Tough one...lol....really tough one.

It really all depends on how much Hillary is willing to let power slip. If in a Obama/Hillary administration, Obama is clearly in power and has the last say when it comes to the issues, I believe that it would indeed work out pretty well. We have, atleast to some extent, the new style of Politics Obama promises with a more or less unified democratic party.

However, the way I see Hillary, she will want to have full control over everything - so, in her version of tha ticket, she'd love the do it as the current administration handles it, Bush playing the puppet and Cheney pulling the strings. In that case, McCain would definitely be the lesser evil.

On a sidenote, I think McCain is a pretty solid break from the W. Bush administration. He is certainly more capable militarily than Bush and Cheney put together (like that was hard ), and his domestic policies differ quite a bit from W. Bush.

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McCain represents a continuation of Bush's policies, not a break from them. He voted with the Bush administration 95% of the time last year, and overall 89% since Bush took office. [Congressional Quarterly Voting Study, 110th Congress]

Didn't know those numbers, but still, look at it this way. I strongly believe that the invasion of Iraq was absolutely wrong to begin with, but it all would have been a minor issue if it was done right form the start. The Bush administ fucked up from the getgo, and now we have the biggest mess the US has been in since Vietnam. I think McCain would have had the experience to do it differently. He might have gone to Iraq, but it wouldn't have ended like this. It's mere speculation, but that's how I see it. And thus, I think McCain will also improove the current situation in Iraq - in a different manner than I would like to see (withdrawal), but better than nothing.

McCain supported the Bush tax cuts - so do I. they have had a measurable positive impact on the economy and I believe they were the right thing to do to jumpstart the economy after the 2001 economic turmoils.

Another important aspect for me is the environmental policy - and the contrast doesn't get much starker than Bush vs. McCain.

I can't think of any other stuff that Bush passed through atm that McCain supported, I'd love it if you could enlighten me with some examples though so I can see where you'r coming from. Does McCain support the Patriot Act?

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Bottom-line: If Obama is not on the ticket in November as a Presidential cantidate, I'll write him in. If he has Hillary, I'll do it rolling my eyes a bit most likely, but will likely still vote for him.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Hi Aztek,
I'm short on time but wanted to go ahead and reply to your post before the day was over, sorry if this reply seems a little hasty.

For starters, McCain has changed his tune on Iraq. Although he was one of the first prominent people to criticize the number of our troops as insufficient, in the early stages of the war he supported Rumsfeld's light troop numbers:

""Our technology, particularly air-to-ground technology, is vastly improved. I don't think you're going to have to see the scale of numbers of troops that we saw, nor the length of the buildup, obviously, that we had back in 1991."
-on CNN's Larry King on Dec. 9, 2002


"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks."
John McCain, January 28, 2003.


And of course McCain was a strong advocate of attacking Iraq before Bush had even started :

Although McCain had access to the full 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, he did not read it, he only read its summary. The full report had a number of caveats about Iraq's suspected WMD, but the summary did not. In light of McCain's performance as a student, Im not surprised he didn't read it - McCain graduated almost at the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, 894th out of 899 students. (Once you get past his surface image, he's a lot like Bush in some ways:a big partyer in his youth, an underachiever who got by due to his dad and granddad being very powerful in the government.McCain lost 4 planes due to accidents while "hot-dogging" before he went to Nam, and if not for the fact that his dad was a 4 star admiral, he would've been drubbed out as a pilot before then).

Lately McCain has repeatedly mistakenly claimed that Al Qaeda is in Iran...and of course he famously sang "Bomb Iran" at one of his appearances. So I think that if he were to get elected, the neocon foreign policy would would continue and Iran would be the next US target.


As far as the "Patriot" act, yes, he voted for it, and voted for its extension, voted NO on preserving habeus corpus for Guantanamo detainees, voted NO on requiring CIA reports on detainees & interrogation methods, and recently voted NO on the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (which would've required the CIA to abide by the standards of the Army Field Manual which bans waterboarding).

As for the tax cuts, they helped the top 5 percent of the economic latter immensely, particularly the top one percent. The "trickle down" has not helped the middle class and the poor that much though....wehn adjusted for inflation, wages have stagnated for the middle class, and savings are lower than ever. If Bush had geared the tax cuts more so that the middle class would have benefitted from them, it would've had a much more positive effect on the US' economic growth.

Read Conservative Rhetoric on Tax Cuts Does Not Match Economic Reality for more details on this.

I'd have to vote for McCain in the case of a "dream ticket." Certain people must not be allowed to have power.

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There's no way Hillary will ever be Obama's VP. That's not just my own personal wish, but Obama probably hates Hillary, and there's no way he would want Bubba running around in the White House wenching the interns. Also, it completely defeats Obama's campaign message of "change" and "unity."

I think that it's more likely that you might see Kansas governor Sibellius or Arizona governor Napolitano as an Obama VP.

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"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

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Hmmm... wonder if someone forgot the sarcastic smiley.





I think Harry Reid offered her the Leadership of the Senate before her presidential run. At any rate, she could still be the Chair of a very powerful committee, Finance say... She already has more power than as a VP.... but I guess I see where your going with that one...


I think Hillary would accept the VP slot, she has no alternative really, or she can say goodbye to her Presidential ambitions. Whether Obama would offer the it to her, I doubt it.... but I think there is always a chance..



Bro

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Goldwater caused nerve ends to twinge with his passion and indignation. Yet he had no handle to the problems, no program, no solution- except backward to the Bible and the God of the desert. Proud of his handsome, clean-lined family, proud of his radiant children, proud of his families war record and patriotism, he had in him neither the compassion nor the understanding to deal with the faceless newer enemies of the Digital Society -Theodor H. White from 'The Making of the President-1964'

I think Sebelius is more likely to be a VP choice than Napolitano. If McCain loses the election the chances are higher that he will retire in 2010 rather than run for another Senate term. That opens the door to a Napolitano Senate run and she will definitely win. Despite her popularity, it would be riskier for Sebelius to make a Senate run in Kansas.

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Sam