Barack Obama Crushes Billary Clinton in SC.

Anne Observer wrote:

I don't deny that. In fact, I gave the stats. But that's immaterial. The point of your post (and repeated in your reply) is that Clinton was not popular. That's simply not true. Besides, if you're really hung up on how many people voted for which candidate, don't forget that even if someone had won 2/3rds of the popular vote in the past several elections, they'd still have only received about 1/3rd of the available voters. You can pick one little statistic and repeat it endlessly, but that in no way proves your original contention.

Apparently, you can't read. Whether or not I like someone or not has nothing to do with the published facts on voter turnout and votes cast. I will state for the record that BC was not my idea of the ideal president.

Then what was the point of your original post?

My point wasn't that Clinton wasn't popular, but that he wasn't as popular when he was elected as people seem to think. More than that though I was trying to demonstrate that while a lot of people liked him, a LOT of people hated him.

There are always lots of options at the polls, but Clinton never got 50% of the popular vote. I never said anything about potential voters, just that most people that showed up to vote picked someone other than Bill Clinton. You don't seem to appreciate that fact.

That's all I'm going to say on this topic, I'm not wasting anymore bandwidth pointing out facts you can't comprehend or understand.

Mr. Dew,

Let's inject some more relevant data into your posts:

Clinton ended his term as president with a 65% job approval rating (source: ABC news). Show me a president that left with higher numbers. His personal approval rating was almost the complete inverse (but as I alluded to in an earlier post, who really gives a shit if you like someone, so long as they're doing their job?).

Please list a 1992 or 1996 Presidential candidate who received more votes than Bill Clinton, because I can think of one who received more votes than GWB in 2000...

Why are people still wasting keystrokes on Mtn Dew on this board?

I guess it's just one of those things. Like selling stock in a bear market or seeking cover under a tree in a thunderstorm.

who cares about past presidents?

seriously, they're past.

But Obama did recieve some nice endorsements today.

mobile9 wrote:

Avocado:

Can you explain how "Bill Clinton not being a good persob" would have any influence on your vote for him? Wouldn't you simply vote for the candidate whom you thought could do the best job?

If you're in need of open heart surgery, would you prefer the Charlie Church doc who's a less capable surgeon or the womanizer who's the nest damn doc on the planet?

Also: your policy against AA is the law in France and guess what: as of 2005, not a single police capt. in Paris of non-European descent. They want to make it seem that prejudice doesn't exist when it's alive and well.

It sounds as though you define the "job" of U.S. President much more narrowly than I do. For better or worse, the U.S. President is much more than the top bureaucrat in the federal government -- much more than (to borrow from the old saying about Mussolini) the guy who makes the trains run on time. The U.S. President is a representative and a symbol of the United States, both within the country and throughout the world at large. I want that person to reflect the best of our country, not the sleaziest. Also, it turns out that character often does make a difference in job performance, including performance in CEO positions at publicly-traded companies. I think it's reasonable to believe that, at the margin, character matters in a U.S. President as well, although correlations might not be as high as some of us believe or would like to believe. (I think that Bill Clinton was, overall, not a bad President, even though I believe that he was and is a bad person.)

It's interesting that, in suggesting that the "goodness" of a person shouldn't matter in the choice of U.S. President, you draw an analogy to the choice between the "Charlie Church doc" (who, I take it, is a good human being but a lousy surgeon) and the "womanizer" (who, I take it, is a bad human being but a great surgeon), and you then follow that up with an apparent endorsement of race-based affirmative action programs. For my surgeon, I do generally want the most skilled person available, even if he cheats on his wife as well as his taxes. And for very similar reasons, I don't want someone who got into medical school, or a residency, or a surgical staff position because of a race-based affirmative-action program. I think that most people, when they're about to undergo open-heart surgery, would feel the same way where their choice of surgeon really is a life-or-death matter.

I have no idea how Parisian police captains are selected. Perhaps you do. (Indeed, if you don't, then your suggestions of racial prejudice in the selection process seem irresponsible.) I also have no idea whether it would be valuable to have some Parisian police captains who are not of European descent, although -- given the level of racial tension and division in Paris -- I suspect that it might be. But any assumption that racial disparities in a job market are merely a consequence of racial prejudice is belied by hard facts. Moreover, any assumption that racial disparities in a job market necessarily reflect a problem that requires remediation is, in my view, unwarranted.

Teddy K was sitting next to Obama tonight, did you see their faces when Bush brought up the health care system?

Mtn Dew wrote:

There are always lots of options at the polls, but Clinton never got 50% of the popular vote. I never said anything about potential voters, just that most people that showed up to vote picked someone other than Bill Clinton. You don't seem to appreciate that fact.

I appreciate the fact that it is a talking point that you have glommed onto that has little relevance to Clinton's job approval ratings. You just keep repeating that factoid over and over and maybe you'll eventually forget that Clinton's approval rating when he left office was around where GWB's DISapproval rating is now.

You're not kidding anybody.

Spaceship rides wrote:

" kidnaps and tortures citizens of other countries,"

reality check here.

Stop watching Fox News and you'd realize he's quoting reality...

Why should his personal life matter? There was a time when that wasn't reported because it wasn't relevant to the issues at hand. I want a capable person in the executive branch. Like him or not, there's no denying that Clinton is a sharp guy, a fantastic politician, and a total dog who cannot keep his dick in his pants. But I'd much rather have him in charge right now, rather than laughing boy who I'm sure doesn't fool around, but he's a complete idiot. Any personal character issues should come a distant second to what they're actually going to do.

I understand your good counter point on AA. it's a tough spot, but there has to be some recognition of the situation.

Re: Cops in Paris: No luck getting a job if you're name is Hicham el Guerrouj.

Obama is supposedly in line for alot more endorsements this week prior to next weeks voting. That's the word on the street.

mobile9 wrote:

Like him or not, there's no denying that Clinton is a sharp guy, a fantastic politician, and a total dog who cannot keep his dick in his pants. But I'd much rather have him in charge right now, rather than laughing boy who I'm sure doesn't fool around, but he's a complete idiot.

We agree on that much, anyway.