What are you in your opinion?

surrealistik said:

you still need to do something about private lobbying and revolving doors and pacs/indirect political spending.

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gone.

The Mark said:

I fit this description as well.

I consider the root of the problem to be private financing of elections, exacerbated in recent times by allowing corporations to support candidates through PACs.
This has caused all other issues, or raised already existing ones to the level of threat.

I'm registered democrat so I can have some minimal say in who the general election candidates are.

What I've seen of internal democratic politics makes me think we'll have Trump for 8 years, sometimes.

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Regarding the bolded...yes, yes, a thousand times yes. As long as the USA has campaign finance laws that allow special interests and deep pockets to support candidates that they have in their pocket to push through the legislation their lobbyists need to make them more money and remove regulations that *gasp* allow ordinary citizens to live longer without choking to death, America will never truly be a constitutional democratic republic. Citizens will not elect their officials; they will vote for the name recognition provided by candidates supported by those same special interests in a quid-pro-quo corrupt cash for favors legislative agenda.

The end result is Scott Pruitt on steroids, entitled elites who don't really give a crap of the planet dies in a few decades, as long as they spend those decades enjoying a lavish lifestyle of privilege and power.

Crosscheck said:

Our politicians continue to just kick that can down the street. Leaving if for the next generation to have to deal with this out of control debt.
I wonder how Perot would have done if he got elected. We will never know.

The current president is like a drunken prostitute who took her John's credit card with his weekend trips to Florida. Just bill it to the taxpayers.

Unfortunately currently there isn't any politicians willing to seriously take on the debt.

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You're correct. No one is willing. In the 90's with Perot as an outside threat challenging the two major parties, both decided to do something about the debt. With a democratic president, Bill Clinton and a Republican controlled congress, they managed to bring the deficit down to 19 billion in 2000. That is the amount the national debt went up that year. Without Ross's threat that a viable third party might emerge, nothing would have been done.

How would Ross have done, I don't know since it never happened and all we have to go on is theories and assumptions. He probably wouldn't have done any better on the debt than Clinton and the GOP congress did. As soon as that outside threat dissipated, the national debt spiraled out of control once again. Probably never to be brought back under control, ever or until our doom as a nation.

itsforthekids said:

Yes. My "lean" is sarcastic.

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Just my opinion - members should post their lean accurately and then if you want to be sarcastic in your posting do it there. People can't tell if you are sarcastic by just looking at your lean but you can easily show in the posting area that you are being sarcastic. Just my two cents.

Perotista said:

You're correct. No one is willing. In the 90's with Perot as an outside threat challenging the two major parties, both decided to do something about the debt. With a democratic president, Bill Clinton and a Republican controlled congress, they managed to bring the deficit down to 19 billion in 2000. That is the amount the national debt went up that year. Without Ross's threat that a viable third party might emerge, nothing would have been done.

How would Ross have done, I don't know since it never happened and all we have to go on is theories and assumptions. He probably wouldn't have done any better on the debt than Clinton and the GOP congress did. As soon as that outside threat dissipated, the national debt spiraled out of control once again. Probably never to be brought back under control, ever or until our doom as a nation.

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It had _far_ more to do with the dotcom bubble and the massive tax receipts resulting from that and the internet coming into its own; Clinton gets way too much credit; almost as bad as crediting Reagan with the defeat of the communism as opposed to its impossible economics poised for collapse.

That said, I'm all for another viable third party, and political plurality in general.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

He also said, "I think we ought to lob a few nukes into the men's room at The Kremlin."
The resulting billboard campaign was interesting.

AUH2O's slogan: "In your heart, you know he's right" got countered with "In your guts, you know he's nuts"

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I remember it all too well. It was the first time I had to fight for what I believed

Surrealistik said:

It had _far_ more to do with the dotcom bubble and the massive tax receipts resulting from that and the internet coming into its own; Clinton gets way too much credit; almost as bad as crediting Reagan with the defeat of the communism as opposed to its impossible economics poised for collapse.

That said, I'm all for another viable third party, and political plurality in general.

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I think we need a viable third party to represent middle America. The far right has the Republican Party, the far left the Democrats. It's about those of us in the center, center right and center left have a political party to call our own.

Moderate Right said:

Just my opinion - members should post their lean accurately and then if you want to be sarcastic in your posting do it there. People can't tell if you are sarcastic by just looking at your lean but you can easily show in the posting area that you are being sarcastic. Just my two cents.

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Noted.

Perotista said:

I think we need a viable third party to represent middle America. The far right has the Republican Party, the far left the Democrats. It's about those of us in the center, center right and center left have a political party to call our own.

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Its high time there was a party for us. I am not Pelosi and sure hell not Trump.
Like many Americans I served in our military and would go wherever the president at that time decided we should go (Something that no recent president would ever have to worry about his kids).
Work to take care of my family.
Work on many community programs.
I don't care who you sleep with or who you pray too just don't expect me to be that impressed.
Abortion is way, way down on my priority list.
I believe in the wall. The wall around our elected officials back pocket from the lobbyists.
Show me some fiscal responsibility!

Perotista said:

I think we need a viable third party to represent middle America. The far right has the Republican Party, the far left the Democrats. It's about those of us in the center, center right and center left have a political party to call our own.

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It is a generational task.
Every third party has failed because they fail to do the ground level work.
You have to start at the bottom, fill in enough seats at local, city, county, state and finally Congressional levels.
If a third party ever finally undertakes and succeeds at such generational work, you will have your third party, and it will be formidable because both the R and L will have to deal with you to get anything done.

Hasn't happened yet.

Crosscheck said:

Its high time there was a party for us. I am not Pelosi and sure hell not Trump.
Like many Americans I served in our military and would go wherever the president at that time decided we should go (Something that no recent president would ever have to worry about his kids).
Work to take care of my family.
Work on many community programs.
I don't care who you sleep with or who you pray too just don't expect me to be that impressed.
Abortion is way, way down on my priority list.
I believe in the wall. The wall around our elected officials back pocket from the lobbyists.
Show me some fiscal responsibility!

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Exactly, very well said. Something is wrong when Hillary can raise and spend 1.4 billion, Trump 968.6 million, most came from corporations, wall street firms, special interests, lobbyist and mega, huge money donors. Third on the money list was Gary Johnson at 3 million. How can an independent, third party candidate even get his message out being outspent approximately 2.4 billion to 3 million. seems to me every time congress does campaign finance reform, it only makes it worst. Of course that should be expected, those in congress will make sure there are enough loopholes to be able to continue to rack in the cash.

When on looks at all the money spent on campaigning, we sure do have the best government money can buy. You know darn well there isn't an elected official that is going to bite the hand that feeds him. All of them owe their hearts and souls to those corporations, lobbyist, wall street firms, mega money donors etc.

All I want from our elected officials is good governing, doing what is best for the country, party be danged.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

It is a generational task.
Every third party has failed because they fail to do the ground level work.
You have to start at the bottom, fill in enough seats at local, city, county, state and finally Congressional levels.
If a third party ever finally undertakes and succeeds at such generational work, you will have your third party, and it will be formidable because both the R and L will have to deal with you to get anything done.

Hasn't happened yet.

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Exactly, my Reform Party ended up failing because it started from top down.

Perotista said:

Exactly, my Reform Party ended up failing because it started from top down.

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All of them do, at least so far in our country's history.
I just don't get why they have such difficulty understanding why that's a failed model.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

All of them do, at least so far in our country's history.
I just don't get why they have such difficulty understanding why that's a failed model.

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History does show all third parties run have to run someone for president and most don't even think about any down ballot offices. We did as seen in the fact at one time we had elected some 300 or so state legislatures nationwide along with the Governor of Minnesota, Jessie Ventura. But Pat Buchanan hijacked our party in 2000 and that ended the Reform Party. Even so, we still concentrated on the presidency. When we should have concentrated on state legislatures and other local offices. It is a fact that state legislature write their state's election laws. Today those laws, written by Republicans and Democrats are written as a mutual protection act. That is one thing both major parties can agree on, no viable third party. So to have a chance, any viable third party must win at the state legislature level before moving on to the higher offices like the House and Senate, Governor and finally the presidency.