Jindal for VP? Crist? Romney?

I like Obama/ Jindal better ; P

Zoetius - if only: I'd love to see a cross-party ticket. A lot of people here were saying "McCain/Feingold still has a nice ring..."

Not that it would ever happenn.

mcCain/Romney is a disaster waiting to happen: in all current polling, Obama with ANYONE slaughters that ticket 56-37. And Jindal has, on the national stage, the same problem Obama has: he only just got into office in LA, and noone outside of the south knows anything of him prior to that. But what IS heard is all positive.

I'd hate to see him pulled out of a state that, at this point, I think needs him more than the other 49 do

Exactly what I was thinking. Jindal jumping ship (so soon!) would be bad for Louisiana, wouldn't it?

Wait, I just read this but am curious: is he REALLY opposed to abortion even to save the life of the mother?

Jindal is an illusion. He's got this Obamic aura that makes people pin their hopes and dreams on him, without there being any real substance to justify all that hope. As an unknown, people can make of him what they want, for better (as Rod does) or for worse (as the Demos would).

Jindal's highly-touted ethics reforms were a joke -- reducing the amount lobbyists can pay for a legislator's dinner to "only" $50 per meal, for example. He's already been fined by his own ethics board for campaign finance violations, and he paid the fine out of campaign funds. He's just signed on to a massive tax cut that will bankrupt the state if the price of oil ever falls.

He's never had a real job -- he's been in government, appointed or elected, since his 20's. His pandering in the 2004 gov's election was grotesque -- he said he couldn't understand why anyone would have a problem if the Ten Commandments were posted in all public places. (He should have asked his Hindu parents what they think about that "one God" part.)

His political mentor is former Gov. Mike Foster, an idiot, whom Jindal is repaying by repealing the law that says motorcyclists must wear helmets. He is a classic phony, an opportunistic politician, and he would be a disaster as President if McCain couldn't finish his term.

When for most of human history hegemons attained their hegemony by virtue of might makes right, what makes you say 37 is "young" inexperienced or immature? Alexander the Great ascended the throne at 20 and died, even younger than MLK, at 33. heck the biblical Cyrus we acclaim at Pentecost's celebration of Nehemiah's restored liberty of religion as recorded in Ezra 8, was 30 when he took the reins and younger than Obama when he died!!

Let's get over this "fear" thing!

If we're comfortable sending fresh-faced 18-yr olds females and males in flak jackets armed with Uzzis onto the streets of Baghdad and Basra to make our foreign policy on the fly, we cannot hide ourselves behind the "wisdom of the aged" ... we need to LIVE the 'wisdom of the ages' ...

Honestly, I could care less about Obama, Hillary, Jindal or McCain at this point. Whoever wins gets to inherit a miserable mess.

Meanwhile, oil blew past $132, now at $133 and it just keeps going.

As a conservative, I'm kind of hoping it will be Obama so he can turn out to be the Democratic party's Hoover. Though I've also figured out over the past several years that I'm old-old-school conservative - as in Southern Agrarians (minus the racial segregation), T S Eliot, Burke and Kirk -- so part of me hopes for the absolute humiliation of the Republican party this year. I kept wondering over the past decade why my own sorrow over exurban expansion, the death of our soil, the wastefulness of our food and consumerist systems, the trashiness of American culture, my abhorrence of corporatism and corporate welfare, my desire for a more authentic and faith-filled life and more didn't match up with what most of my Republican brethren seemed to want. I always felt like the odd man out, and found the inherent elitism of many Republican events where I live to be off-putting.

Now I know that it's because my core conservative/traditionalist values didn't really comport with the Republican machine. The list of woes in our nation continues to pile up - the subprime mess, a crumbling national infrastructure, a lack of mass transit across the country, spiking fuel and food prices, a massive transfer of our wealth to despotic princes in the Arabian peninsula, airlines facing bankruptcy almost daily it seems, illegal immigrants flooding across our borders, a morass for our troops in a snakepit of a nation called Iraq, the credit crunch meltdown, banks on the edge of insolvency, the Social Security bill about to come due, national debt (both governmental and personal) approaching galactic levels and more.

By the way: "Oil's not a bubble" ...

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/21/oil-euro-update-markets-commodities-cx_ll_cg_0521markets29.html

"..this is no bubble, and is driven by the mismatch between global demand growth and supply growth which has been evidenced for the last 7 to 8 years, and will continue ... Those hoping for a return to normality sometime soon may be disappointed."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=crude-awakening-price-of

"Geologists and economists fear that despite seemingly plentiful oil reserves, oil production may peak and begin to decline early this century (a phenomenon referred to as Hubbert's peak after the American geophysicist M. King Hubbert). Researchers worry that a sharp spike in oil prices would follow such a peak unless counteracted by falling demand."

I'd like to hear if anyone has given thought to their own personal arrangements when gas costs $6 a gallon? I have, but not enough. Today, I spent a fruitless afternoon tracking down some barrels to use as rainwater collectors, and so I'm in a sour mood.

Seeing oil at $133 today, I realize this is much more real than Y2K. This is actually happening, whereas Y2K was avoided by lots and lots of planning and the outlay of lots of cash by organizations and businesses (to the point where many people seem to think Y2K was a joke, when it was actually a crisis averted).

Reality is about to get a lot more real. And a lot more painful. As if it wasn't real enough after 9/11.

My favorite requirement for McCain's VP pick:

READY ON DAY TWO!!!

(Yes, joke...I think.)

I'll place a bet today that Bobby Jindal will be the Jack Kemp of the early 21st century - always touted by conservatives as the next big thing, but never quite making it.

I suspect it will be Romney. Jindal will look too unseasoned to put in the VP slot, and there are too many rumors about Crist's personal life for him to get on the ticket. It wouldn't surprise me if McCain went with Lieberman, though. He's been vetted, and he can claim it as an attempt to reach out to Democrats, even though hardcore Democrats don't think of Lieberman as a Democrat anymore.

Lieberman would be a terrible pick as he would cause many conservatives to revolt. McCain is already distrusted by conservatives, so he needs someone who is younger and more palatable to conservatives, but who also doesn't alienate moderates.

rr

Jindal makes Obama look like an elder statesman when it comes to actual experience, although he is clearly likeable. Crist--the 51 year old, well-dressed bachelor--is going to be a turn-off to social conservative uncomfortable with the gay rumors. Romney is the most qualified, but also will never attract the 30 percent of Republicans who say they won't vote for a Mormon because it's a cult.

Let Jindal do his job for a while, something Obama hasn't done. Kinda takes away the inexperienced arrow out of Mccain's quiver.

I really would like to see SC Governor Mark Sanford-serious, conservative, class of '94 porkbusting guy. he supported Mccain in 2000, but they've apparently fallen out.

Wish I shared your enthusiasm for the governor.

His "health care experience" involves putting MBAs into positions of healthcare decision-making and tossing the developmentally disabled out on the street. And word around the capital is that if the bill being considered by the LA legislature that would extend insurance coverage to autistic kids passes, he'll veto it - just like Mark Sanford did in SC. After all, big business is against it and "good" fiscal conservatives don't really care about families being able to afford treatment for their disabled kids...

So much for Catholic ethics.

Why not Huckabee? The last poll I saw he was the one V-P candidate who pulled a measurable number of votes to the GOP ticket.

Bodhisattva - won't you take me by the hand. - Steely Dan

If you're new to Indian food, don't attempt to curry favor with your host in ordering the Jindaloo - Crist, it's so hot, they'll want to put the video of your flame-throater on CD-Romney...

Over the past week, McCain's made it clear that he's going to attack Obama as naive and inexperienced. Having a 36 year old as his running mate might make McCain look a bit hypocritical (and the Obama campaign will surely call him on that).

I have a feeling that Obama will decisively win the popular vote like with 52 or 53% because he'll lose by less than 10 points in a lot of the states Bush won by 30 (Mountain West and Deep South), but the electoral college map is such that McCain and Obama have at this point an equal shot of winning. Who'll win is about as 50-50 as in 2000.

I was wondering the same thing as Kit. Why not Huckabee?

Jindal would be a huge downside for McCain. His religion would make him easy to stereotype as a nutbar to the independents that McCain needs and he is way too young looking. Standing next to McCain he would make McCain look even older than he is.

I second the recommendation of Charles Curtis. Sarah Palin is smart, accomplished, pro-life, dynamic, and highly popular as the governor of Alaska.

I would hate to see Jindal wasted on a McCain ticket. Give him eight years of leadership experience first. (He may be needed to save Vitter's Senate seat, given Vitter's extra-curicular activities?)

I'll look for him in '16, maybe at the top of the ticket.

I think Bobby Jindal would do better than to accept an offer from John McCain to be on the GOP ticket. It's not his age, but more the timing. He's only in office a short period of time and he has lots of work to do in Louisiana. Better for Jindal to stay where he is, especially if the GOP is destined to lose the presidency in November.

Of course, given Barack Obama's weakness in several key states, McCain might just pull it out. If that happens and Jindal has stayed in Louisiana, he could end up regretting not being on the ticket, but hopefully he'd see that time is on his side.

If not Jindal for VP, why not Michael Steele? A few years older than Bobby, but still young, has some executive experience at the state level, and is more popular than his party.

Charlie Crist does nothing for McCain - I cannot see Obama winning Florida (Hillary would have had a good chance, though).

Mitt Romney doesn't help McCain much either - he'd likely not put Massachusetts into McCain's column, and I don't see how he'd help in any of the swing states.

Tim Pawlenty might help carry Minnesota, but so too might the GOP convention, all by itself.

Is there anyone decently popular, conservative, experienced, 50-54 years old but looks 45, from California that McCain might reasonably pick as his running mate?

Jindal--refuse!! Don't waste your future on a lost cause.

"Heck, most American Catholics aren't hardcore prolife Catholics."

True. The pro-abortion Democrat has been getting about half the Catholic vote, so there's no reason to think picking a Catholic would help. (Sad as that is to say.)

McCain is going to win (God help us all) so his running mate needs to be someone who's not just practicing for 2012, and someone who's capable of stepping in if McCain doesn't last his full term.

Oh, oh, can I vote too?

I pick Lieberman. That's a great idea.

Not because it would help the ticket, the Republicans would lose even worse...but because maybe the Democratic leadership would finally realize that Lieberman is not a frickin Democrat.

I like the suggestion of Sarah Palin. For one thing, McCain needs to bolster his conservative bona fides to keep core-constituency Republicans from staying home. For another, given that it's been clear for some time that the Democrats were going to nominate either a woman or a black for the top of their ticket, the Republicans need to avoid coming across as the party of All White Guys, All the Time.

Kay Bailey Hutchison is, of course, another possibility, but I'm not sure how well she would help McCain with conservatives. Is she pro-choice? (I live in Texas, so I should know this. Sorry!)

There may be no solid evidence of this, in terms of a poll, but the personal accounts I get from white Clinton supporters in Florida (I know about a dozen) is that they'd rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama.

It has become more and more apparent that a notable percentage of Clinton supporters are, to put it bluntly, lunatics. (Of course, that doesn't prove that a percentage of Obama supporters aren't also.)

Clinton lost. In a fair election, by the rules. Obama didn't play dirty, there was nothing to get outraged over, there were no dirty politics aimed at her from him, or even from others. It's not like there's something she can point at and state that voters in X were tricked. But she keeps dragging it out, so she, and a bunch of absolute lunatics, are continuing to damage the party by not getting behind the person who is actually going to win the primary. (Even if the damn states that shouldn't get seated, do get seated, he's still going to win. And they shouldn't get seated by any objective measure...a vote without all candidates is not a vote at all.)

I started out as an Edward's supporter. He lost. I got over it, and started supporting Obama, although I was iffy about his health care plan, he seemed best on everything else. (And the president usually doesn't decided the specific wording of legislation anyway, just points the direction.) If Obama had lost I would have gotten over it and supported Clinton.

Yes, we know her supporters feel pissed that the Clintons have been continually dumped on, but that isn't why she lost, and it's not like Obama hasn't been attacked either. Clinton lost because she ran a bad campaign. Deal with it. Clinton supporters need to get over themselves, and if they think John 'Bush 2.0' McCain is a better choice than Obama, I have to wonder what the hell they were doing in the Democratic party in the first place. What specific policy of Clinton and McCain do they support that they don't of Obama? (Possibly that gas tax stupidity?)

Anyway, you guys don't care about this, but it's just incredibly annoying. Sometimes I, to paraphrase Will Rogers, wished I belonged to an organized political party instead of the Democrats. (The Republican party would have, at this point, issued an ultimatum to Clinton to get out of the damn race right now or be in the doghouse quite a long time.)

And this wisecrack on ageism, from Mr Obama who

"...said he regarded “my guy, Reggie,” as the kid brother he never had. “But maybe I’m saying that just because he technically could be my son,” the Illinois senator said. “I don’t want to admit my age.”

This election cycle is the demographically the "over-55 communities" party, but the sentiment of the candidate is charming non-the-less, and credits him with the ability to put himself in another's shoes. Comparisons with the family members of the other candidates leaves him in credit, them in debit!

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