You forgot to mention that Rudy is also pro gun control. And yes, I agree that he'd have a hard time winning the primaries. In a national election he would draw a lot of independents and democrats...but the extreme wings of both parties dominate the primaries and that leaves us with polarizing figures come November.
Yep, and the primary battles are where the candidates have to move either far right or far left, then in the general election the nominees have to try and defend their move to the fringes. It didn't used to be this way ... the party conventions used to actually mean something, and you could easily have a candidate be a "consensus candidate" from the delegates after several rounds of voting. Now, with state laws requiring delegates to vote only for the candidate they go to the convention for, the parties rigging the primary season to pre-select the nominee, and the media focus on "momentum", a guy who "wins" the caucus vote in Iowa (3,000 total voters), and who wins the primary in New Hampshire (which ranks down around 41st in population) really decide the nominees. Then we get to pick among the two favorite guys the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire like. No offense Iowa and New Hampshire, but you are not representative of the nation as a whole.
Hey, I heard somewhere Bush is going to make a push for a Constitutional change that would allow him to serve another term in times of war. Kinda like FDR...
I think this gets close to urban myth status. I heard the same thing about President Clinton, and before him, Bush, and before him Reagan. "Secret plans" to declare a "state of emergency" because of the "oil crisis" / "Gulf war" / "domestic terrorism" / "international terrorism". Please. Can we get back to being Americans again, and not paint our political opponents as enemies, and despot-wanna be's?
Well... that would work if he was actually as popular as FDR was in the middle of World War II... With his political defeats as of late, I would say that he's venturing closer and closer to being a lame duck, and he's not going to have enough political capital to make such a rediculous thing happen like that in the next 3 years. Plus... pushing such an amendment would only make him more and more unpopular... he's already pissed a bunch of people (*cough* Congress *cough*) by trying to expand the power of the executive so much...
I have quite a few family members(mostly in-laws) and friends that can't believe he was ever elected in the first place. They are besides themselves that he was re-elected and I don't think would ever be the same if he was re-elected to a third term.
Well he won't be, unless something completely goes wrong and the Congress collectively loses their balls. To quote the george himself... "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
LOL - my inlaws probably talk about me like that... "She took the 2000 elections hard, and she's been a little loopy since the 2004 elections... I think a third term in 2008 might just put her over the edge!"