Healthcare:
I like his stance on preventative care. I think it’s a way to both save money and help people, a win-win. However then he argues that employer based coverage leads to too many services being used. This seems to be a bit of a contradiction. Is more upfront care cheaper in the long run or not? Without proposing some way to distinguish ‘preventative care’ from ‘over-consumption’ I think his plan becomes more rhetoric than substance.

Ethics: I like the idea of transparency. I’m not exactly sure how it would be achieved but at least I don’t see any contradictions here. I think he’s right that the internet can help solve a lot of these problems.

Energy: Overall, pretty good. He doesn’t specify where the money needed for new research will come from, but that isn’t a deal breaker. Cap and trade, improved emissions standards, and expanding nuclear-energy projects are all things I support.

Foreign Policy: Ok. At first I thought he was just going to restate is energy policy and say ‘one day we can have a better foreign policy’ and then forget about today

Education: Well, sounds good, maybe a little too good. Personalized curriculum doesn’t come cheap. Without highly motivated teachers who don’t have to look after 150 kids, I just don’t think it would work. Maybe a better history of his work in Arkansas would help me here. And again, where does the money come from?

Overall, he seemed better that I would have thought, so I went to his website to find out more about him, thinking I might even give him $10. However there were a number of issues in which he is so far away from my line of thinking that I can’t say I support him at all.

Assault Weapons Ban: He’s against it. Makes no sense to me. If the federal government suddenly decided to become tyranical, we would take a que from terrorists and fight them mostly with explosives, not assault weapons. And until that day, they are more danger than protection.

Immigration: very confusing, makes me think he’s not very serious of a thinker and more a one-line type guy.

I oppose the current immigration bill that the Senate is considering because it offers amnesty.

but then later….

I am opposed to amnesty – I believe that those who came here illegally years ago and are now law-abiding taxpayers must pay a significant fine as admission of their guilt and have a choice of deportation or a rigorous process toward legal status.

Isn’t that pretty close to what the most recent Senate Bill included?

Gay Rights: This is a basic human rights issue to me. His stance is completely unacceptable to me.

Abortion: I could be ok with a ‘each state should decide for themselves’ although I think it is such a divisive issue in our country that it should probably be decided on a county by county basis. However, his belief that there should be a constitutional amendment banning abortion is unacceptable in my mind.

Taxes: Very Alaskan. Small of a government as possible. While line item veto would help, I don’t believe it is politically feasible to get a consitutional amendment, nor powerful enough to end the deficit, let alone reduce the budget without cutting programs. So which programs does he want to cut? I’m worried he would cut taxes first and try to reduce spending later Also, I don’t like the FairTax for various reasons which I won’t go in to here.

overall not my favorite candidate.

:rolleyes:

Socialized medicine would be a disaster for the doctor-patient relationship we cherish. It will replace that relationship with a national institute that will dictate our treatment. Some procedures, such as lumbar fusion, work in some circumstances and not in others. That’s why individual determinations have to be made by patients and their doctors, why we have to be treated as individuals, not statistics. But if the national institute decides not to cover a procedure because it doesn’t work for everyone, that determination will apply across the board. They won’t look at our x-rays and records, they won’t consider our individual circumstances. Besides lumbar fusion, other procedures likely to be refused are knee replacements and preventive angioplasty. We must retain our personal relationship with doctors who will give us options, not be forced into an impersonal relationship with bureaucrats in Washington who will take them away. We can’t own our health if we don’t own our health care.

Clearly he hasn’t actually studied countries with socialized medicine. I don’t go to a government clerk when I feel sick, I go to my General Practitioner, and your GP is always the same one unless they retire or are transfered or you request another one (you don’t need to justify it, they’ll change your GP in 10 minutes on request). The GP then decides what kind of tests are needed and specialists what kind of treatment adequate. Not everyone gets the same treatment, you get the treatment the doctors consider most adapted to your needs. No, not everything is available always, you think your basic employer insurance covers all possible treatments? Yeah, keep hopin’.

He also has not broken away from the Bush policy in Iraq.

He seems like a genuinely nice, compassionate guy though.

I think it will be very helpful to compare and contrast the candidates’ answers – once a few more of them answer.

If you want to continue with the questions above, let me suggest researching the candidate first and asking similar but custom-made questions designed to make them defend their positions, rather than simply state what they are.

Hm.

Yeah, Michael. Why didn’t you just do a hatchet job instead of asking about issues? Unbelievable.

:rolleyes:

If you want to continue with the questions above, let me suggest researching the candidate first and asking similar but custom-made questions designed to make them defend their positions, rather than simply state what they are.