As I've grown older I've become more and more informed about the political process in this country, and naturally have become more and more disillusioned. I remember how betrayed I felt when I learned about the Electoral Collage. Each new election cycles brings new surprises about how little I knew.

This election cycle its the "superdelegate" WTF?? Am I correct in assuming that any given candidate could win the majority of delegates from the primaries, but still not get the nomination due to the votes of the superdelegates? AAARRGHH!!

I can't believe how far from democracy we are compared to how we're indoctrinated to believe we're some goddamn beacon on a hill of democracy around the world.

GAH!

I've seen Ron Paul's supporters dismiss these newsletters before saying that Ron Paul did not write them.

I will point out this article in the Houston Chronicle (link below) that addresses some of the more offensive comments, that Ron Paul himself claims the writings are taken out of context. He did NOT deny writing them. It was only later that he denied writing them.

But even if he didn't write them, that means instead that Ron Paul has been deceiving his supporters who have been getting these newsletters from Ron Paul, under his name. And he seems to have at the very least supported these views as he did send them out in his newsletter, under his name.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1996_1343749

"circumstantial"

Really? A bunch of Ron Paul Newsletters with Ron Paul's name on them, sent to Ron Paul supporters over many years, writing in the first person with no attribution to any other writer and when questioned about were defended not as not being written by Ron Paul, but merely taken out of context. That's circumstantial?

I used to be anti-Hillary for purely personal reasons that when examined simply didn't add up so I abandoned them. Let's face it, every politician is probably a power-hungry ambition-blinded egomaniac who will do or say anything to get elected. So why hold that against Hillary? What liberal or conservative hasn't offended their base by moving to the center to get votes? So what that the Senator for NY doesn't support gay-marriage? None of the major Democratic candidates do. Sponsoring the anti-flag-burning amendment still sticks in my craw as being UNBELIEVABLY craven but I can justify it by assuming the other candidates wish they'd thought of it first.

However all that BS swept aside, still two things make me anti-Hillary:

1. The change thing. After Iowa all the candidates are about change, but they treat it as if change were a policy issue. Its not. Its change from the current environment. That means no matter how change-y the Republican candidates are, they aren't change because they'll just be more of Bush. It also means, and more relevantly that Hillary can't be change. I can't tell you that on a completely shallow, superficial, non-policy, non-issue level, despite that Bill Clinton was probably the greatest modern president, how much I'd like to live in an America where the goddamn political discourse wasn't dominated by a Bush/Clinton legacy theme. Go AWAY! For almost no other reason I'm anti-Hillary. Not her fault s e is who she is but I'd be happy to put the last 16 years to bed.

2. As a corollary to issue number 1. Does anyone want to sit through 4 years of every Republican in congress fighting Hillary on every goddamn point possible? You think the tone in Washington is bad NOW!?! You want to sit through 4 years of not getting any descent political coverage in the media because they'll all be reacting to the insanity the right-wing media will be unleashing daily on Hillary? Ugh! I shudder to think of it. I literally would consider a Republican over that. I want some sanity. I know it's not possible, but I'd settle for semblance of sanity and we're not going to get it from Hillary.

Other than those two points I could care less which compromised power-mad egomanical democrat wins the Whitehouse.

Get these maniacs out of power before its too late. The phrase 'Mayberry Machiavelli' is so incredibly on the mark. This totally smacks of Cheney's WHIG that dreamed up the Nigerian uranium hoax.

To me there is no doubt that war with Iran is part of the Republican election campaign strategy in 2008 just as war with Iraq was for 2004.