<p>I thought I would try to corral all the political talk into one thread – easier to find or avoid!</p>
<p>The Dad:</p>
<p>The Manchester Union-Leader is reporting that Jeanne Shaheen will announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate tomorrow.</p>
<p>This will be a rematch of the 2002 election when John Sununu narrowly beat three-term Governor Shaheen in an election that resulted in several national GOP officials (including the chair of the state GOP) pleading guilty to election fraud for jamming Shaheen’s phone banks on election day, election fraud that may have reached into the White House political office.</p>
<p>I really wonder if Sununu will even run. Wouldn’t surprise me if he retires after one term. Two recent polls show Shaheen with a 57% to 29% and a 54% to 38% lead.</p>
<p>Shaheen’s husband is Hillary Clinton’s NH campaign manager. Bill and Hillary and Jeanne and Bob Shaheen had dinner together after the Portsmouth Labor Day rally.</p>
<p>This is data from a national ARG poll released today. The overall percentages are in the left column. But, the more interesting data is the gender gap for some of these candidates. Look at Granda Fred: 37% of male Republican voters; 7% of female Republican voters. Wow. Women really, really hate Grandpa.</p>
<p>In an election where gender gaps are likely to be the story, there are some interesting matchups. Clinton versus Grandpa Fred would be a remake of King versus Riggs.</p>
<p>
**Republican**</p>
<p>24% Giuliani.. men 17% women 31%
23% Thompson.. men 37% women 7%
14% McCain.... men 7% women 22%
9% Romney.... men 5% women 13%
6% Gingrich.. men 9% women 2%
4% Huckabee.. men 4% women 4%</p>
<p>**Democratic**</p>
<p>39% Clinton... men 35% women 43%
21% Obama..... men 20% women 21%
15% Edwards... men 19% women 11%
5% Biden..... men 7% women 3%
5% Richardson men 3% women 6%
</p>
<p>If you are going to drop names, get them correct. Jeanne is married to Bill Shaheen, not Bob. Bill was the campaign manager for Al Gore too ! Gore won in NH, but the rest is history…</p>
<p>Also, Jeanne lost to Sununu last time. Who Knew? Sun-u-nu. ;)</p>
<p>From post 4 If you are going to drop names, get them correct. </p>
<p>Sokkermom .There is a considerable difference between making a mistake, and deliberately misleading people as you have done in the past. After all you have been, and are rightly upset, with the former prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case not because he make a mistake but because he deliberately mislead people.</p>
<p>From post 3 . Clinton versus Grandpa Fred would be a remake of King versus Riggs </p>
<p>What a great visual I have e-mailed this line to several friends still in the business and I am sure it will be picked up and used by many …</p>
<p>This time I gave the credit where it is due .I must be getting old .</p>
<p>
This personal comment is completely out of line, and destines this thread to the same fate of every other thread. I actually think it would be nice to have an objective debate about the politics of the 2008 election without descending into personal insults. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to happen.</p>
<p>This link is to a news article that seems to be a perfect artical to start the discussion on the new Official Election 2008 Thread off with. It was written by Ron Brownstein and appeared in todays L.A. Times</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-brownstein14sep14,0,30176.column?coll=la-opinion-center[/url]”>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-brownstein14sep14,0,30176.column?coll=la-opinion-center</a></p>
<p>From Post 7…This personal comment is completely out of line,</p>
<p>Tell me why you think the comment out of line?</p>
<p>Accusing someone of “deliberately misleading” implies that you know something about his/her motivation. It is slanderous. It demeans the level of discourse. If you want a rational political discussion, then stop the name-calling. It’s up to you. If you want to continue the trash talk, then don’t expect people like me to participate.</p>
<p>oops!</p>
<p>Sorry for the typo sokkermom!</p>
<p>Do you think Sununu will go ahead with his reelection campaign? I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out why he and Collins in Maine won’t break with the failed Iraq strategy (on votes, instead of just lip service). I have to believe that the RNC has told them all that if they don’t vote in lockstep with the never-ending war policy, they won’t get a dime of campaign money. There is simply no other rationale explanation for a smart guy like Sununu committing political suicide.</p>
<p>ID, the Senate races being another bloodbath for the GOP is the easiest call to make right now. The only question is, how much? If I’m sandbagging, I think the Dems pick up four seats. I’ve looked at the state-by-state outlooks posted periodically on MyDD.com (a very temperate, analytical site) and, if one were prone to getting giddy with letting one’s imagination run away with one…something I don’t recommend…the numbers can get to +8 rather quickly.</p>
<p>As things are <em>now</em>, I just can’t squint the right way to make it +10 in a best case scenario, +10 being what’s needed for a filibuster-proof Dem majority in theory and to make Lieberman just totally irrelevant. However, a year is still a long time. But I think all the downstream bias is in favor of the Dems. I want to see how the scandals with Ted Stevens go in Alaska, see if Rick Noriega wins the Texas Democratic primary, etc. I’m hoping that Susan Collins will be the 2008 version of Lincoln Chaffee but am by no means assured of it…I get to meet Tom Allen next week.</p>
<p>For the House, I’d currently guess Democrats +5 to +15, but that’s murkier, though the state of candidate recruiting is going very well for the Dems on both sides of the aisle right now, both Democratic successes and GOP failures.</p>
<p>It’s really a bit difficult to start handicapping the White House in earnest until the nominees for both sides are determined. The GOP side is the murkiest it’s ever been for me. Ask me to predict, I give the barest of nods to Giuliani but his current lead is so fragile, and that in itself testifies to the weakness of the GOP choices and explains the lack of enthusiasm among GOP voters.</p>
<p>I wish Bill Richardson would come to the conclusion that the race he should be in is the Senate race against Dominici in New Mexico.</p>
<p>A veto-proof majority in the Senate would be nice, but there’s an even more serious trend that I think we’ll see. The mechanism for the South flipping from Democratic to Republican in response to the Civil Right Act was politicians bolting the Democratic Party for brighter prospects as Republicans. I think we’ll see this same trend in reverse across the northeast (and along the left coast) as the Republican party is increasingly wiped out in states like New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Your governor certainly sees that trend as he tries is vain to move the Republican party back towards the center. “We’re getting killed at the box office” is the way he puts it, I believe.</p>
<p>Lieberman is a real piece of work, isn’t he? I couldn’t believe my lyin’ eyes when he spent his ten minutes on Tuesday’s hearings asking Petraeus if we shouldn’t just go ahead and send ground forces into Iran.</p>
<p>Id,
You raise a good point about Sununu. I think that our very popular Democratic Governor would also help Mrs. Shaheen’s campaign too.</p>
<p>For tommykill: Hopefully Id understands that the name dropping comment was in jest. Apparently you did not. I also find it amusing that you are linking my comments about the Duke case to this thread. The two are not related at all. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I took a brief break from commenting on these threads because of your past rudeness. However, in the future it will not effect anything I say, nor prevent me from imbibing in a few entertaining minutes when I see fit. I enjoy the banter with some of the other dads (and moms) here. We may not always agree, but that’s what makes life interesting. I would please request again that you refrain from your personal attacks. I will admit, that I recently noticed that it is not just me that is the target of your snipe. Hopefully, others will protest as well.The fact that someone disagrees with your politics or your political choices is no reason to constantly attack them personally.</p>
<p>I have disagreed with both ID and TheDad in the past. However, neither has resorted to the personal pokes that you have. I have actually received some valuable information from them over the past couple of years, despite our differences in opinion.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>
I like to think that I’m perfectly pleasant and helpful when politics isn’t at stake. And there are some people that I’d be happy to write Safe Conduct passes for when Hillary comes to power…others, not so much.</p>
<p>
I think this trend has been visible in slo-mo for quite sometime. The Republicans added the South to their column at no immediate cost. But the cumulative cost of the increasing Southernization of the party is increasing. One can not now get the GOP presidential nomination without the South. Numbers are increasing encouraging for Democrats in the Midwest (Illinois used to be the bellwether state, it’s now reliably Democratic…Ohio had been been reliably Republican and now it’s a rapidly bluing purple, etc.) and Rocky Mountain States. I think there’s a good chance that Colorado and Nevada go Democratic along with New Mexico next year and even Montana is not beyond the realm of possibility…the Senate and gubernatorial elections are often general election precursors by an election or three.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s why I’m not so inclined to write off Grandpa Fred’s chances.</p>
<p>What I’m waiting for is the various Republican camps to start swiftboating each other. The Mormon, the Crossdresser, and the Grandpa have all shown that they are perfectly content to crawl around in the sewer. I believe that Grandpa Fred will inherit the Rove-inspired Republican hit machine and put it to use as the primaries approach, now that the Republican race is finally engaged.</p>
<p>The more of that done the primaries, the less Clinton will have to do it.</p>
<p>From post 10 …Accusing someone of “deliberately misleading” implies that you know something about his/her motivation.</p>
<p>Ill accept that as a legitimate and fair criticism. I will strike and revise my comment to read: misleading people on a martial question as you have done in the past.</p>
<p>SJmom, Thank you for your help and advice.</p>
<p>tommybill, you are welcome. I frequently tell my kids that the sign of an intelligent person is the ability to learn from others. Can we also agree that this thread will be more interesting if we refrain from inserting references to other discussions?</p>
<p>Id,</p>
<p>I wonder if the democratic candidates would be offended by the constant use of some of the nicknames I have heard that have been used to distinguish them? I couldn’t help but notice that you have three favorite ones to help paint a picture of three republican contenders. </p>
<p>I won’t mention some of the recent nicknames I have heard about the current democratic front runners. Some I personally find more humorous than others. However, there are some that would probably be very offensive to many political cc posters. For that reason, I’ll refrain… :o</p>
<p>The sad thing is, I don’t even know if Grandpa Fred is an endearing term or not. 
When i think of the term “Grandpa” I think of a loving experienced patriarch. At least that is how the term is seen in our family. Everyone loves and respects all the Grandpas.</p>