Barack Obama, easily. From this bunch.

If Obama gets elected, I’m hoping that he can do everything for the White House that he did for the Illinois state legislature 2 short years ago.

Barak Obama is after the order of Nehors you silly Mormon liberals. Barak Obama is the biggest media driven nothing to come along since the actor Paul Reiser. I can’t wait for Obama to be exposed as the Marxist shill that he is. I don’t mean to get all up in your grill my brothers and sisters, but you all need to get a clue.

This makes no sense to me. Say you’re a Romney supporter for any reason OUTSIDE the Mormon factor. Why in the heck then would you support Barack Obama? Policy-wise, philosophy-wise, they are about as far apart as you can get. It makes absolutely no sense..

I’m voting for Romney, one way or the other. He’s the only candidate whose record I like.

Spelling check: Barack Obama

He has been my choice since I was first introduced in 2003. But, you know, I am a socialist.

I think the whole thing is a train wreck. I worry that Obama would make Iraq a worse mess than it already is, but no one else seems to be successfully wooing me a different direction either. I may just vote for Pedro…

McCain. No contest.

There’s a good chance I’ll end up voting for Obama, though it depends in part on who the VP picks are. I’ve already posted my full explanation here. ..bruce..

Agreed, Bookslinger. That’s my approach here in Texas.

Honestly, I’d vote for Obama just to get these crummy baby-boomers out of the driver’s seat. I’m fed up, ya hear?

Yeah, you guys marched against Vietnam, burnt some draft cards, wore funny clothes, civil rights… yadda, yadda… And ever since, it’s been all about you guys.

Well, you’re done. OK? Enough of your angst, your identity quest, your politics. Time to move over.

Shoo. Shoo.

Yeah, you guys marched against Vietnam, burnt some draft cards, wore funny clothes, civil rights… yadda, yadda… And ever since, it’s been all about you guys.

The worst sin of the “greatest generation” is that they parented the Boomers.

Ron Paul. Despite the rhetoric of others, Paul is the only true candidate of change. Everyone agrees upon that; they differ, however, on if that change would be good.

Justine, I’ve sent you a couple of e-mails, but gotten no response, would you e-mail me? gardnera@netutah.com It’s about that blog post you did. Or maybe it was a comment. About Lamictal.

Bill has decided we’re supporting Obama. I tend to lean on him for these decisions because he’s a much better judge of people than I, which is so weird since I notice people and watch them and figure them out, but I tend to be foolish about my decisions.

Although if I could go back, I would so take back my vote for Ross Perot and vote for Clinton. Just to be true to myself. I would regret it, but for my own reasons.

The other thing is this: At age 35, I have only ever had a Clinton or a Bush be my president since I STARTED VOTING at 18- I’m seriously not intersted in continuing that dynastic movement. Hillary is just more of the same, and I don’t trust her socialistic tendencies.

Annegb,

Bill has decided we’re supporting Obama. I tend to lean on him for these decisions because he’s a much better judge of people than I, which is so weird since I notice people and watch them and figure them out, but I tend to be foolish about my decisions.

Bill rocks!

If you are a Romney supporter, and Romney is now a McCain supporter, then are you still a Romney supporter if you don’t support McCain ?

Hillary is a socialist and Obama is not? Seriously?

Kyle M,

You make a good point, but I think supporting abortion is a pretty big issue.

“I think supporting abortion is a pretty big issue.”

I don’t. For me, it’s pretty-much a non-issue. Big political waste of time.

Wow, on this poll Obama is beating out McCain very solidly.

I would have expected it to be more of a competition.

KyleM: Obama has a lot of support from young voters, educated voters, and wealthy voters (at least in comparison to Clinton). Those demographics might explain his support within the bloggernaccle.

43. I know the demographic data. I guess don’t understand the educated voter support across the board, let alone the bloggernacle. I understand the young, naive support. I understand he guilty, white, rich liberal support. I understand the african american support. I just don’t understand how educated people can believe Obama when he says if we vote for him, all our wildest dreams will come true (except for coorpoarate America, which he plans on pillaging). In the ‘nacle, it’s the same people who castigated Romney for “saying anything to get elected.”

KyleM: Why Obama is the darling of the bloggernacle:
1) Nice haircut–and he didn’t pay $400. for it
2) He looks really good in his pantsuits.
3) He looks like he might actually survive four years in the White House.
4) His wife (STILL his wife, with no scandals clouding the marriage) is regal-looking and obviously extremely bright. (Sorry, but McCain’s wife looks like she stepped off a Barbie commercial. Does she talk? I’ve never heard her. I’m afraid I can picture her giggling, but it’s hard to imagine her talking.)
5) As Michelle Obama told Larry King, Barack took time off from campaigning to attend parent/teacher conferences. That goes a long ways for people who post the Family Proclamation on their walls.
6) He took Valentine’s Day off campaigning to be with his wife and family. (Collective sigh.) WHOLESOME RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES.
7) Some of us actually agree with him on the issues. I doubt anyone agrees with him 100% (I know I don’t), but on the big issues, we agree. (Iraq is the big issue for me.)
Mormons are used to boring talks. Obama does not give boring talks. That’s five points right there.
9) He has the coolest you-tube campaign of all the candidates. (”Yes we can!”)
10) He believes in “the audacity of hope.” How Mormon is that?

Margaret, McCain’s wife travels with a stylist, who obviously isn’t doing her job in a way that appeals to you. Or me. She looks a lot different from the way I remember her 8 years ago. Not necessarily better, just different.

KyleM, most high school student body presidents aren’t married, with kids, so you’ll need to work on the comeback a bit.

You sure are right, Paula. How does Student Body President at BYU sound?

CC,

I think Margaret was joking with me a little bit. Number seven on her list is her actual response.

Well, if Iraq is such a big deal, then compare the number of babies that have been aborted since 2003 to the number of people killed in Iraq. At least people in the Iraq War were fighting for something.

From the Wikipedia entry for Uday Hussein:

As head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, Uday oversaw the imprisonment and torture of Iraqi athletes who were deemed not to have performed to expectations. According to widespread reports, torturers beat and caned the soles of the soccer players’ feet — inflicting intense pain without leaving visible marks on the rest of their bodies. Uday reportedly kept scorecards with written instructions on how many times each player should be beaten after a poor showing.[6] One defector reported that jailed soccer players were forced to kick a concrete ball after failing to reach the 1994 World Cup finals. Another defector claimed that athletes were dragged through a gravel pit and subsequently immersed in a sewage tank to induce infection in the victims’ wounds.[7]
Uday used devices of torture deriving from the Middle Ages. One of them was a 20 kg (50 lb) black iron mask in which his players were to stand up straight with in the sun for the entire day after having performed poorly in a game (the players would faint after less than an hour and be awakened by kicks of Uday’s guards). Another was a pear-shaped iron tool with two handles, similar to a car jack, which he would use to tear a man’s anus open.[8]
A former Uday body double look-alike, Latif Yahia, now living in the West, asserts that Uday was unable to perform sexually without causing pain and drawing blood from his sexual partners. Yahia asserts that Uday had raped numerous women, including a visiting Russian ballerina. Yahia has since released a book, co-authored with Karl Wendl, entitled I Was Saddam’s Son.
Other allegations include:

Kidnapping young Iraqi women from the streets in order to rape them. Uday was known to intrude on parties and otherwise “discover” women whom he would later rape. Time published an article in 2003 detailing his sexual brutality.[9] In one such instance, he ordered a young woman who was walking with her husband, where Uday said her husband was a nobody, despite him wearing a uniform showing him to be a captain in the Iraqi Army. Uday then ordered his men to grab the girl, to which her husband struck Uday in defense of his wife, and was apprehended by Uday’s bodyguards. The wife was raped and later murdered, and the husband was sentenced to death for “high treason against Saddam”.
Profligate self-indulgence in an era of widespread privation. When U.S. troops captured his mansion in Baghdad, they found a personal zoo stocked with lions and cheetahs; an underground parking garage for his collection of luxury cars; Cuban cigars inscribed with his name; and millions of dollars worth of fine wines, liquor and heroin. An HIV testing kit was also found among his personal effects.[10]
Uday’s mansion was littered with sexual paraphernalia and decorated with images depicting naked women and prostitutes obtained from Internet web pages.[11]
Usage of an iron maiden on persons running foul of him.[12]
Uday beat an army officer unconscious when the man refused to allow him to dance with his wife; the man later died of his injuries. Uday also shot and killed an army officer who did not salute him.[13]
Uday purchased or stole approximately 1,200 luxury vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce Corniche valued at over $200,000. Uday is reported to have arrived at a polling station during a referendum on his father’s regime in a pink Rolls-Royce.[14]

I suspect LDS people like Obama for many of the same reasons that non-LDS like him. He is young, has charisma, is intelligent, etc.

However, many LDS voters bring one additional factor - in that they feel GOP candidates (McCain, but particularly Huckabee) were unusually and unfairly abusive of Mitt Romney. Many of us do feel it was a slap in the face and when it comes to voting, perhaps many aren’t exactly in a turn-the-other-cheek mood.

I wonder to what degree that uniquely-LDS +1 factor is playing a significant role.

However, many LDS voters bring one additional factor - in that they feel GOP candidates (McCain, but particularly Huckabee) were unusually and unfairly abusive of Mitt Romney. Many of us do feel it was a slap in the face and when it comes to voting, perhaps many aren’t exactly in a turn-the-other-cheek mood.

If *this* is the reason for his popularity amongst Mormons, it makes Mormons look like absolute idiots. As I’ve pointed out before, if someone was a legitimate Romney fan (because of his politics) and now you’re switching to Obama because of how Romney was “treated”, then that someone needs their head examined.

(I’m not questioning Margaret’s support for Obama, even though I disagree with it, obviously. Her support is well thought-out.)

Unfortunately, democracy is better than the present-day alternatives. Which drives me nuts.

Cindy McCain is a fairly well-respected business woman and philanthropist. She’s got more executive experience at actually running things than either Obama or Clinton. She’s not without her own scandals, but I wouldn’t dismiss her.

Okay, here’s the other thing about Cindy. Don’t you think of the Brady Bunch? Doesn’t she look like Cindy Brady all grown up and posing beautifully? Think of the other candidates’ wives.
Ann Romney–a classic name. Queens and princesses have had that name.
Elizabeth Edwards–also regal
Michelle Obama–even the Beatles wrote about that name (prophetically?) and rhymed it with “ma belle” (”my beauty”).
And what on earth shall we do with BILL? There’s William the Conqueror, of course, but that might just be too appropriate and suggestive.

And then there’s the Conqueror’s first title, William the Bastard, which for many Republicans (and some Democrats), also fits.

“I think Obama is more well-meaning, perhaps more altruistic, but he and his team will be incompetent at running things.”

This nonsense is pretty well refuted by the campaigns so far. Managing a national campaign is an extremely complicated task, one at which Obama and his team have excelled, preparing for every eventuality. The Clinton campaign, however, has been remarkably prone to errors and incorrect assumptions, as well as poor planning.

I don’t think I’d vote for McCain even if Romney was his running mate.

Bookslinger–I realize there is much more to smarts than college degrees, but seriously, attending Columbia and Harvard law is meaningless? What about being editor of Harvard Law Review? Luck? How about teaching at University of Chicago Law School? Let me guess…affirmative action?

Have you read his books? Have you read extensive interviews? I don’t think you can dismiss Obama’s intelligence so easily.

Bookslinger, you obviously haven’t been paying much attention to Obama in order to have swallowed and perpetuated these simplistic slurs.

But die-hard conservatives such as yourself probably wouldn’t blame Republicans for any problems in four years even if McCain is elected and unable to stop the bleeding of our national treasure and prestige. Some 30% of you still support Bush, after all.

Bill and ESO, it wasn’t that long ago that Hillary was touted as being so intelligent that she was claimed to be the smartest woman in America.

ESO, being an academic does not equate to being smart. A lot of professors are “not smart”, and tons of idiots have college degrees, even from Harvard. The things you mentioned are accomplishments, but not necessarily indicative of intelligence.

Seriously, if you want intelligence and political competence, and someone who has a team that has a track record of getting things done, vote for Hillary. However, I seriously disagree with what she wants to implement: socialism and statism.

Obama has proven himself to be a demagogue, much like Jimmy Carter, saying things that people want to hear, and getting them emotionally worked up with a well-crafted turn of a phrase.

His theme of regime change even harkens back to Jimmy Carter’s message at the time Gerald Ford finished out Nixon’s second term. Obama is essentially recycling the political playbook of Jimmy Carter. It sounds all too familiar. (I voted in the 1976 presidential election.)

Bill, if McCain is elected, I’ll blame republicans, but not conservatives for the 4 years of screw-ups. But I’ll especially blame McCain for collaborating with liberals. Republicans and conservatives are no longer synonymous.

In the end, I’ll probably vote for the well-meaning idiot over the smart evil one. So relax, it looks like I’ll vote for your guy.

If all LDS on this thread were to vote again based on what Obama will most likely *DO* while in office, would the results be different ? For example, it is likely that he will appoint two Supreme Court justices that believe the Constitution is a “living” document that can be manipulated by judges - with no need for Congress and the States to ratify !

ESO - I have met over the years probably 50 Harvard graduates. Sadly, your theories about that reputation are unfounded. If you’re going to trot out Ivy League degrees, then you can’t dismiss Bush’s Harvard MBA.

In my experience, all judges are activist.

Exactly. You don’t think Christian activists aren’t trying to stack the deck with justices who will strike down RvW? That’s all well and fine … but you can’t complain about activist judges when your strategy calls for it.

I do not understand people who are a one issue voter on something like abortion.

It’s legal. Get over it.

Particularly mormons, especially considering our church’s viewpoint that, although rare, it’s ocassionaly accepted as an option. We also do not treat it as murder from a church discipline standpoint. Serious, certainly, but not murder.

I think some mormons have become confused about where to focus their energy. There are so many issues we should concern ourselves with, this should be FAR down on the list in my opinion.

CC, 74: My question in 72 was not meant to be combative; I’m really interested to know how ethics figures in your voting—and nothing I said questioned your view of abortion as an ethical problem. To show my good faith, I’ll answer your question: No.

re 88

I should say in fairness that Democrats may not “want” to damage employers or take away their incentives, but these are these consequences of Democratic policies. Perhaps Democrats don’t understand the damage that comes from their socialist policies.

CC, I don’t consider a fetus to even be a full person until it’s viable outside the womb. Based on statements of various old prophets and the answer to Nephi’s prayer, I don’t believe that the spirit is fully invested in a developing fetus to begin with. Which makes the issue less a moral issue and more of a medical issue.

Sorry, but when the fetus is at VERY early development stages, it’s not “a person.” It’s a tadpole. And I’m just not going to get overly outraged about aborting it. I frankly consider the position that aborting a tadpole, or a clump of cells, is “murder” to be rather ridiculous. To equate such “deaths” to dead soldiers in Iraq is misguided and silly.

Late term abortion is another matter for me. But then again, Roe v. Wade makes that distinction too (however clumsily). So, I just don’t see there being much at stake on the abortion issue really.

If I had my druthers, I’d like to see Roe v. Wade overturned and thrown back to the states to fight over. But… I don’t really care THAT much. Not as much as I care about the housing crisis, for instance.

I oppose partial birth abortion, but then again, so did just about everyone in Congress - on both sides of the aisle. So again, I just don’t see a “Democrat danger.”

This