Question(s) about American politics.

[Zeebu]

1)
In the end will it be candidate vs candidate or Democrats vs Republicans?

yes and yes

it will be a republican candidate vs a democratic candidate for office.

there are other independant parties, but in the grand scheme of things, none of them will get into office. the most they can do is try to take some votes away from the 2 main parties (ie giant big eared rich guy from yesteryear)

[WinnieTheBum]

I can say one thing for sure about politics, my naive friends: it is all A SHOW :greedy: Now take a look at my user title <_< The very fact of an idiot such as Bush being the head of the most powerful country in the world proves that the so called "politics" is a fucking prank thought up by some cannabis-smoked joker

[geekbot]

I've seen some election numbers, and the Democrat candidates gets alot more votes than the Republican candidates. Does this mean that after the Democrats are done picking a candidate, then you pretty much have a new president? Or will the voting change drastically when you're down to one candidate per party?

No, the election numbers you are seeing now are for the primaries only. This is how each party chooses their candidate for the general election. For the primaries, the Republican numbers only matter for the Republicans and the Democrat numbers are for the Democrats. In the primary, if you are a Democrat, you vote only for Democrats. Rules vary from state to state and party to party. It's a little confusing because it's run by the government but it's for the parties.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...te-tracker.htm

After the primaries are over, the general election decides the President. Each party will have one candidate (actually a President/Vice President pair) and you vote for one. You can vote based strictly on your party or strictly on the person (or pair) or based on number of vowels in their name (and people do all of these). It's usually a combination of things.

For example, I would consider myself a Republican but 4 years ago I voted for Kerry/Edwards (DEM) because I thought Kerry was the best man for the job. This year, I chose to vote in the Republican primary (in Illinois you can choose which primary ballot you vote on) because I wanted to vote for Ron Paul. I don't know who I will vote for in the general election yet.

Also, Republican-Democrat are the major parties, there are a small number of others (Libertarian, Green, Reform, and others) and they will appear on the official General Election ballot depending on certain rules like how many votes they got previously or something. In 2004, Libertarian Michael Badnarik was on the Illinois ballot. The non-major parties historically do not get more than 5% of the vote. Because of this they won't get any news coverage either.

Wikipedia has lots of information on all of this.

So to sum up: first step, parties choose a candidate. Two major parties do this with primaries (happening now). We vote in the primaries and one person "wins" and chooses a Vice President running-mate. Second step, general election, where we vote a second time for one of the candidate pairs chosen. The general election determines finally who becomes Pres/Vice-Pres.

For more details, look up "delegates" and "electoral college". Now you know more about this than most Americans. : /

[Cops]

what you'll see is puppets try and use their power at the democratic and republican convention to be appointed vice-president or some other important figure head.

Edwards will keep his ugly mouth shut to hopefully gain some power from dropping out of the race, the sad part is this is how power shifts, it starts low and then bam in a couple years some of these cocks actually have a shot at office. Just look at the Republican party, they're all coincidently not people you'd ever expect to have a chance at being the president nor would you want them to.

[Cops]

I can say one thing for sure about politics, my naive friends: it is all A SHOW :greedy: Now take a look at my user title <_< The very fact of an idiot such as Bush being the head of the most powerful country in the world proves that the so called "politics" is a fucking prank thought up by some cannabis-smoked joker

Voting as it pertains to politics is what gives you me and most other people the ability to see the changes we want to see. I truly believe that George Bush was voted in because he seemed like a 'trustworthy guy', he was running on the coat tails of Bush senior.

People voted with their heart, not their head. This doesn't make them dumb or misinformed, they voted how they felt they needed to. There's a hundred different reasons George Bush was voted in, but this doesn't matter, what matters is lessons are learned and this type of person never be allowed to hold any government position. Even the postal service would be above this man.

If you want to say fuck it to politics and give up your right to vote then that's fine with me, remove yourself from the system because it's a joke to you but the same tyrants you want to keep out are being let in because people refuse to stand up and say no. Maybe the political atmosphere is bullshit but your 'freedom' exists because of centuries of political debate and discussion. Maybe it's time to quit the I hate George Bush train that makes you apathetic to the core and start doing something about it, the words are more powerful than the action but without the action you're left with just words.

[PaulOakenfold]

Mike Gravel's campaign cost about two dozen cheezeburgz

[D1st0rt]

http://opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp?cycle=2008

Seeing what they do with their campaign debts, I'm not sure what I think of these non Ron Paul candidates handling our National debt