Tancredo to Retire From House at End of Next Term

Warren said:
I really really want to. And I don't talk about it much but my dad is a fairly powerful guy who could maybe pull some strings to help me.
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:(

Yeah, I just thought about that.

I have few connections, little power, and not much finances. I don't have a lot to run on ;). Plus everyone knows that I'm a raging liberal, and I've loudly declared before that I hate America. In about 10 years I might be able to run Democrat/Libertarian up in Oxford, if I pass law school and have a good flow of money coming in. Not really interested in local politics, though, to be honest. I'll probably be content to just live out my life writing bad novels and using the money from my job to subsidize my failures.
 
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Warren said:
How devastating do you think it would it be if 5-10 people came out with unsupported allegations about that? I don't think these are the kind of people who would care about politics anyway, particularly if I ran in a different district from where I did the majority of my shadiness.

If I ran, I could run as a Republican or Democrat through my connections but I think only Republican would be a safe bet around here, and that could completely screw any chances with Republican voters.

Obama has admitted to smoking the grass several times throughout college and that hasn't damaged him.
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You'd have to do it all carefully, Warren


Also, I've heard of some people who were defeated in elections after posts on the internet were uncovered. I don't know how they found out - but you'd better look into how they dig that stuff up.
 
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See for all they know though I could be making this shit up and I frequently say that I do in my posts. So I don't think it could be conclusively tied to me.

As for the posts thing in general, Damo and I have already discussed this at length.

WM Please fix your posts entirely now.
 
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Warren said:
I've always planned to fake a religious conversion at some point and completely disown and even attack my own youth.

I just dont know if that would be enough.
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:P

It sucks, eh? We'd both have to live a lie to get elected, and that's why I probably will never even try. One of the biggest things about our system is that it forces you to sell your soul, lie and pander, to get to that 50%. No one who's elected really believes what they say. If I were elected, I'd have to vote completely conservative, only swaying on important votes I thought were likely to fail. And then, what's the point in even being elected? I think think, at that point, even being elected doesn't really matter.

Then again, one thing I like about Ron Paul is that he's the only honest man in congress. I don't know how he continues to get elected. But it's pretty clear he doesn't really vote much with his constituents beliefs (he'd have to lie to align with his constuents majority on every vote), he gets elected on his personality.

I know I've said said I hate Ayn Rand before, but:

"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie--the price one pays is the destruction of that which the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then on."
 
Watermark said:
:P
Then again, one thing I like about Ron Paul is that he's the only honest man in congress. I don't know how he continues to get elected. But it's pretty clear he doesn't really vote much with his constituents beliefs (he'd have to lie to align with his constuents majority on every vote), he gets elected on his personality.

I know I've said said I hate Ayn Rand before, but:

"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie--the price one pays is the destruction of that which the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's slave from then on."
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It sounds fucked up to say but honestly it doesn't bother me too much to have to lie about it. I'd rather stomach some personally distasteful decisions and votes while staying in power than sitting in the wilderness running as an LP candidate all my life. If anything truly important, once in a generation opportunity to change things the way I really wanted came up I could be there to support it even if I had to deal with the fallout. Sort of a libertarian Profile in Courage moment.
 
It doesn't really show on this messageboard, but I'm actually an engaging public speaker. People often hear me talking about politics, ask me if I'll ever run, and say they'd vote for me if I ran, just out of the blue. I actually managed to convince my entire history class once that FDR sucked and that his work programs didn't actually do much to help the economy ^_^. The teacher asked the class, at the end of that chapter, what FDR did that helped the economy best, and only 1 didn't go with my answer (I said it was his securities reforms, the other guy said it was the filling in holes and covering them back up). It turned out that that 1 had the "right" answer according to the book, but everyone went with me and my heavily libertarian and capitalist arguments. That was at an age whenever I disliked FDR a lot more, though.

But again, it would be entirely my personality that would get me elected. I think if they knew how radical I am they'd change their mind.
 
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Warren said:
It sounds fucked up to say but honestly it doesn't bother me too much to have to lie about it. I'd rather stomach some personally distasteful decisions and votes while staying in power than sitting in the wilderness running as an LP candidate all my life. If anything truly important, once in a generation opportunity to change things the way I really wanted came up I could be there to support it even if I had to deal with the fallout. Sort of a libertarian Profile in Courage moment.
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Imagine, if, for instance, the governer of Mississippi just one day commuted all the sentences of everyone on death row, or announced he was an atheist? Or simply ran on a very liberal/libertarian platform? That person may very well go down in a hailstorm, but think about the Goldwater effect. You could really change your state, if you'd just stretch the truth a bit to actually get into that position of power. You also may get picked up by the national party and get to run in some more friendly district off somewhere.
 
I know what to play down and what to play up to get elected in my state. My mentor is the greatest student of state politics alive today, and is frequently quoted in publications ranging from local papers to the NYT. I have met and worked for Karl Rove, Bill Smith, and other political masterminds who have all told me the same thing: know your area.

My mentor and I have conducted several polls of Alabama voters to see which issues are most important to them. I know for a fact that if I emphasized select parts of the libertarian philosophy while downplaying other parts, I could be elected as a Republican in Alabama.
 
Watermark said:
Imagine, if, for instance, the governer of Mississippi just one day commuted all the sentences of everyone on death row, or announced he was an atheist? Or simply ran on a very liberal/libertarian platform? That person may very well go down in a hailstorm, but think about the Goldwater effect. You could really change your state, if you'd just stretch the truth a bit to actually get into that position of power. You also may get picked up by the national party and get to run in some more friendly district off somewhere.
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Yeah you pretty much nailed by dream there.

I have so much respect for Pete Stark of California for that reason.
 
Watermark said:
My economic postitions may win over voters (despite my talk of welfarism I have a clear love of the free market), but I'd just have to completely shut up about my social positions. Then again, running on a religious platform doesn't necessarily guarantee you an election. John Eaves, our Democratic candidate for governer, is getting creamed 35-64 by Barbour even though he's running a MUCH more religious campaign that's just as conservative. People really see through the veil.
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In the last year or so I've actually begun looking around for a church for my 'conversion'. My lack of any religious conviction whatsoever would be my primary hurdle to electability.

Christian Baptist
Small-Government Conservative

For the RR- Pro Life. Allow religious charities to receive tax dollars. Side with Christians on the most meaningless "prayer in school issue" that comes up around election year.

For the Fiscal Conservatives- Slash taxes, slash spending in all but one area (get to that in a sec). Privatize state pentitentiaries.

For Democrats/Welfarists- Bring education funding via a lottery back up for a vote. Nominally increase education spending and make a big hoo-haa about how you're doing that. Express grave concern over the number of minorities affected by the drug war in Alabama and reduce funding for overzealous state agencies like West Alabama Narcotics. Put more people into the state's drug court system rather than having them serve jail time for nonviolent drug charges.

Granted much of this would vary based on changes in the political winds, the exact district you're running in, and the exact job you're running for. It's easier to promise things that you can't necessarily deliver from the job you're seeking.
 
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Yeah, prayer in school is an easy one, being that many people actually believe children can't pray in schools. I kind of laugh whenever I here politicians saying they will instute "Voluntary, student lead" prayer, because it's already there.
 
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Seriously though if you paid for six $9,000 polls of Alabama voters, which we have, they would all tell you the same thing I said.

For whatever reason this is what gets elected here. It becomes a race to out-conservative each other. Any hatred of taxes (which I have in spades) plays well here too.
 
If you ever get elected you could just slip fusion voting into a boring bill that no one reads sometime. :D

Then you could honestly run as a libertarian.
 
Alabamians are a little tougher on drugs than I'm comfortable with, but there are ways to work around that. They hate taxes more than pot and if the choice is drawn between a tax increase to pay for prisons or reducing nonviolent drug sentences and getting a tax cut, it won't be much of a mystery what they'll choose.
 
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