Summations Only

They are not unimportant for local elections. Many states also have their state legislators running for nominations alongside the presidential nominations. I happen to live in a state dominated by Republicans. Often, the only "true" election is the Republican primary. Candidates often win in the general because they have an (R) next to their name. It could also be argued that state and local governments have just as large of an impact on your life as the federal government.Unimportant as it relates to the Presidential nomination? Yes, I will agree with that. But unimportant in general just because Obama is not being challenged? Not so.

There is a Democratic equivalent, but Obama is not being challenged. It is a one horse race so it isn't that interesting from a news perspective. If there was a legitimate challenge, and that challenger was getting a substantial portion of the vote, then you would definitely hear more about it.

It would have sounded like someone playing Operation in the middle of an 8.0 earthquake.

I think discussion of probable running mates might fit in this thread. If not, it might be worth starting.

Michelle Bachmann would certainly fill that role.

The smart move would be a less polarizing running mate from a swing state with good christian cred (possibly a woman and/or minority). Romney will be a lot smarter than McCain was, that is for sure. Romney should run on a platform of being a smart business man and his VP pick should reflect that. IOW, time to shake the Etch-A-Sketch.

All I know is if I was debating her in a Presidential debate I would cede all of my time and allow her to talk all she wanted. I would win in a landslide.

It contains Republicans. Sadly, they campaigned on shutting the government down. All they have done is made good on their promises.

While it may smell of racism, I don't think it is. I think it is xenophobia which is a little bit different than racism. Many conservatives realize that they are becoming less and less dominant within society. They are being taken over by the "other". Who better to epitomize that otherness than a half-Kenyan president whose name is Barak Obama.I think they are starting to see that their brand of conservatism can never be a national party. They can't win the White House or the Senate with their platform, so their best and only strategy is what we see now. Gerrymander the shit out of the states that are controlled by Republicans so that you can control the House and stop legislation.

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It is a highly specific type of xenophobia which does not apply to people with Canadian citizenship (i.e. Cruz) but that does apply to a person of African descent.

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Michael Steele was head of the RNC for quite a while, and Herman Cain garnered a few votes in the last presidential Republican primary. Many viewed Colin Powell as a possible RNC presidential candidate at one time. There are also many hispanic TP'ers, one from the state I live in.

What I have always found ironic is that Obama is taking Republican policies and feeding them back to the Republicans. Obamacare is the Republican health care reform policy from the 1990's, including the individual mandate and health insurance exchanges. The only reason that I can think of is that Republicans really, really hate Obama for some irrational reason.

McCain ran on a platform in 2008 that included federally subsidized health insurance programs and exchanges. McCain wanted to give everyone a straight up $2,000 tax credit that people could use to buy insurance, and he also wanted to set up competitive markets to drive down the cost. Sound familiar?

That is something you should talk to your employer about. The "lefties" have nothing to do with how much your employer contributes to your plan, nor which plan your employer chooses. However, the ACA does put minimum standards on what a plan must cover which may be why your plan went up.

From what I have seen thus far, it has lowered costs for the bulk of Americans. Of course, there will always be outliers, but the averages are looking good. They did pass a law that outlawed denial of insurance based on pre-existing conditions. It's called the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.The whole point of the mandate is to get healthy people into the risk pools so that it lowers the overall risk of the group which then leads to lower premiums. The insurance companies lose money on sick people, so they need healthy people to make up for it. If only sick people get health insurance then the cost goes up for everyone. Why not use the federal government? The federal government IS the people. The ACA is the people creating groups that can collectively bargain with insurance companies.

The power to tax is clearly given to the Congress in the Constitution. Take it up with the Supreme Court . . . oh wait, somebody already did. Why not? Are healthy people immune to getting sick in the future, or suffering a serious accident? I agree. The problem is that it props up the broken for-profit system. We need a single payer, government run system now, not later. We are paying twice what other countries are paying for the same healthcare. The current system makes no sense.However, a large majority of American voters are against a single payer, government run system. For that reason, no such plan can pass Congress. Looking across the globe, the government run systems outshine our for-profit system that came before the ACA, and the system that is largely kept in place now. Have you heard of a democratic process? This is where people vote on candidates that then represent them in government. People voted for candidates that ran on healthcare reform, and those candidates won.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.