rickyp wrote: When suppossedly serious candidates for President can't bring themselves to speak objective truth clearly (Obama IS a citizen.)

Excuse me but please point to one serious candidate for President that has not said Obama is a Natural Born Citizen (which is more then just a citizen). And provide a link to the citation please.

Well I guess that would depend on your definition of serious, but Donald Trump is currently top of the Republican polls.

Sassenach wrote:Well I guess that would depend on your definition of serious, but Donald Trump is currently top of the Republican polls.

I think his hair will complete the ticket as candidate for VP.

rickyp wrote:
When suppossedly serious candidates for President can't bring themselves to speak objective truth clearly (Obama IS a citizen.)

Archduke responded
Excuse me but please point to one serious candidate for President that has not said Obama is a Natural Born Citizen (which is more then just a citizen). And provide a link to the citation please.

Here's the thing Archduke. If a politicians says, I don't know ...or "I take him at his word" , or says anything less than "He is a natural born citizen and qualifies to be President", then they are not speaking objective truth. Period. The numbers of Republican pols who said this are legion. (besides Trump and his cheerleaders at Fox News, there's Bachman, Palin, Huckabee, pretty much everybody but Mitch Daniels. The man who should be the republicans nominee.)
Why not? In order not to offend those who actually buy into the nonsense. And in refusing to have the courage to utter the facts, they further muddy the water. They are assisting in the propagation of a lie.
What happens to their credibility when the lie is finally flattened? In the last few weeks a few common "lies" or exaggerations" or "mis-characterizations" about Obama seem to have been flattened.

Many criticized the bail out of GM. That a) just wouldn't work and that it was "government" owning industry. As GM and Chrysler paid off their loans and continually posted profits and continues to hire...how's that turned out?
b) Obama is soft on terrorists. repeated ad nauseum whilst, Ignoring the drone attacks and evidence to the contrary till the events of last weekend (OBL) seem to have pretty much ended that.
3) Obama's a tax raising socialist. He hasn't raised taxes and there isn't much evidence of anything else resembling unpopular socialism. (Lets set aside Medicare as its apparently popular with most Americans, and a kind of socialism to boot. .) So whats left to attack him on? The deficit?
It seems most on the right want to avoid that discussion when the specifics come up.And none of them really want to examine the roots of the deficit and how it built up.
Why? Politicians want people to easily agree with them, not to have to convince them that something thats going to hurt is the best choice. So the idea that attacking Obama with things like the "birther issue", or jsut allowing it to continue as a kind of whisper campaign, is easy.
Being based firmly on a foundation of air, it doesn't stand.
Does it feel like Obama has a firmer hand on 2012 because of this, right now anyway?
Daniels was right when he said that the "birther" issue was hurting the republican message. That it was pandering to an ignorant rump who included a racist element was damaging. That it was made up hockum was damaging. That it distracted from actually being involved in arriving at solutions to the enormous problems with adult dialogue and compromise...is really the point.
Maybe Obama did let this fester because he sensed that it was helping deconstruct his oppositions standing with reasonable people?

Well, first off GM and Chrysler haven't actually paid off their loans. What they did was return the money given to them for the loans with other money the government gave them.

Further, Bachman, and Palin aren't serious candidates for President. I would argue the Huckabee isn't either since he hasn't made any moves to be a candidate this time. Therefore you have failed to name one serious Republican contender who has said anything other then Obama is a citizen. Additionally, you haven't provided a documented source for any serious candidate making the claim.

Well, serious in your estimation or not (and I feel your pain) according to this Gallup poll, the leading candidates for the republican nomination are, in order of support ; Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Gingrich, Paul, Huntsman, Daniels, Pawlenty and Santorum.
source:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147452/Romne ... scale.aspx

By the way, the poll was taken before Trump laid in ....so maybe he's taken over as the republican leader?
I'll give you Romney. He was direct and denied the nonsense. A partial record of some of the partial dodges and statements of support here:

http://conservativesamizdat.blogspot.co ... us-on.html

There were only two 2012 candidates who gave the most direct and firm rejection of the birther issue. Those candidates where Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

Neither Huckabee nor Palin have annouced or taken any steps to become a candidate so they by definition are not serious candidates because they aren't even candidates. By your own admission Paul is not now and never has been a serious candidate. Further, while Gingrich and Santorum have taken steps to be candidates, neither has any chance of winning will be out immediately after Iowa if not before. Therefore, neither of them are serious candidates.

Romeny isn't the only one who has made a strong comment. Pawlenty has as well.

Pawlenty observed. "I think President Obama was born in the United States."

Daniels hasn't made any comments on the birther issue but then based on his position that our fiscal issues are so bad we shouldn't even discuss social issues that is not a surprising, Though I am a bit curious as to why you think he should be President.

Huntsman has been pretty much precluded from making comments on political issues by the Hatch Act.

So yet again, provide cites for any serious candidate supporting the birthers.

Archduke you're starting to remind me of Steve defending the past sins of Christianity by denying that almost nyone is a real Christian. Even Catholics. ..

If the members of th republican party who will vote in primaries aren't capable of distinguishing who is a serious candidate when asked ... I don't know know who is. And a serious candidate for them, is the one they would support. You get a plurallity or even a significant minority of them and you're serious.
And there is a very big difference between a serious candidate for the nomination of the republican party and a serious candidate for president. It is somewhat plausible at this time that Palin could win the republican nomination...but not plausible that she'd win the nationwide election. (Your point about not having declared only matters once a dealine for filing has past, BTW)
I didn't say Daniels should be president. I said he should be the republicans nominee. He's the most sensible of the bunch. I think he's a fiscal conservative, grounded in reality, who isn't focussed on endlessly and fruitlessly fighting the tidal wave of social change but willing to address governance issues that are affecting the nation like an adult. He'd represent a viable alternative to Obama who is gaining every day as the economy recovers slowly and he wins in the side show issues like the war on terror...
(This morning a poll came out of Virginia that showed a plurality of Virginians supporting Gay Marriage. This from a state that 5 years ago changed its constitution to deny gay marriage. Don't tell me that social issues, which still define the republican party, have majorly significance. Daniels is right, they are a hindrance to election and unimportant.)

rickyp wrote:Archduke you're starting to remind me of Steve defending the past sins of Christianity by denying that almost nyone is a real Christian. Even Catholics.

Balderdash.

You made the claim that serious candidates for the Republican nomination are not making statements against birtherism. I called you on it asking you to point to one serious candidate that made something other then a strong comment. I define a serious candidate as some one most likely to actually run for the nomination and, if they do run, has a better then average chance of winning the nomination.

So to make it clear for you, a serious candidate is
1.) somebody that will actually run for the nomination
2.) somebody that has more then a 50% chance of winning.

How do you define a serious candidate?

So to make it clear for you, a serious candidate is
1.) somebody that will actually run for the nomination
2.) somebody that has more then a 50% chance of winning.

This is a very strange definition. At this stage of the last cycle would Obama have classed as serious ? He'd yet to declare his candidacy and at that point the whole world assumed that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in, so presumably she was the only serious candidate for the Democratic nomination ? Would Bill Clinton have been called a serious candidate in 1991 ? Ronald Reagan in 1979 ? Hell, you named four different candidates (Pawlenty, Daniels, Romney and Huntsman) in the other thread, how can they all possibly have a greater than 50% chance of winning ? By your definition there can never be more than one serious candidate.

I'd personally class a serious candidate as somebody with a significant media profile who has been widely tipped to be running or who has expressed an interest in doing so and who consistently produces decent poll numbers to suggest that they're at least in with a shout. Obviously by the time that we approach the first primaries the definition would have to narrow a bit because by then everybody will have declared and polls will be more reliable as people face up to the reality of making a choice, but for now I'd say anybody who consistently gets 10-15% support in the polls over a decent length of time has to be viewed as a serious candidate. I probably wouldn't include Trump in that because he's a flash in the pan and likely to fade as quickly as he arrived.

OK Ricky,
What about Hillary Clinton? She's the one who started this nonsense, why is it a "Republican thing" according to you? You find someone who is Republican and they didn't word things the way you like as some sort of racist thinking?
You are taking an inch and attempting to stretch it into a mile while avoiding any Democrats who stated the same damned thing.

and how about using Ricky's very own definitions of what SHOULD be said:

If a politicians says, I don't know ...or "I take him at his word" , or says anything less than "He is a natural born citizen and qualifies to be President", then they are not speaking objective truth. Period.

Bill Clinton pretty much states this NOW

“If I were them, I’d be really careful riding that birther horse too much. Everyone knows it’s ludicrous,”

Kudos Mr President, just what Ricky wants to hear!
But wait, the same person put it quite a different way a few years ago:

“I think everybody’s got a right to run for President who qualifies under the Constitution. And I’d be the last person to begrudge anybody their ambition.” — Bill Clinton, August 4, 2008

Gee Ricky, that's what the Republicans say?????

Sassenach wrote:This is a very strange definition. At this stage of the last cycle would Obama have classed as serious ? He'd yet to declare his candidacy and at that point the whole world assumed that Hillary Clinton was a shoo-in, so presumably she was the only serious candidate for the Democratic nomination ? Would Bill Clinton have been called a serious candidate in 1991 ? Ronald Reagan in 1979 ? Hell, you named four different candidates (Pawlenty, Daniels, Romney and Huntsman) in the other thread, how can they all possibly have a greater than 50% chance of winning ? By your definition there can never be more than one serious candidate.

I would agree that it is too early to name the serious candidates. However, I listed those 4 because based on what I have read, they are all going to run. Whereas Huckabee, Palin and Trump will not even announce candidacy.

As for the second part. perhaps I used the wrong terminology in what I was trying to express. Perhaps I should have used 50/50 chance of winning. Either way, I was trying to condense consideration of spectrum of support, ability to raise campaign funds, and lack of personal baggage into a pithy statement.

Each of the 4 I named will be able to appeal to a broad spectrum of support for the registered Republicans and Independants voting in the Republican primaries. Bachmann, Santorum, Palin, and Huckabee (should they actually run) are so socially conservative they won't be able to attract the FiCon Republicans and Independents needed to win the nomination. Paul is just too nutty to get any near enough votes to win the nomination.

Those 4 will most likely have access to the money needed to run. All four have established fund raising structures in place that just need to be expanded (I know easier said then done) and two of them are wealthy enough they can pretty much self fund their campaigns if needed. Johnson has been out of politics to long and Cain has never been in politics so neither has any kind of fund raising structure even set up and neither is wealthy enough self-fund.

Finally, the personal political baggage of the 4 I names is small enough that I think they will be able to mitigate them enough. Gingrich, Palin & Trump (should the last two run) have way too much personal baggage to garner enough votes to get the nomination.

Sassenach wrote:I'd personally class a serious candidate as somebody with a significant media profile who has been widely tipped to be running or who has expressed an interest in doing so and who consistently produces decent poll numbers to suggest that they're at least in with a shout. Obviously by the time that we approach the first primaries the definition would have to narrow a bit because by then everybody will have declared and polls will be more reliable as people face up to the reality of making a choice, but for now I'd say anybody who consistently gets 10-15% support in the polls over a decent length of time has to be viewed as a serious candidate. I probably wouldn't include Trump in that because he's a flash in the pan and likely to fade as quickly as he arrived.

By this criteria Ricky's comment about serious candidates being wishy washy on the birther issue is still false. Getting rid of Trump means only 1 person really meets all 3 criteria, (Romney) and he has specifically said the exact opposite.

So you think Daniels is definitely going to run ? Everything I've read (which will doubtless be a lot less than what you've read of course) suggests that he's going to sit this one out.

I think this would be a good one to miss for strong Republican candidates because Obama will be very tough to beat. He's still far more popular than the rest of his party after all, and incumbents are rarely beaten. In five years time it'll most likely be a lot easier.

Sassenach wrote:So you think Daniels is definitely going to run ? Everything I've read (which will doubtless be a lot less than what you've read of course) suggests that he's going to sit this one out.

Since Haley Barbour announced he isn't going to run, I think Daniels is going to.

Sassenach wrote:I think this would be a good one to miss for strong Republican candidates because Obama will be very tough to beat. He's still far more popular than the rest of his party after all, and incumbents are rarely beaten. In five years time it'll most likely be a lot easier.

I disagree with you. Look at he break down of numbers.

Obama hasn't been above 50% in his favorables for most of the last year. It is only the bump from killing bin Laden that has put him just barely over 50% in the latest polls. It was a tiny bounce, about 6%, considering the magnitude of the event, and pretty much everybody has said it won't last.

If you look at the "Direction of the Country" polls, almost all of then have "wrong direction" at 60-70% and they have been there for most of the last year.

Finally, the biggest indicator is that the number of people who feel Obama does not deserve a 2nd term is high. Something like 52%-54% say they wouldn't vote for him for a 2nd term.

Pretty much, it looks like as long as the Republicans don't nominate a whackjob, there is a real shot Obama could lose.