Magox

Will he win? I don't know, but can he win? Absolutely. He's the most gifted politician running Try reading up even a little more, here, here here and here . I get it, possibly you and others who probably formed their opinions on shallow misconceptions of the SOTU response with the water bottle and for whatever non researched reason believe he's not a viable candidate, that's fine. But when you begin to inject things that are outright untruths, then I will call you out on them. Words matter, you can do better than that. Don't become another Baskin

Again, most people disagree with you You may want to read up a little more.

Now that we've established that your words carry no credibility, no one serious, cares what you have to say. You think Hillary is a formidable candidate? She will be the weakest democratic nominee since Mondale.

There are two main problems with Rubio, one that it's a crowded field with quality candidates. And two, he looks even younger than he really is and I think that could hinder him. In regards to being a gifted speaker, well, that's your opinion, but not shared with even most pols from both sides of the aisle.

That's funny, considering that the moderate democrats in the Senate and house are virtually extinct. See Blue Dog Democrats You are either a liar or an uninformed lemming. Rubio is still for immigration reform. Anyone who actually keeps up with this stuff knows that both Democrats and Republicans come away very impressed with Mr Rubios depth on all the issues. Which now reconfirms that anything you say moving forward has no credibility. http://www.vox.com/2015/4/6/8350757/marco-rubio-president And stop pretending to not be a liberal, dumbass. I wasn't referring to that. Re read what I wrote, I said he has a 50/50 chance at gathering the support of the Tea party, not at winning the primary. Even though those odds are much better than I thought betting odds would have given him at this point. I suppose I could have tried to add a little more context. The part of the article that I was attempting to high light was the fact that his foe in the state legislature's wife began crying after Rubio's speech and Gelber conceding that he is a gifted speaker. And he can win.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/04/14/marco-rubio-a-man-in-a-hurry/

I believe that these sort of things should happen organically. I applaud the owner.

I just think he provides the best contrast to Hillary. He would certainly do better than Romney with latino's, youth vote, tea partiers and some of those white collar non ideological working class folks who bought into the caricature of Romney being a heartless plutocrat.

He WAS a TEA party favorite. Just ask some of the resident nativist's of this board what they think of Marco Rubio.

He'd be in my view the next biggest threat.

I don't believe this being a contract year has anything to do with that. Nope, not one bit. In any case, I don't care what the motivation is as long as it gets the job done.

Marco Rubio would pose the biggest challenge to Hillary. It's just a matter of whether or not the tea party folks could accept him.... I'd say it's 50/50

Maybe, maybe not. 2008 things were pretty stable; You'd be surprised what a large peace keeping contingency and financial aid can deliver. The point is that there are parallels that you can draw between the two. It is impossible to say whether or not it would have succeeded in the long-term. However, we can confidently say that in other areas that we engaged and followed through on nation building, that it has worked. It's just a matter of human and financial capital commitment.

I believe the larger point stands. It is quite possible if the US had invested another 15 more years and hundreds of billions of dollars that Iraq could have been stable partner and ally in the region. But of course, we know that isn't realistic. Politics and the American electorate would have never allowed it.

ISIS was spawned a long long time ago, well before anyone on this planet was born. It never left. Having said that, the destabilization of Iraq, Syria and Libya did provide a fertile land, land being the key word for these nut balls to carry out their extremist religious wet dreams. Interventionism done the wrong way does have it's blow backs, specially the way our political system works. If you are going to intervene and topple these dictators, then you better be prepared for nation building. And if you are going to nation build, then you better be prepared to spend a tremendous amount of money and risk American lives. And considering that the American electorate's temper shifts like figs in the wind, we just aren't equipped to follow through properly with these goals. I'd rather we just not take out any of these dictators and wipe out whatever Jihadist threats that are posed to the U.S You can do both.

Sounds reasonable. However, knowing that they haven't even agreed to anything yet, and that we have already stated our "fact sheet" which is essentially our starting position of negotiations, and we now know that they are already beginning to balk at our demands, even if you take the "fact sheet" as the end product, which is the very best that they could hope for, which there is no chance in hell that the Iranians will accept, it's still a ****ty position because it allows them to have full capacity to build the necessary components to have a weapon within 15 years.

I tend to agree with much of what you are saying, but when you purposely obfuscate and cheat by hiding your true intentions, which is to build a weapon and state that it's for the purpose of energy and medicine, that in my view is also not negotiating in good faith. Having said that, this deal is so bad that it essentially gives Iran the green light to go ahead and follow through with their intentions within 15 years.

Pretty much.

The fatal flaw with all these negotiations is simple, they assume that the Iranians are negotiating in good faith. The Obama foreign policy in one word, Naive.

There is a treasure trove of material to hammer away at Hillary, and it's not things that turn off voters from the right like Benghazi, which the left and moderate voters tbh really don't care about, but these sort of secrecy and pay for play details depress left leaning voters. All they have to do is fit all these things into a narrative and by the time the elections come around, her favorability ratings will be in the low 40's.

He certainly is thin-skinned, and this playing a victim vs the media may work with some in the primaries but certainly wouldn't play well in the general elections. He better get used to it, his positions have morphed and if he can't answer simple and fair questions without getting so easily and outwardly agitated, he better just call it a day because the press is gonna eat him up for lunch. Oh, and I predict that the rest of the field is going to look to take him out early on, there are too many candidates vying for a piece of his pie and considering that many of his positions are perceived to go against typical GOP orthodoxy, specially in the foreign affairs department, I wouldn't be surprised if Rand threatens to take his ball home and pout by threatening to run as a third party candidate. I was talking to my father about this possibility over a year ago, I've seen how testy and thin-skinned he can get and that at some point he's going to realize that the GOP isn't quite ready with some of his views and that he could go on his own out of disillusionment.

In sum, the op-ed eloquently observes the Iran deal is a complete and total cluster. At a press conference held earlier today, Marie Harf was in no mood to discuss the WSJ lashing. Flustered, Harf attempted to avoid questions on the WSJ op-ed, but Associated Press reporter Matt Lee persisted. “I read it and it’s far from nuanced. It’s pretty damning,” Lee says. “You just reject it outright? They say this is a recipe for disaster basically, but you say, no, clearly, you wouldn’t be pursuing something you thought was a recipe for disaster. Is that correct?” Lee reads a few lines of the piece, and lobs them back to Harf. More at the link: . Dumbass

B-man, not sure I'd classify this as incompetence, but more so worrisome. I'd be hard-pressed to believe that this wouldn't have happened under virtually any other administration. There are plenty of things to cry incompetence over, but this in my view wouldn't be one of them.

How about debating the merits of "wealth distribution economics" and how if implemented would increase overall economic output rather than just accepting it as is? Whenever I pose an argument I inject my reasoning in laymen's terms. Can you do the same?

You don't understand politics, do you? And why am I responding to you?