Power-tripping.  i think she's more driven by the title of "First Female President" than by the desire to do the right things.  She's not lazy though, she knows the processes of gov't well, and she has a lot of powerful connections.  She'll definitely get things done, but it's a question of whether they'll be the right things.  Just my $.02 

She is for it:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=2073 

Now that I've had my cynical say, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I'll vote for Edwards in the primary if he's still in the running.  If not, I'll vote for Kucinich, who can't win anyway because the monte dealer's and pickpocket's bosses have seen to it. 

In the general election, I would fucking kill myself before voting Republican. I hate everything the Republicans are and everything they stand for, which is an odd statement for someone who was a registered Republican a mere six years ago.  I wasn't paying attention until recently.  Unfortunately, if you pay attention long enough, you get scared and want to just hide from the whole thing because it's not just the Republicans; it's everything.

If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, I don't think I could make myself vote for her. She's nothing but a shill. If Obama wins, I might hold my nose and vote for him.  If Edwards wins, I'll vote for him in good conscience, but I still don't trust him.

I'm kind of "finished" with politics for now.  I got involved and jaded within just a few years.  The problem is HUGE.  Even if we got decent candidates, the voting process itself is compromised.  There's no good leader to rally behind, at least not at this point.  Me?  I'm not political material.  I'm an Indian, not a chief.

Unfortunately, not participating is not an option as far as I'm concerned.  Yes the idiots will continue to screw things up as they have for the past 30 years or so.  None of the current crop of politicians are desirable to any degree.  If only there was a good third party choice available.  Be wary of a dem or repug switching to the independent ticket.  The party might be different but the candidate will still be whatever party he/she/it came from.  Basically, I think this nation is on it's last legs.  If the corps don't kill it, the fundies will (along with the rest of the world).

George Carlin, with VP Peschi.... Oh wait, well I guess I would have to go with Obama though I personally wish he were "Independant".  It would prolly piss off the white Supremecists, they are idiots anyways.

I watched the debates last night from New Hampshire. None of the Republicans impressed me.

With the Democrats however, Hillary and Edwards came off looking the strongest. I think right now I'm probably leaning a little more toward Hillary.

Being 56 years old, I'm old enough to remember every presidential election since Kennedy and Nixon. And time after time in every election, Americans complain, "There's not much of a choice. Everybody running is an idiot!" It's all part of the process.

I'd vote if there were a candidate who represented my views. There isn't, so I'm not.

 Thank you!

 Truly, I find libertarianism to be as socially naive as communism is economically naive. 

Honestly, if the size of the government was directly relational to the amount of power it held, then why do the terms "dictatorship" and "monarchy" go hand-in-hand so frequently throughout history. If anything, the larger the government is, then the less power each government official could ever have at any given time.

 The reality is, it only matters how far removed a government is from the society it governs. If a government is truly answerable to the populace and is held accountable for its actions by the same legal system as the populace, then the size of the government honestly doesn't matter. 

Sounds good if you accept the premise that the government is infallible.  Of course, if you don't accept that premise, then paying those 65% taxes could mean funding unethical behavior, which would in turn be unethical.  And I'm guessing that anyone who refused to pay those taxes would be thrown in jail by the police, right?  Hmm... bears a certain resemblance to a criminal protection racket... you pay us and we'll protect you, "or else". 

Are you talking about Ron Paul?

The fundamentalist pro-life anti-gay-marriage crackpot?

The guy who gets and keeps funding from Stormfront? The guy who, for nearly three decades, has had a newsletter full of racism, bigotry, and conspiracy theories that was either written by him (his signature is on a few pages, as are references to "my wife Carol" and "my training as a physician&quot or ghostwritten and allowed to be published in his name (one of the publishers still works for his campaign)?

The guy who advocates total removal of things like the FDA and the Department of Education and the return to unworkable economic policies like a gold standard?

The guy who thinks that home schools should not be required to meet national standards while at the same time thinks that home school diplomas should all be considered identical to other high school diplomas on college applications?

The guy who wrote the We The People Act and introduced it several times, an act which would prevent the Federal government from hearing cases regarding religion, abortion, privacy, and sex, and would remove all precedents on such cases? Goodbye Roe v. Wade, the Separataion of Church and State, and Lawrance v. Texas! (Did you know that Texas has a law that atheists can't hold public office?)

The guy who said the Civil Rights Act just made racism worse and voted against a Congressional Medal for Rosa Parks but voted for medals for Cold War Soldiers? (He voted against the Parks medal, saying that the government shouldn't spend money, but he voted for the other medals for soldiers and the Rosa Parks medal bill also stated that duplicates should be made and sold to cover the cost.)

And let's not forget he was the sole Representative to vote NO on a bill saying that the government would no longer issue contracts to companies funding the Darfur genocide.

Ron Paul is a terrible candidate who has floated on a wave of Internet libertarian supporters who either don't know his platform beyond "no more war", "fix the Constitution" (except for birthright citizenship as granted in the 14th amendment, he's not too big on that one) and "fix the economy" (which the gold standard wouldn't do anyway), or people who really do know his terrible positions and support them all.

If Ron Paul becomes the President of the United States, I will either move or help kill him myself. He really is that terrible once you look into it.

Yes.

Fundamentalist? Maybe. I don't know what particular flavor of Christianity he's been brainwashed into believing, but presidential candidates who don't claim to believe in God seem to be a rarity. Granted, the fact that he would write this http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2003/tst122903.htm on the House of Representatives' website is perhaps a good reason not to vote for him, as it suggests an entanglement of religious beliefs and government decision-making, but it's not a good reason to exclude him from presidential debates.

Pro-life? Yes. But that by itself is not really unreasonable if you accept the premise that killing humans is a bad thing.

Anti-gay-marriage? Where did you hear that? According to http://www.issues2000.org/Ron_Paul.htm, he voted against Constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage or define marriage as one man and one woman.

Crackpot? As defined how? If you mean having ideas that are not widely accepted, that's only a bad thing if you think that ideas being widely accepted make them somehow better. If you mean having ideas that don't make sense, would you care to elaborate? From what I've seen his positions seem more rationally consistent than those of the average politician.

Funding from stormfront? If you're referring to $500 being donated to Ron Paul's campaign by Don Black, the owner of the Stormfront web page, then to call that a donation from Stormfront itself is inaccurate and misleading. As far as keeping the donation, is that somehow a problem? It's not an endoresement of Don Black's personal agenda. Also, is $500 supposed to mean that Don Black has Ron Paul "in his pocket"? That would seem pretty far-fetched to me, especially considering it's less than 25% of the maximum donation allowable by law.

The newsletter. Well, I haven't played investigative reporter on this issue, but I did hear about 1 racist article published in Ron Paul's name that he claimed was ghostwritten. It sounded like the sort of issue that would be difficult to determine the truth regarding, so I didn't try. The allegation that he's been promoting racism and bigotry over a 3 decade time span is much bigger than the one article I had read about, and if you've found any evidence to support this allegation, please share it.

Racism. His official position on racism is that it's a form of "group-think", meaning that it's defining an individual by which groups that individual is a member of, and that such "group-think" is always wrong. However, given his age, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he subconsciously has some racist prejudice left over from the time period he grew up in just as I occasionally find that I have traces of Christianity left in my subconscious from my childhood that I hadn't gotten around to reevaluating. I don't know whether or not that's the case, but in any event his conscious statement on the issue seems to imply that he's not a racist.

The FDA and the Department of Education aren't exactly doing the best job. Also, excuse my ignorance, but is the Department of Education even authorized? The FDA is, at least with regards to foods that are distributed between states, because of the commerce clause. But, unless there's a constitutional amendment that I missed, I don't see how the Department of Education falls under the enumerated powers of the federal government.

Why do you say the gold standard is an unworkable economic policy?

With regards to requiring home-schooling to meet national standards, please refer to my question about the Department of Education.

With regards to considering home school diplomas to be identical to other high school diplomas, granted, this seems to be incompatible with getting federal influence out of education. That would be a great issue to challenge him with in a debate and let him show us whether or not he's really thought this through. If he hasn't, don't you think that's the sort of thing people ought to be able to learn from watching him try to answer a question about it?

Regarding this We the People Act, that would also be a great issue to raise in a debate or an interview. At a glance, it sounds like a bad idea to me, but not just cause to dismiss his entire political platform.

And yes, I am aware that atheists aren't allowed to hold public office in Texas, either by law or by the Texas constitution... I forget which states place that restriction by which means. And yes, that is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Personally, I think "no religious test" should be a constitutionally protected right that propogates down from the federal goverment through all levels of government the way other constitutionally protected rights do. I'm not convinced that Ron Paul agrees, and that would again be a good reason not to vote for him... but not a good reason to exclude him from a debate.

Again, please excuse my ignorance, but I would have to know which Cold War soldiers he voted in favor of giving medals to and what they did to be nominated for them in order to either agree or disagree with those decisions. As for voting against the Rosa Parks medal bill, I would again want to know more about his reasoning... but a brief look at wikipedia's entry on the Medal states that it's for armed forces who "…conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States…". So, the Medal of Honor doesn't seem to be applicable to a civilian... I would think there would be something more suitable for that, say a Nobel Peace Prize?

As for the complaint against the Civil Rights Act, to which Civil Rights Act are you referring? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act

Hmm... I would expect him to be opposed to U.S. military action in Darfur, but.... I'm sorry, but why the hell would the U.S. be issuing contracts to companies funding the Darfur genocide in the first place? How did the situation come about that necessitated the bill that you're claiming he voted against? Can you please elaborate on this point?

Okay, this is an obvious false dichotomy. Ron Paul's popularity, I think, is the result of a lot of Americans who are very unhappy with the federal government as it exists right now and want to see it function as it was originally intended to.

Then you should want the voting public to understand your reasons for not wanting him to become the President. These kinds of issues should be addressed through rational discussion rather than censorship.