Talking to my son the other day by phone from Sunny Coast to Perth and I asked the question.... "who do you think will win the US election?" I knew it would lead to a convoluted answer and it did for a full 15 minutes.
Bottom line...... Obama,
as the US is not wanting another Clinton in the White House (my god it was bad enough we had to endure 2 Bush's) and Hillary is guilty by association
I hope he wins. I do not want Clinton to win. At least Obama speaks well and is easy to listen to.

Thompson abandons White House bid
(CNN) -- Former Sen. Fred Thompson on Tuesday ended his run for the presidency, coming off the heels of a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina's GOP primary and heading into the showdown state of Florida next week.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee has dropped out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States," Thompson said in a statement.

"I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Thompson entered the race in September, long after his Republican rivals had announced their candidacies and began raising money. His campaigning style was criticized as lackluster, and he was never able to capitalize on the anticipation supporters had built before he announced that he was getting into the race.

Thompson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and represented Tennessee for eight years.

Short of cash and sinking in national polls, Thompson had staked his hopes on South Carolina, where a strong showing could have reinvigorated his flagging campaign.
Thompson played to the voters as a staunch conservative and a son of the South. While he did draw some evangelical voters from one-time Baptist preacher and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, it wasn't enough to pull him into contention for the nomination.

He finished with 16 percent of the vote. Sen. John McCain won Saturday's contest with 33 percent, followed by Huckabee with 30 percent.

"He's really been good lately, but it's too late," CNN analyst Bill Bennett said of Thompson after South Carolina returns started to come in. "If you're a Southern conservative and you can't make it in South Carolina, it's over."

Earlier, Thompson finished third in Iowa, fifth in Michigan and Nevada, sixth in New Hampshire and a distant second to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in Wyoming.

Thompson teased Republicans all last summer after forming a fundraising committee for a possible presidential campaign on June 1.

When he announced in September that he was formally entering the race, it was well after the other Republicans had launched their campaigns, and analysts said the late entry may have hurt him.

Thompson is an actor best known for his role as District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's "Law & Order."

Five candidates remain in the Republican race -- McCain, Huckabee, Romney, Rep. Ron Ron Paul of Texas and former New York Mayor Rudy Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani has largely skipped the early voting states to focus on the January 29 primary in Florida and the delegate-rich races in the "Super Tuesday" primaries February 5.
[url]
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/22/thompson.out/index.html[/url]

Thank god for that.

hey by the time of the election will clinton and obama have figured out which of them is actually running  

From what little I understand of all this, is that it is likely neither will get enough to win outright. Hillary won two big states a couple of days ago, Obama won a swall state today (Wyoming I think). Theres also the two states that are ineligible to vote!! Wot tha  


I thought Le Tour de France was the toughest race in the world, but even they would be in the beer tents by now.

It's such a long process. Can you imagine them doing it here with Brendan Nelson and I dunno Malcolm Turnbull battling it out for a year just to determine who is the opposition leader?

I saw one commentator on CNN remark that the longer Clinton and Obama slug it out, the more presidential John McCain looks. Not far from wrong, I think.

Quoted from GlenTheAdmin

I saw one commentator on CNN remark that the longer Clinton and Obama slug it out, the more presidential John McCain looks. Not far from wrong, I think.

I can't see McCain loosing even though the Republicans have looked like a long shot most of the time due to the current administration. Whether it ends up being Obama or Clinton running for the democrats if you cut right through it Joe average is going to be  squirmish about either.

I just participated in an online poll asking if I thought Obama would make a good President. I voted and the results were two thirds of voters said 'Yes' and one third said 'No'.
Recently I was told Barak Obama is a Muslim. Now, I am not against Muslims as a whole but there are Radical Elements which don’t think twice about killing themselves in a suicide bomb blast killing 50 plus innocents all for Allah. I have done a bit of study of the origins of this religion and of Muhammad and as per usual humans have read these teachings and construed them to their own interpretation/s. The Bible suffers the same treatment by 'radicals' of Christian Faith. Type the word radical into your Microsoft document and then go to the Thesaurus to see exactly what words can replace Radical….
EG: fundamental, extremist, militant, fanatic, revolutionary…. You get the picture.  
Now if Barak Obama is a Muslim and by some miracle get’s into the White House… is he going to cave into the fundamentalist Muslim point of view or be coerced into taking a more Islamic stance? I am just thinking out loud here and am worried to a degree if this could come to pass. I actually admire the ‘normal’, ‘regular’ Muslims and their faithfulness to Islam. Look at our friend Silly's family and Sillygostly himself. There are many more Muslims in our midst than we realise because not all of them wear the traditional dress of Islam and in a crowd could not be singled out as such. Which is as it should be. Back on track, can anyone illuminate me on Barak Obama's faith? Or have I been lead up the Garden Path.

I'm not quite sure, but I think he was raised a Muslim in Kenya up to a point, and then in the United States, but came to a point as many people do of questioning his religious dogma as well as his faith itself, and is no longer a Muslim.  I wouldn't be surprised if he's converted to Christianity because to call yourself one is beneficial to a large chunk of the American vote when you get into federal politics.

I had decided that I wasn't going to vote in this next election as a result of not really knowing what's going on in the country anymore, but I'm sort of afraid not to now even if he gets well rated to win as, although I think today it makes less and less differance anyway, I'm sort of hoping for a situation where Democrats can get some balance back into the works after 8 very right wing years of Bush.

I was thinking this morning though, that in any 2 party system, and this seems to apply much more in the US, that things are messed up because you don't have an all around balance.  The idea is to have an all around balance of politicians as people but you don't.. Democrats sort of have to stick by their party's policies and so do Republicans, so it becomes a black and white world on every decision and we become, over time, a people of black and white thinking when it comes to our political views on more things than we would perhaps otherwise be that way about.  Democrats are for abortion, against the war in Iraq, for gun control, for a more socialized medical and education system as well as elderly care yet the elderly are the first people to get shafted no matter who takes office, against the death penalty, for small business (sort of joke these days), would like to tax the more wealthy more in order to give cuts to the poor and middle class, etc etc, and if you just insert the exact opposite then you get Republican, which sounds sort of nasty but they have their reasons that aren't without logic.
It's a fairly stupid system, yet in general things just always come down to 2 parties weather it's 2 major parties or 2 almost exclusivley.  In the United states the only other ones I'm aware of are the real radical ones like The Libertarian party, the Nazi party (freedom of expression at its finest), and things like that.  It seems that in a world of capitalism run by corporations and bought politicians, nothing good will happen quickly.  I was at the corner store the other day and thought to myself that including the land, it was a Mobile station, that including the land it was on, and every single product inside the store from potato chips to milk was a corporate affair of one type or another, and by law their job is to make investors money and that by nature it makes the rule of supply and demand dictating price something that isn't followed when it doesn't need to be, for example when it's easier for everyone to just keep prices high.  I'd better stop rambling before I get into buying politicians and bullying governments.  I'm hugely off topic already.

I think it's not anything to be worried about, that the guy was Muslim, and if it is an influence then hopefully it would be one to end the terrorist paranoia in the US that's making it possible to sell to the people the idea of random invasion... that's overstating the US mentality but there's some truth to it.  I doubt it would be any kind of influence at all, and the idea of him taking office is a plausible one.  I know that the really long slap fight between him and Hilary hurt both of their chances, and the best bet being a democratic win right now, his biggest obsticles are things like being black, and as stated with the religious issue.  Also bullets... a lot of people would rather shoot a black guy than see him take office, and many people feel once a Muslim always a Muslim and that it's a disreputable thing to be.  It's a sick cruel world.

Obama has been a devout Christian for over 25 years. His father was a Muslim and throughout his childhood Obama attended a number of Muslim and then Catholic schools. Obama and his family have been attending a christian parish in Chicago for over 20 years which alot of this was made public recently with the contrversy of Rev. Jeremy Wright, his pastor and former mentor at the Parish.

Quoted Text

Now if Barak Obama is a Muslim and by some miracle get’s into the White House… is he going to cave into the fundamentalist Muslim point of view or be coerced into taking a more Islamic stance?

I'm surprised that nobody's commented about McCain.  He's a Christian but I don't see anyone commenting about christian fundamentalists.  

Yeah I was surprised no one did either.  
It's not really politically harmful to be a Christian though, and it is helpful with some vote.  It's a shame to see that it's such an issue at all, or that because someone affiliates with anything at all ends up causing worry that they're going to run a fanatic's course.  80% of the world is religious and there's quite a few different ones out there, but the online paranoia about religion being such a detriment overall is endorsed by the minority of even what's left over from that number, so I think it's over reacting to listen to it and worry about it.  
The time to think about it might be when someone is actually campaigning on that point rather than it being brought up and having to answer the questions to it, like we saw with Bush in the western world and what we're led to presume is the case in some parts of the Muslim world.

Maybe the best outcome Australians can hope for from the US election, over a 4 year period, is one that doesn't involve a militaristic tyrant, I think.  It looks like the economy there will stay crashed for an expensive time to come, and hopefully sorting that out won't mean meddling in everyone's business.
Good to see the Rudd government taking some initiative with soldiers in Iraq.  It's almost as if, but not quite, someone representing Australians in office actually took responsibility for them being there rather than entirely blaming it on some other country, an ally, overseas.  

If the republicans are hoping on Christian votes to get elected then I suppose they will regret turning back all those Catholics coming across the border from Mexico.

Quoted from aquamonkey

Whether it ends up being Obama or Clinton running for the democrats if you cut right through it Joe average is going to be  squirmish about either.

Why?

Coz joe average can't relate to either of them. Obama is african american and Hilary is a woman. joe average in america is usually an anglo-saxon christian/jewish (if you wanna go by stereotypes).

Quoted from Matt

Coz joe average can't relate to either of them. Obama is african american and Hilary is a woman. joe average in america is usually an anglo-saxon christian/jewish (if you wanna go by stereotypes).

It will be interesting to see what the turnout is this time.  I would think that it would be an easy Democratic win if it's a normal voter turnout, but it probably will not be typical this time.

With Hilary there would have been a large number of women voters won over as it's been a real question as to when we would have the first woman president.  Her downfall I think was a real stink of an overconfidence.  I saw her interviewed before all the primary campaining and she seemed sure of win all the way back then.  I was personally annoyed when I saw it and felt dissapointed that it's what the Democratic party was offering.

With Obama, there should be record numbers of Black voters appearing to vote, remember it isn't mandantory in the US.  At the same time, there will be a large number of southern White people who will vote racially... but it doesn't matter because those are Republican votes anyway.  Mexican and other Latin community voters don't turn out in as great of numbers either, but they usually vote Democrat by way of economics and the US right wing is not liked in the part of the world those migrants come from.

I was expecting, a while back, that this would be the sort of incredible landslide that put Clinton in office, when at the time people just wanted someone new and the Republican party was held in low regard.  I think Bush today has led the country into such a bad position, that people aren't holding the party responsible so much and want any change they can get and are thus looking at McCain as a viable contender.  When Clinton won, he wasn't running agianst fresh meat, but against George Bush Senior's second term.  I wish it was the situation here, that George Jr. was facing a second term.  

The US seems to be coming down to the swing voters in the past two elections, meaning that they've been close enough that it's fair to say that amoung those turning out, most are voting their party, and the deciding vote is whoever wins over those who don't have one or think they're party has an incompetant candidate (hard to believe Bush took the second term last time).  This time we'll be seeing an increase in black voters.  I would expect a Democratic win, but a real wildcard is that the economy is not well and it plays into people's fears, and this could make it go either way.  I'm optimistic of a Democratic win.  I don't however, know what the best thing is... so me, as someone who votes Democrat out of the ideology of Domestic economics, and doesn't look at global economics, is himself unsure of what is best.  I think many people will feel the same.  I'll still vote Democrat.  Many people will just vote for who they find is more Charismatic.

The minority vote is a huge thing btw.  The stereotype may be white, but that's inflated by the fact that it's where the money is in the society.


I registered to vote again today, speaking of racial issues, and one of the questions was what race I am.  It's funny because in the US people are obsessed with gathering those statistics, and on some forms it's actually required.  On this one it was optional, but job applications ask it for example, and it isn't so employers can look at it and say "Pfft! Hispanic" and throw it in the garbage, but because they have to meet guidlines of hiring minorities or they get fined.  Everything there asks your race. It's weird now.  Also sometimes a form will ask your sexuality and have tick boxes for gay straight and bisexual.  You're afraid not to answer because you don't want to be discriminated against as if you didn't answer becuase you're gay and going to be problematic and snap your fingers, like women on Oprah, in other people's faces.