Sunday, February 17, 2008

President's Day: Decision '08

On this President's Day in an election year, and with the herd of candidates thinned out over the last two months, I thought today would be a good time to provide the civic-minded of you out there a clearinghouse of Presidential candidate links to help you come to a decision in the upcoming year. I'll start with the obvious:

Democratic Party

Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1

Mike Gravel (My personal choice; he's been all but mathematically eliminated, but his campaign is still active): http://www.gravel2008.us/

Barack Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

Republican Party

Mike Huckabee: http://www.mikehuckabee.com/

John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/

Ron Paul (although his Presidential campaign is still officially active, Paul is shifting his focus to his Congressional seat campaign): http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

For those sick of the two-party system, there are many third party candidates to investigate. Vote you conscience!

Constitution Party

The Constitution Party is a staunchly conservative party comprised primarily of dissatisfied former Republicans who are unhappy with compromise with the more moderate members of the GOP. If this describes you, give the Constitution Party a try.

Don Grundmann: http://www.truthusa.org/

Green Party

The Green Party is sort of the opposite of the Constitution Party. They are a left-leaning party consisting largely of voters dissatisfied with the more centrist direction the Democrats have taken the last few years.

Cynthia McKinney: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/

Kent Mesplay: http://www.mesplay.org/

Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party is unique in that members believe that government should be out of as many affairs of the people as possible, be they financial or personal. Anti-gun control, pro-choice, anti-business regulation, pro-same-sex-marriage, anti-tax, and more.

There are numerous candidates for this party's Presidential nominee, so I'm merely providing the party's Web site here. They can direct you to the candidates: http://www.lp.org/

And Then There's...

...perennial third party/independent candidate Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate and left-leaning activist. Personally, I think he's worn out his welcome in this capacity, although I respect his lifetime body of work: http://www.naderexplore08.org/

I highly recommend the Web site Politics1.com, which is where I got this information. There you will find all this and much more. It's in my links section.

Finally, I can't let a topic like this go by without mentioning a candidate who truly is the most animated you'll find this year: http://www.digthewig08.com/.

Thanks!

4 comments:

ryanshaunkelly said...

WHERE DUTY CALLS

Nader Gravel & Paul Kucinich

Awake from your slumber
4 Wise Men march with the people
Washington DC

Whistleblowers
Honesty compassion intelligence guts
Not carrots sticks coercive diplomacy

Divided we fall
Mike Gravel
Dennis Kucinich
Ron Paul
Ralph Nader
No bribery blackmail extortion

Rage against the machine
Democracy rising democracy now
Suffer not

Todd Mason said...

Nader would kinda sorta like the Greens to give him their ballot lines, as he did in 2004 and 1996, without him actually committing to the Greens, as he did after a fashion in 2000.

The Constitution Party is kinda sorta wondering if Ron Paul will consider taking their nomination, even as the Libertarian Party ran him for President in 1988.

With the death of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I wonder if the Natural Law Party continues...they apparently ran Kucinich on some of their ballot lines in 2004.

Cynthia McKinney seems to be leading among the Greens willing to commit to the party.

Phillyradiogeek said...

Todd, if I'm not mistaken, the Natural Law Party is no more, at least in electoral politics. I believe they exist merely as a philosophical entity. I'll need to check their Web site (and they do have one).

Todd Mason said...

Natural Law's perennial candidate John Hegelin and his cronies tried with some success to take over the Reform Party, so that Hegelin was on some Reform ballot lines in 2004, while I think Pat Buchanan was renominated on others. Of course, the Reform Party was also infiltrated by the Lenora Fulani troops in earlier go-'rounds. The joys of electoral politics.