United States presidential election, 2012

[Earl]

... and another ...

[Earl]

... and another ...

[Earl]

... and another ...

[Earl]

Just one more Donald ...

[i_like_1981]

Wow, it looks like somebody's pretty desperate for the top post count on this forum.

That being said, I don't think I can justify the submission of about 20 posts by one member in one thread in the space of a day... therefore I must enforce a temporary post restriction.

Oh wait...

*checks his own forum rank and realises who he's talking to*

Terribly sorry! Carry on!

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Indurrago]

I'm glad Huckabee and Trump quit before they even really got started. Gringrich is a joke as well.

[i_like_1981]

Obama has been here in the UK quite recently. He got chance to meet the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, as well as have some more discussions with our Prime Minister - something similar happened two years ago, I think, back when Gordon Brown was PM. I don't think, though, that the friendship between Obama and Cameron has been quite as pronounced as the bond that existed between Reagan and Thatcher, the two heads of the UK and the USA at the start of my lifetime. Any further indications as to who is looking likely to take the Republican presidential nomination for 2012?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Safety]

Any further indications as to who is looking likely to take the Republican presidential nomination for 2012?

I think that Ron Paul is the most likely candidate to take the republican nomination as of now. I don't really know of any of his policies, but he seems to have a pretty strong following.

[Earl]

Since I support neither party, I'm not being partisan here. I just think the editoral cartoon is funny.

[i_like_1981]

Any further indications as to who is looking likely to take the Republican presidential nomination for 2012?

I think that Ron Paul is the most likely candidate to take the republican nomination as of now. I don't really know of any of his policies, but he seems to have a pretty strong following.

His name seems familiar to me. Didn't he make an attempt for the Republican nomination in 2008? I can also remember a rather amusing (if unsettling) part of that "Bruno" film with Sacha Baron Cohen which featured him. You know, the same guy who did Borat and Ali G. I'm sure that didn't do Paul's public image much good...

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

[i_like_1981]

I take it you're rather cynical about a lot of the candidates for next year's election, Earl. I'm beginning to think that next year's election could be a victory for Obama. The Republicans just don't seem to have a real ace up their sleeve this time.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Lewis]

Michele Bachmann launches campaign to be Republican presidential candidate

Michele Bachmann has formally launched a bid to be the Republican presidential candidate next year, warning the United States "cannot afford four more years" of President Barack Obama.

"I seek the presidency not for vanity, but because I think America is at a crucial moment," Mrs Bachmann, a darling of the conservative "Tea Party" movement, said in a speech to some 200 supporters in the key heartland state of Iowa.

The outspoken Minnesota lawmaker, 55, pointed to the swelling US national debt, soaring petrol prices, historically high unemployment and took aim at Obama's signature health law, the target of conservative voter anger.

"We can't afford four more years of millions of Americans who are out of work," she said to voters in Iowa, home to a first-in-the-nation caucus that shapes the Republican presidential field. "We cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama."

"We can't afford the unconstitutional health care law that costs so much and delivers so little," said Mrs Bachmann, a prodigious political fund-raiser who at times has raised eyebrows with superheated rhetoric and verbal missteps.

She was to tour Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, important states in the Republican presidential nomination fight, bolstered by a weekend poll showing her virtually tied in Iowa with front-runner Mitt Romney.

Bachmann garnered 22 per cent support among likely caucus participants compared to the former Massachusetts governor's 23 per cent, according to the poll organised by the Des Moines Register newspaper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... idate.html

[Lewis]

Michele Bachmann wins Iowa presidential straw poll

US Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has won a key pre-election campaign poll in the state of Iowa.

The Iowa Straw Poll held in Ames attracted about 17,000 voters and is considered the first big test of the 2012 presidential race.

Mrs Bachmann, an Iowa-born social conservative, narrowly beat her rival Ron Paul in the non-binding contest.

The vote was held on the same day Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his intention to run for the presidency.

It comes five months before the first official Iowa primaries in the race for the White House.

Mrs Bachmann took 4,823 of the 16,892 votes cast after the day-long political festival held on the campus of Iowa State University.

Runner-up Mr Paul took 4,671 votes and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty finished in third place with 2,293.

Mr Pawlenty said his team had "a lot more work to do" but that he was not giving up hope.

"We are just beginning and I'm looking forward to a great campaign," he said.
'Rudderless'

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Iowa says Mrs Bachmann had campaigned hard in the state, firing up her supporters with her rhetoric and style.

Before the vote took place, Mrs Bachmann told her supporters: "We are going to make Barack Obama a one-term president."

Leading Republican candidate former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney did not campaign in the contest but still received 567 votes while the newly declared Mr Perry, whose name was not on the ballot paper, still won 718 "write-in" votes.

Mr Perry had declared his candidacy earlier in the day at an event in South Carolina, telling his supporters: "I full-well believe I'm going to win."

He slammed the Obama administration, saying the US "cannot afford four more years of this rudderless leadership".

The BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani in Washington says Mr Perry is a fiscal conservative who has a track record of creating jobs and reducing the role of government.

He is religious with socially conservative views and could be the candidate to unite moderate and right-wing "Tea Party" Republicans, our correspondent adds.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has yet to announce whether she plans to run.

She was in Iowa on Friday but said the poll was "not always the tell-tale sign of what the electorate is feeling".

"It's who happens to show up and has the time and energy to spend that day for their particular candidate," she said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14519660

[Lewis]

US elections 2012: Republican candidates make late plea for votes

Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum â?? the front-runners for Tuesday's Republican Iowa caucuses â?? made their impassioned closing arguments on Monday night.

Each Republican candidate claimed to be the right man to oust President Barack Obama, as polls showed the contest was too close to call.
Mr Romney, the favourite to win the nomination, betrayed last-minute confidence of victory, telling a rally: "We're going to win this thing".
Strategists claimed he was talking about the primary contest as a whole, but the former Massachusetts governor seemed bullish on the eve of the first test of his second bid for the White House.

"I want to see America united," said Mr Romney, 64. "I've watched a president who's become the great divider, the great complainer, the great excuse-giver, the great blamer." A final RealClearPolitics average of polls showed him at 22.8 per cent, 1.3 percentage points above Dr Paul. Mr Santorum was in third place with 16.3 per cent, but was rising fast.
Undecided activists said that they were coming round to Mr Romney as their best prospect for beating Mr Obama. "He has experience in the private sector, in turning round an Olympics and being a governor," Randy Ramsey, a 64-year-old commercial property appraiser, told The Daily Telegraph. "I will probably caucus for him".

Because Mr Romney is 20 points clear in New Hampshire, the next state to have its say next week, by winning in Iowa he would raise suggestions that he had effectively killed off the contest after the first vote. Yet advisers on Monday night sought to lower expectations, suggesting it would continue until May at the earliest.

He remains under threat from Dr Paul, a libertarian Texas congressman, whose radical anti-establishment plans have attracted a large number of Iowan conservatives. Campaigning with his son Rand, a Senator for Kentucky, on Monday, the 76-year-old, who is on his third presidential bid, said: "It is up to us now to restate the principles of the American tradition, and that is individual liberty."
However, he later risked harming his chances of victory by appearing to do down his own presidential electability. Asked by ABC News: "When you lay your head on your pillow at night, do you see yourself in the Oval Office?", Dr Paul replied: "Not really".

Meanwhile Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who in late polls appeared to be overtaking Dr Paul for second place, finished the final day of full campaigning asking Iowans merely to "keep a conservative in the mix".
It was hardly a rampaging closing line, but was wisely low key given that while recently pushing 20 per cent of support, ten days ago he was at just four per cent in the polls in a race that has seen candidates rise and fall with remarkable speed.
The crush of public and press waiting for the man of the hour at Pizza Ranch in Altoona typified the late transformation of his campaign, as conservatives have begun to coalesce behind him after sampling and rejecting several other staunch Right-wingers.
For the best part of a year he has spoken to audiences often only in single figures. He has paid 35 visits to branches of Pizza Ranch alone, and made 380 stops altogether.
"We have not speed dated on this campaign. It has been a real courtship," said Mr Santorum, 53, standing on a chair to be seen above the throng.
He appealed to Iowa's conservatives to be bold and not worry about warnings that he couldn't win the nomination.
His two senate victories in Pennsylvania showed that he could appeal to the middle ground without compromising his conservative principles, he said.
"Send a message to Iowa and the world about who Iowans believe is the best person to lead the state and the country. I hope it is me," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... votes.html