Well I am pretty sure that Dennis Kucinch would try to give that money to the veterans and Ron Paul would try to pay off the national debt and that would ruin everything.

If they are invited, they have to be granted immunity from certain challenges because they aren't sleazebags.

CANDIDATE CHALLENGE - COMPASSION,

Take the candidates to a busy 6 lane road with a median strip. A 5 year old child is placed on the median strip and is told to cry. Trafffic rushes by.

In order to win, the candidates will brave the traffic, go out and pick up the child and take the child to the side of the road out of harms way.

Kuciinich and Paul would win that one and the other candidates could use their immunity or form a committee appropriate funds, take a campaign contribution, discuss the matter with lobbyists, select a contractor, set up a rigged bid for a government contract, arrange for a photo-op, and have a crack squad of blackwater mercenaries armed to the teeth stop the traffic and rescue the child so they can take the child down to the recruiting office and have them sign up to invade Pakistan because he is now old enough tot sign up and serve nation and empire.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND!

/rimshot.

Posting comments that pat yourself on the back in order to counter a rising tide of criticism is something that no one around here would do.

Well, maybe one of you do.

I'm pretty sure everyone knows who that is.

snowglobe? not dirty enough.

how about the ending of "the magic christian" - vat filled with sewage, money poured in with it, the candidates jump in and get to keep all the money they can manage to grab, but they get to keep it ONLY if it is tainted?

Have the guy from jackass moderate the debate. give him a fire hose.

again, i think that kucinich and paul are not on the same level as our other candidates so it is best that they sit this one out.

damned straight you better be anonymous calling ME a liberal.

compared to me, ron paul is a liberal and brightstar65 is a WILD-EYED liberal.

no offense intended to either honourable personages of true conservative and libertarian philosphies, but I AM A GOLDWATER REPUBLICAN!

and you sir are most likely a COMMUNIST! and an anonymous gutless COMMUNIST at that, so maybe you are actually a "modern" republican, since they lack the courage of most communists and only smell marginally better.

that american flag pin you wear is fooling no one - all the COMMUNISTS wear them. Those are the people who sold us out to COMMUNIST china.

so you can take your commie sense of humor and place it in your hillary clinton nutcracker and squeeze away. you be better off putting your nuts in it and cracking them.

and do not ever call me a LIBERAL again.

stop fluoridating my water!!!

if i wanted to poison myself with fluorine compounds, i'd get prescription for happy pills like everyone else.

Who is the most electable candidate who will continue the endless war and sell us out lock stock and barrel to the Chinese?

What difference does it make. All of th social programs that the Democrats will promiss will take a backseat to the war industry.

Please stop hyping this phony election and get back to playing fantasy football.

Well, you cannot expect a warmongering corporate shill like Walter Shapiro mention any candidate who doesn't want us in a hundred year war against Islam.

It just isn't "plausible".

You DID mention Kucinich, I was wrong and I apologize:

"Betting little in Las Vegas"

"Edwards caught a break when the Nevada Supreme Court wisely ruled just before airtime that Dennis Kucinich did not have to be included over the protests of MSNBC."

Thank goodness that Edwards didn't have to face an anti-war candidate in the debate. I guess he is far more sensitive and vulnerable to such a person than Clinton and Obama. You know, that video of him tending to his hairdo. Clinton and Romney NEVER would do anything like that and Obabama's hair is just too short.

Mr. Shapiro, keep looking out for the interests of folks like MSNBC who try to protect us from democracy and peace.

Have you considered enlisting?

Journalist integrity? I fail to see the connection between those two words and warmongering corporate shills.

I guess Salon loves war.

Maybe they should think that one over.

Anyone who watches the tube could come up with equally erudite pitches and fluff for the war candidates as in this article - I suspect they are paying the author too much.

Even Kucinich likes him and would choose him as a running mate.

Either way, Kucinich/Paul or Paul/Kucinich just might win the election, not that the warmongering corporate shills who count the votes would let anyone know.

McKinney is running for the Green Party, no guilt in voting for her.

Juliebird, who was Gore's running mate?

We would have been in the same mess that we are in now. He would've been Gore's Cheney.

I had a boss who reported to Gore directly. I assure you, he is not someone you want in the White House. Things are seldom as they seem when it comes to politics.