Magox

I've already defended Santorum much more than I am comfortable with, he is not my sort of candidate at all, but no way on god's green earth would I ever vote for Obama over Santorum and that's the end of this topic for me.

You may end up being right.

I would argue that being a Venture capitalist is probably the best private sector experience you could possibly have to be president. What does a Venture capitalist do? Well, they apply capital and take some sort of ownership on either a start up or struggling company. Just for a little tidbit of information, close to 10% of all private sector jobs come through private equity/venture capitalism. What would a venture capitalist attempt to do in a typical failing company? Identify waste,then eliminate it,identify best sources of demand, then innovate products or services to suffice that demand, streamline them, increase efficiency, market products , execute sales, maximize profits, reward and retain competent employees. Mitt Romney was widely regarded as one of best in the business. There is a reason why he was called upon to help the Olympics, and it certainly wasn't because he was the son of daddy warbucks. He not only was an extremely successful venture capitalist, but he did turn what was about to be a very embarrassing Olympics for our country into a success. There was scandal, inefficiency and the Olympics was grossly overbudget. Under his leadership, it all turned around. His experience as a venture capitalist helped make that happen. So how could his experience as a venture capitalist help as President of the U.S? Well, we are a country that is struggling with job creation, **** load of waste in government, lack of innovaton and a tremendous debt program. His experience in venture capitalism and executive experience as governor of a blue state, which mean that he had to work across the aisle a good bit would be very well suited to address some of these issues. Lets contrast that to President Obama. His experience was that he was on the faculty of Harvard, community organizer, state senator and served a little over half a term as Senator in which he never produced a meaningful piece of legislation and had one of the most liberal voting records in the senate. I would say that is an accurate description, wouldn't you agree? Let's be real here, honestly, who is the more qualified person to address the economy and our debt? Seriously. Not only was Obama woefully qualified to be president, but his body of work proves that. I'm just trying to put things into perspective here. And in regards to if he ran the governor as a true conservative, I could give two ***** about that. This conservative litmust test crap is a bunch of BS.

DiN, Why should anyone provide anything to you? You hate facts and are incapable of reason. I need to follow my sig. more often Why should anyone believe that? Every projection the presidents team has ever come up with has always missed the mark by a long shot.

Well lets see here, you have 1349 posts, I would say look back at your posting history and just pick any one of them.

Na, just laughing at ya... nothing more man.

The American public is akin to an 11 year old with A.D.D "Johnny! Johnny!! focus! stop looking at the fish bowl, I know the little fishy looks kinda funny, but you gotta study."

What a meat puppet

David arent you embarrassed by now?

I've been reading about this, and this is a perfect cotrolled experiment of what not to do.

Just what I would expect out of you

That has got to be one of the most false and ignorant things you've said yet. Really. You have any idea how many retiree's depend on dividends as part of their retirement income? What about Pension funds? All those Unions, you know how badly they would be effected? Why do I even bother? At least with Birdog you know where he stands, he's a quasi socialist/communist, so this sort of taxation is mild by his standards, but you on the otherhand, you're just a unabashed obama fact hating cheerleading kool-aid loving leftist.

DiN, is that you?

It's hard to know exactly how much spare capacity they actually have, they always have tried to give the appearance that they have more than they actually do. In any case, even if they do make up most of the shortfall the less total spare capacity available, the higher the price even if supply is fully accounted for. From what I read, no. I believe their shipments were down from the previous month, according to one of the accounting agencies. Down from a record high. I think, it's too late for me to look up, but I believe thats what I read.

They'll make up some of the shortfall. It is in their best interest to not see prices get out of control.

What he said is what I've been saying on this board for quite some time. You just can't cut, you have to cut and have a pro growth tax code. This message is gonna be a winner in the general elections, which is a position of cutting spending AND having progrowth tax reform. This is what I'm talking about, pragmatic. Btw, Romney is unveiling his new tax plan soon. Looking forward to disecting it a bit. Also, it looks as if Obama has been dropping off again, USA Today Gallup poll recently released http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-20/GOP-convention-poll/53172644/1 Funny how on Politico, this was nowhere to be found, yet Politico on one of their main headlines of the day, from this VERY SAME poll has this as one of their major headline POLL: SANTORUM OPENS 10 POINT LEAD Here's a few other headlines from Politico about Romney today MITT SPENDING OUTPACES FUNDRAISING MITTS BURN RATE A BOON FOR OBAMA MICHIGAN LAWMAKERS WORRY ABOUT MITT POLL: MITTS ARIZONA LEAD NARROWS And they dont happen to mention that there was a poll that came out on the same day that shows Mitt up 10 over Santorum in Arizona, they don't mention that there was another poll that came out today in Michigan that shows Mitt up 2. But here is the Headline on politico about Obama OBAMA SINGS AGAIN pfff It's so obvious that the media doesn't want Mitt to win, they know he would give Obama a really tough election matchup, they desperately want to see Santorum win because they know they would win. Mitt has already been vetted, the spot light has been on him the whole time, the only thing they can find about Mitt are some politically clumsy things he has said, and thats it. Whereas Santorum is now beginning to get properly vetted, and it seems like every day here recently they are finding things he has said that just doesn't play well with independents. And with intense scruting from the main stream media and even hard right wingers, Romney still is about even with Obama and that is without the right coaelescing behind him yet. On a sidenote, would someone just tell Sarah Palin to shut the !@#$ up already!

Ummm those don't count, unless they leave the workforce before the age of retirement.

Let's not talk about "for everything before he was against it" or matters of "principle" when we talk about politicians. Did Obama rip Hillay Clinton about her idea of having health insurance mandates in the 08 primaries? That's a major flip flop. Or how about when Obama back in the primaries lashed out at John Edwards and said That is about as hypocritical as you get. Agreed? Or how about when Obama criticized George Bush for running up the US National debt and called him "unpatriotic" for doing so. I mean, really? YOu telling me that he wasn't saying that to score political points? The debt under Obama by the end of his first term will surpass what Ol Bushy did in two terms. Trust me when I tell you, I could bring up many more instances of hypocritical political expediency, so if you are gonna bring this issue up, then at the very least admit that Obama has been shallow as well when it comes to this subject. Deal? If this election boil down to substance, competence and record of achievements and not other BS topics that the Obama campaign will desperately try to make it into, then Romney wins. Romney was extremely successful as a venture capitalist, he was extremely successful at turning around the Olympics, elected Gov in a very blue state and turned a budget deficit to balancing the budget every year he served and turned a surplus of over $2 Billion and he was able to work with Democrats across the aisle. These are facts, and you can't deny them, not at least from an objective rational POV. I'll tell you what else are some facts, Obamas job record has been horrible, his handling of the National debt has been atrocious, I mean in his latest budget, he doesn't even have a long term plan for bringing it down, and his handling of the looming entitlement ticking time bomb has been non existent. He would rather demagogue a plan such as Ron Wyden and Paul Ryans, rather than produce a plan himself. This Buftex, is a complete failure of leadership. That's a fact. As I said, if this election gets successfully portrayed from the left about Mitt ROmney AKA Gordon Gekko the callous corporate raider, who waxes poetic about trees being just the right size then Obama will win, BUT if this election focuses on substance and the economy, Mitt wins. So it's gonna be about who wins the message war.

Yes he can! Romney will be a MUCH better General election candidate than a primary one. He is a competent, pragmatic, non ideologicl man who has a history of success and turning things around. He will feel alot more comfortable in his own skin in the general elections, why? Because he won't have to pander and try soooo damn hard to be liked by the right wingers. He's not one of them (Thank God) , he is a fiscal conservative who gets things done. People like competence, and thats Obama's weakness, he's not a competent leader. Where Romney can beat out OBama with independents is the issue of competence and the economy. I think very soon you will begin to start hearing about this phony unemployment rate. About all the disaffected people who have given up looking for work. It's an embarrassment from the media that this isn't an issue. How can the media not be talking about all the people who have given up looking for work? That is a major problem. I see that as being one of the major issues in the U.S But like I said, I predict that the American public will get educated on this issue, and I believe that will begin to happen soon. BWAAAAK BWAAAAK!

Which is the right position. Anyone who understands anything about economics and doesn't have a partisan view realizes that the U.S has the best bankruptcy courts in the world, a bridge loan that would of ensured that a orderly bankruptcy would of yielded similar economic results, with a few minor differencies, one that the bondholders wouldn't of gotten !@#$ed over for the unions and two it wouldn't of cost the taxpayer nearly as much money. But that won't stop you from believing that the government is the end all be all solution to America's epedimic joblessness. Yaaay for hope and change! There is soooo much hope out there, soooo much hope that over 5 million people since Obama has taken office that have either given up hope looking for work or simply just choose not to work. That's 5 million people have dropped out of the workforce. But hey, thats the sort of Hope and change you support. Welcome to Obama's new normal We can do better this.

I'll take a "severely conservative" candidate over a naive, wealth-distributing president incapable of leadership any day of the week.

Let's be real here, the GOP is fractured, that's not to say that they can't get unified or become ferociously galvanized once the race is between the nominee and Obama. But as of right now, it's a battle between the heart and the brains of the party. The energy and passion is with the hard right and the logical pragmatic side are with Romney. I always thought of "conservativism" to be more from a fiscal sense, but it's obvious that fiscal conservativsm in today's "conservative" party plays second fiddle to rhetoric and social issues. Booooooo to the hard right

It's right there you dumbass. There is no such thing as "official stats" Now if that argument applies to Californi, then it certainly applies to the US http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf And that comes from the Rand Corporation which many studies show that their estimates lowball most others including that from the U.N The Rand Corporation are not proponents of the legalization of marijuana, and they themselves concede that it would virtually cripple Mexican marijuana revenues for the cartels. They base it off of drug seizures and studies. And US officials estimate that 50 to 65% of Mexican cartel revenues come from Mexico, thats not what I'm saying, thats what US and Mexican officials estimate. Now you may try to change the subject with a 1998 or 2000 year study that shows total gross consumption in dollars, which has nothing to do with this conversation. Meanwhile, I'll talk about the topic at hand. Now try to keep up with me and focus here for a second. Are we not talking about Mexican imported marijuana? yes or no? Why are we talking about Mexican marijuana? Could it be because of the cartels and violence? Could it be that the point of this discussion is how cutting off a significiant portion of Mexican marijuana imports would contribute to defunding the cartels? The burden of proof is on you, now show me a different study that shows that marijuana is not a Mexican main revenue generator. And show me with whatever number you provide how that wouldn't seriously impact their revenues and funding. Show me and make the case. If not, then stop wasting my time.

1998????? Please, if you are gonna try to make an argument,please provide information that at least comes from this millenium. Do you have any idea how much marijuana imports from Mexico has increased since then? Look it up ANd wont put a dent in the drug war violence??? You are talking out your ass as usual. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574614230731506644.html Maybe in your little narrow minded world 50-65% won't cause a "dent" but any rational thinking person understands that if you cut down a businesses main revenue generator and cut out anywhere between 1/2 to 2/3 of their total revenues, understands that it would critically impair a business. You see, this is called economics, and from an economic standpoint there is no rational debate on this topic. There isn't, none. Now if you guys want to come at this from a moral or cultural standpoint, then that is debatable. But from pure economics and what it would do to the cartels, your argument doesn't hold water. Will this solve the drug mexican cartel issue? No, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

No offense, but that is some faulty logic you got there. That flies in the face of conventional economic wisdom. Adding supply does not typically lead to added demand. This is a demand issue, there is a high demand for marijuana, not meth or heroine. Marijuana is not any more if not even less dangerous than alcohol. The demand will always be there for marijuana because every day that passes people are getting properly educated on marijuana, and they are learning that it isn't any sort of drug that creates physical hazard, at least not any more so than alcohol. Marijuana is almost as socially acceptable as alcohol, which ties in with this being a demand issue. Marijuana is BY FAR the number cash cow for the cartels, the idea that they will be able to supplant marijuana with meth or heroine as their cash cow is absurd.