is doing far more damage to the 'rest of the planet' than any moderate conservative would ever do. Romney is the least conservative republican in my memory.

While my vote would be for Obama if I were actually living in America, as a member of the 'rest of the world' I kinda hope Romney will ger back in. It doesn't matter to me whether Americans have health care, own guns, abort thier children, or tax thier poor. These are domestic issues. What impacts on us is whether America is at war, and whether America is financially sound. The last 4 years have proven that Obama is no better than a republican at avoiding or extricating America from war, and I tend to think Romney has the ability to return the us economy to business as usual. What he did for the Massachusetts economy, in the face of an overwhelming democratic congress, was nothing short of a miracle.

So this lefty has two fingers crossed for mitt. But either way, the us has two very solid candidates up for election this time. Whoever gets in, my only hope is they get in with enough votes to actually make something happen.

I think we are heading for a clash of ideals with Islam and China. It is important for humanity that the US, as the self appointed representative of democracy be seen to be a great society and a role model for the world. I don't see it as that. I see it as the land of money and money is power. It is the land of capitalism only. I don't see it as a balanced society, more one of extremes. Extreme wealth and power for the individual, if you don't make it, well you may as well just die.

I see Australia and Europe as being more representative of how the worlds societies should evolve. We need the US to regain some moral high ground. Not looking after it's people will threaten the evolution of human society and the world we live in.

[IQS.RLOW]

Europe is a basket case that has leaned further left while the US has had the balance by being further right.

Europe needs to shift further to the right than the US needs to shift to the left to achieve balance...the US has already shifted leftwards in the last 4 years as has Australia...and what a disaster that has been.

Appeasement and tossing money around is not good politics or economic policy and is why the left only find themselves governing for short spaces of time over the long term...they are fucking morons who fuck everything up in pursuit of ideology

[AiA in Atlanta]

It's going to be harsh for the rest of the planet if Romney wins...

Romney would be worse than Bush, although Tony Abbott might get on with him.

What utter partisan nonsense. This constant catastrophization and demonization of the contrasting political is doing far more damage to the 'rest of the planet' than any moderate conservative would ever do. Romney is the least conservative republican in my memory.

While my vote would be for Obama if I were actually living in America, as a member of the 'rest of the world' I kinda hope Romney will ger back in. It doesn't matter to me whether Americans have health care, own guns, abort thier children, or tax thier poor. These are domestic issues. What impacts on us is whether America is at war, and whether America is financially sound. The last 4 years have proven that Obama is no better than a republican at avoiding or extricating America from war, and I tend to think Romney has the ability to return the us economy to business as usual. What he did for the Massachusetts economy, in the face of an overwhelming democratic congress, was nothing short of a miracle.

So this lefty has two fingers crossed for mitt. But either way, the us has two very solid candidates up for election this time. Whoever gets in, my only hope is they get in with enough votes to actually make something happen.

Meh, the only "Massachusetts Miracle" was RomneyCare not the state's economy. It is Romney's proudest achievement and the greatest thing he will ever do whether he is elected president or not.

No president could have done anymore that Obama these last 4 years to turn the economy around in these unprecedented times.

[IQS.RLOW]

Can you articulate what Obama has done to turn around the US economy?

[mantra]

Can you articulate what Obama has done to turn around the US economy?

Considering the mess Bush left the US economy in - it will probably never turn around. Obama has at least tried to give something back to the little people considering so many have been exploited by rampant capitalists over the past decade - hence the GFC.

I do agree with Mattus though in regard to Obama not extricating the US from the "War on Terror" - it is the same here with our current government, but it would be beyond their control as too many deals and agreements have been entered into. The Coalition of the Willing are committed as a team and only they know for how long.

There is another war on the horizon with China hence the increase in American troops here. Romney would be as impotent as Obama in withdrawing from the ME and slowing down activities here in Australia.

AUSTRALIA has been quietly building a regional defence coalition to restrain China's increasingly ''aggressive'' and ''autistic'' international behaviour, an influential adviser to the Pentagon says.

Edward Luttwak bluntly contradicts Australian and US denials that they see China as a threat or want to contain its rise.

The emerging latticework of regional defence arrangements augments ''the overall capacity of the US-Australian alliance to contain China''.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/australi ... z27ErVl7zy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AiA in Atlanta]

Can you articulate what Obama has done to turn around the US economy?

1. General Motors was rescued. Romney has said it should have been left to die.

[Rorschach]

1... ya gotta do better than that.