Who did you initially support/think would win?
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  Who did you initially support/think would win?
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #50 on: November 17, 2008, 01:08:03 AM »

I never thought Guiliani would win...c'mon, look at his biography or his social-issue record!

The only thing he has going for him in the GOP primary is his hawkishness, but that doesn't get you past being pro-abortion or having divorced how many people awkwardly?



His social leanings were more in line with mine, but I realize he would've been at odds with the base. However, before Iowa he was widely seen as the only Republican who could beat Hillary, which is why Pat Robertson endorsed him. When Hillary began to falter, Giuliani did as well and then his soft support jumped ship to McCain.
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Lunar
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« Reply #51 on: November 17, 2008, 01:11:27 AM »

Interesting theory.

My own view on Guiliani's failure actually mostly has to do with his "brand" faltering against substance than even my own cited biographical/social issues.  The less you know about Guiliani, the more you like him.  That doesn't really favor a long campaign, let alone "I'm going to win the seventh state filled with New Yor's elderly population" either...

Guiliani was never that much of a candidate for his personal issues to emerge, but I don't think he's particularly relatable to suburban married types.

And this is coming from someone who finds Guiliani mildly appealing..
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #52 on: November 17, 2008, 01:18:41 AM »

Interesting theory.

My own view on Guiliani's failure actually mostly has to do with his "brand" faltering against substance than even my own cited biographical/social issues.  The less you know about Guiliani, the more you like him.  That doesn't really favor a long campaign, let alone "I'm going to win the seventh state filled with New Yor's elderly population" either...

Guiliani was never that much of a candidate for his personal issues to emerge, but I don't think he's particularly relatable to suburban married types.

And this is coming from someone who finds Guiliani mildly appealing..

He might have turned off a lot of people with his personal life, but it seemed like no one cared about Obama's dealings this cycle. The media wouldn't have been Giuliani's ally though.

I do think things might have been different for Rudy if Hillary had won Iowa. He may have performed well in New Hampshire as a result. It seemed that he really just tanked after his health scare in December as well. I really don't know. His campaign will always be a mystery to me. He raised the most money and seemed to have the most "national" campaign of any Republican in 2007. Even a lot of Democrats I knew in the Charleston area had sent him money. But Obama probably took those voters away from him once he won Iowa, and then he collapsed after that.
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Jacobtm
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« Reply #53 on: November 17, 2008, 01:22:20 AM »

I initially supported Richardson, though never thought he had a chance. I didn't have any idea who'd win their nomination.
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paul718
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« Reply #54 on: November 17, 2008, 01:36:12 AM »

Interesting theory.

My own view on Guiliani's failure actually mostly has to do with his "brand" faltering against substance than even my own cited biographical/social issues.  The less you know about Guiliani, the more you like him.  That doesn't really favor a long campaign, let alone "I'm going to win the seventh state filled with New Yor's elderly population" either...

Guiliani was never that much of a candidate for his personal issues to emerge, but I don't think he's particularly relatable to suburban married types.

And this is coming from someone who finds Guiliani mildly appealing..

I never supported Rudy for President (though I definitely would've voted for him in November) because I didn't think he ran on the right message.  He concentrated on 9/11 recovery too much, IMO, when he was only in office for about 3 months after.  Plus, there was a lot of criticism of the city's preparedness for a terrorist attack in light of the 1993 bombing.  Basically, I think the 9/11 argument would eventually start to turn against him.  Not to mention the fact that he vouched for Bernie Kerik to run the DHS and all the problems that caused. 

I think he would've been better off running on a law-and-order message, focusing on the fact that he was a very successful federal prosecutor and was an effective crimefighter during his mayoralty.  This is also the reason why I think he'd make a better Attorney General or FBI Director as opposed to President or Secretary of Homeland Security.
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Boris
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« Reply #55 on: November 18, 2008, 12:12:36 AM »

supported Warner/Bayh when I was a stupid DLC hack, then I supported Al Gore, then Obama off-and-on from Iowa-election day, eventually ended up voting for because I wanted help him amass as large of a popular vote total as possible.

Obviously thought Hillary would win the nomination up until the 12 state sweep (by then, the smart people on here said there was no way Obama could mathematically lose and I believed them). Thought Obama would win in a close race up until the financial institutions crashed.
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Raoul
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« Reply #56 on: November 18, 2008, 02:12:05 AM »
« Edited: November 18, 2008, 02:13:43 AM by burkenelson »

Back in 2004, when I was nowhere near voting age, I decided that I wouldn't be voting for a Republican for the '08 election cycle. 2006 reaffirmed this. Initially when the primaries began to shape up I thought there would be no way that Texas would be competitive, and sure enough they were by the time March rolled around (was still a couple days too young to participate at the time). To answer the question, I initially supported John Edwards, but liked Obama and Clinton and the other candidates all the same. To semi-quote Time, the Democrats could have halved the field in any way and still have a number of wonderful prospects. I was convinced Clinton was a sure thing though...
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Nixon in '80
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« Reply #57 on: November 18, 2008, 02:42:39 AM »

Started out supporting Giuliani, then switched to Richardson, then McCain (when his campaign was practically dead.

I never had any idea who would win the Republican nomination, though I was certain it wouldn't be Huckabee. By South Carolina, I knew McCain had it.

On the Democratic side, I liked Obama, and persuaded my mother (who is unaffiliated, and thus ineligible from voting in the CA Republican Primary) to vote for him.

I was sure Clinton would find some way to steal the nomination up until Pennsylvania, though I do recall commenting on Obama's clear advantage following Super Tuesday.
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dead0man
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« Reply #58 on: November 18, 2008, 06:56:12 AM »

I supported Dr Paul throughout, though half heartidly.  The (little l) libertarian cause needs someone as smart as Dr Paul, looks like Romney and talks like Obama.  I knew half the potential Paulites would be instantly turned off by his face/voice.

I assumed it would be a Clinton vs F.Thompson election.  The Dems know how to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory and nothing would have done that faster than a Hillary nomination.  I'm still shocked there are people out there that think she could win a national election.
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Reaganfan
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« Reply #59 on: November 18, 2008, 07:07:47 AM »

I flirted with the idea of supporting Allen, Sanford and Owens, but pretty much settled on McCain in early 2006. I always thought it would be a Hillary vs. McCain race until it looked like McCain was dead in the water, and I thought it would be a Hillary vs. Giuliani race.

Just think...last month could have been Tom Vilsack vs. Mitt Romney...or Joe Biden vs. Duncan Hunter. The possibilities were endless.
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Zarn
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« Reply #60 on: November 18, 2008, 09:33:26 AM »

I supported McCain and thought it would be McCain.

I 'supported' Obama (as far as I can support most Dems), and I thought he would win.

The more I learned about Obama, the more I didn't trust him or believe he knew what he was doing. He seemed much more authoritarian over time. I couldn't care less about the Wright or Ayers things.
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« Reply #61 on: November 18, 2008, 12:34:01 PM »

Who I supported:

From around late 2006 when I started caring to February 2007 - Gore, figuring he would run.
Feb 2007 onward - Obama the whole time once I realized Gore wouldn't run.

Who I thought would win:

Pretty much the same actually. I thought it'd be Gore as the anti-Hillary candidate, once he didn't run I figured Obama would take that up and thought he would the whole time. New Hampshire was a hard blow but it still didn't sway me.

Who I thought would win the GOP nomination:

When I started caring to early 2007 - McCain, out of process of elimination. I was rather adamant that Giuliani would never win, Romney didn't impress me and I was beyond confident some joke like Frist or other mentioned candidates would go nowhere.
mid-2007 - Once McCain collapsed I briefly thought it would be Romney, and then Fred Thompson when he became hyped up, but then flipped back to Romney once it became obvious how much of a joke Thompson was.
late 2007-2008 - Once Huckabee became serious and McCain began his comeback I was still betting on Romney. I thought he would take Iowa (wrong), and that he could comeback after losing NH (true to some extent.). After South Carolina I admitted McCain was more likely and after Florida I realized he had it in the bag.

So I didn't do too bad really even though I blew the individual predictions for most states on the GOP side (I had Romney winning Iowa and Florida and Huckabee winning South Carolina.). One thing I am proud about though is my insistence Giuliani never stood a chance.
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paul718
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« Reply #62 on: November 18, 2008, 01:16:05 PM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?
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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #63 on: November 18, 2008, 01:16:47 PM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?

He wasn't Hillary.
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paul718
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« Reply #64 on: November 18, 2008, 01:22:27 PM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?

He wasn't Hillary.

But neither was Richardson or Dodd.  Or did you see them as superficially weaker candidates than Obama.
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Bacon King
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« Reply #65 on: November 18, 2008, 01:38:19 PM »

I supported Obama since Audacity of Hope. I think I thought for the most part that Hillary would win.
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« Reply #66 on: November 18, 2008, 01:40:47 PM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?

He wasn't Hillary.

But neither was Richardson or Dodd.  Or did you see them as superficially weaker candidates than Obama.

The latter. Polls showed they weren't going anywhere.
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elcorazon
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« Reply #67 on: November 18, 2008, 02:45:58 PM »

I supported Obama and I thought he would probably win.
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Beet
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« Reply #68 on: November 18, 2008, 02:54:59 PM »
« Edited: November 18, 2008, 02:58:07 PM by Beet »

December '06- undecided, had a sense the Dem nominee would win.
January '07- kind of stumbled onto supporting Hillary by default/accident.
Summer '07- after seeing Hillary's performance in the debates began to support her strongly. Felt Hillary would win.
February '08- started to realize Hillary was done. Did not think it was fair how Obama was winning-automatic 80-90% of the black vote, meant that Hillary had to win about 2/3 of all remaining voters just to break more than even. That's nearly impossible to do in a remotely competitive race where the other side is better funded. Caucus systems were undemocratic & favored Obama types. Still believe Hillary could have won in a fair fight (all primaries, 50 states, popular vote), even with the media as biased against her as it was.
June '08- switched to Obama. Wasn't sure whether he could win.

GOP: Never really shared the positive bipartisan views of McCain, even when his campaign looked like he was dead. I just thought he was on the wrong side of the issues  (though he did sound like a liberal in the debates). I was rooting for Romney because I thought he would be the easiest to beat. Of those I liked the most, probably Ron Paul, but he never had a chance.
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Aizen
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« Reply #69 on: November 18, 2008, 03:05:36 PM »

I supported Obama from the beginning (Feb 2007) and always had faith in him. I did not want Hillary as the nominee and was glad Obama beat her fair and square (although now I hold a fairly positive view of Hillary)
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angus
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« Reply #70 on: November 18, 2008, 04:53:35 PM »

Who did you initially support in the 2008 primaries?
Who did you think would win each party's nomination?

I posted in the summer of 2007 that my favorite Democrat was Obama and favorite Republican was Paul.  I actually thought Obama had a shot, but I didn't think Paul did.  I imagined an Obama/Romney race for President, and that I'd vote for Obama in that contest.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #71 on: November 19, 2008, 03:40:10 AM »

Who I thought would win the GOP nomination:

When I started caring to early 2007 - McCain, out of process of elimination. I was rather adamant that Giuliani would never win, Romney didn't impress me and I was beyond confident some joke like Frist or other mentioned candidates would go nowhere.
mid-2007 - Once McCain collapsed I briefly thought it would be Romney, and then Fred Thompson when he became hyped up, but then flipped back to Romney once it became obvious how much of a joke Thompson was.
late 2007-2008 - Once Huckabee became serious and McCain began his comeback I was still betting on Romney. I thought he would take Iowa (wrong), and that he could comeback after losing NH (true to some extent.). After South Carolina I admitted McCain was more likely and after Florida I realized he had it in the bag.

That more or less tracks with my own thinking on the GOP primary race, with some minor differences here and there: I thought McCain had regained frontrunner status somewhat earlier than you did (probably around the time Huckabee won Iowa), and while I was pretty down on Giuliani's chances throughout the whole campaign and never really thought he was really the "frontrunner", there was definitely a period when I thought he might actually have a chance at pulling it off.....I think it was late summer / early fall, when he was still managing to hold onto a spot in the top two or three in the polls in every early primary state, including IA and SC.

However, I always figured that if Giuliani was going to win, his victory scenario would have to involve winning at least one of the first two or three primaries (there was a time when it didn't look so hopeless for him in NH and MI).  I was rather adamant about the fact that there was no way that he could lose all of the first five, and then miraculously come back and win Florida and then Super Tuesday.

I remember starting a thread back in early December when I asked "If you knew for certain that Giuliani was going to lose IA, NH, MI, SC, *and* NV, how would you rate the probability of him winning Florida?"  A huge number of people said they still thought he'd still have at least a 50/50 shot at Florida.  There were all these people making arguments like "Why would the rest of the country care what Iowa and New Hampshire do?"  It made me chuckle.

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Lunar
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« Reply #72 on: November 19, 2008, 04:59:00 AM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?

2004 DNC Speech and obvious star potential
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angus
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« Reply #73 on: November 19, 2008, 12:52:53 PM »

For all the people who supported Obama from the very beginning (before his first big $$$ haul), may I ask why?


I'll answer from the point of view of a swing voter, one who had favorite Republicans and least favorite Republicans, and favorite Democrats and least favorite Democrats, and from one willing to vote for others if both Democrats and Republicans had nominated an unacceptable candidate:  I liked him early on for several reasons.  (By "early on" I mean winter 2006/07, although you could find posters who supported him long before that.)

For one thing, he opposed the war.  Ron Paul did as well. There were others, but few were historically consistent about this.  (At least Edwards was honest about changing his mind, but Edwards is ideologically very far to my left and wouldn't likely have won my vote in the general election even if I didn't like the Republican nominee.  I think you could say that about many of the Democrats.) 

Also, I know you're not supposed to vote for a candidate based on ethnicity, but I really loved his name.  Obama is so exotic.  And Barrack means "blessed" in Arabic. (basically, like the Hebrew "baruch")  And then I read somewhere that his name was Hussein, and that really clinched it.  Funny thing, some Republicans kept reminding everyone that his name was Barack Hussein, and that both those names are arabic, almost as if they wanted to lose.  I still don't get their strategy.  If ever we needed a president with an Arabic name, this is the time.  You may think that's probably as silly as voting for, or against, a candidate as gender, sexual orientation, or religion, but I don't.  I think there are sound geopolitical reasons that a candidate named Barack--especially one with a butterscotch skin tone and black eyes reminiscent of the deep, dark eyes of the one hundred virgins you get to lay once you go to heaven for keeping the faith--would have an advantage over most others.  Of course, Ayman al-Zawahiri wasted no time in calling Obama, along with Rice and Powell, a “house negro” in a message on militant websites today, and said that Obama's “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X.  But I think that the fact that al Zawahiri felt the need to make such a comment at all gives some credence to my theory.

He also said lots of things that I'd posted for a long time.  At least early in the campaign, before he started getting a little nasty with Clinton and then with McCain (perhaps by way of defense in kind), he would talk about post-partisanism and transcending the impracticality of stubborn ideology. 

Also, he was the first black guy who sounded like he did.  I know Howard Dean and Joe Biden got into trouble for saying this, and I don't respect Howard or Joe much to begin with, but I'm going to go out on a limb and repeat it, because although his choice of phrasing was perhaps awkward, I took his point, and I agreed with it.  "I mean, you got the first, sorta, main-stream African-American.  Clean, articulate, and bright black guy.  That's a story book, man."  Awkward, and a bit funny, but take his point.  Let's be honest:  It does promote some healing to have a black president.  I'm not saying you should vote for a guy just because he's black (or just because he's white or red or yellow or brown), but having a black president does give us some evidence that we're a bit closer to the ideal state we'd like to think we were.  But we were never really offered one that wasn't playing victim, or wearing a turban, or going on about reparations, or The Man, or doing a million other things to go out of his way to show that he wasn't really into being a president for all people.  But Obama actually came out and said that he didn't want to be president of a "red America or a blue America, but just the united states of America."  He could have said, "redneck America or blue-blood America," or "lavender America and pink America" or he could have chosen any combination of colors or ideas.  He happened to pick two coded color words that the newsies (over)use, and it would of course be taken as "Bush counties" (Red America) versus "Kerry counties" (Blue America) by the talking heads.  But the message was much broader, and it was clear to me:  "I ain't runnin' to be HNIC.  I'm just running for President.  Can you get past the fact that I'm black and look at me as a man?  I'm not asking for your vote, just for you to hear me out, and take me seriously as a candidate.  If you like what I say, then follow me.  If not, then there will be no hard feelings.  Just don't lump me in with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Or with George Wallace and David Duke, for that matter."  At least that's how I heard it. 

Also, as has been pointed out, I was sort of looking for a decent Democrat to get behind, and the media-annointed frontrunner at the time was Hillary Clinton, whom I neither trust nor respect.  And most of the others have obvious failings.  For example, Kucinich & Edwards are leftist/populist and I equate their vision with economic disaster, fairly or unfairly.  Richardson is a total bore and pretty much a one-note candidate who campaigns by reliving glory days like a high school linebacker turned overweight couch-potato ("did I mention that I was a special envoy to Somalia?").  Dodd's big eyebrows are just way too distracting for me to take him seriously.  Biden was a bit seazy for my tastes.  (Jmfcst called him a "smiley hitman."  I have to agree.  Odd that Obama would choose him, but as we have all admitted before, we don't vote for vice-presidents, but rather for presidents, and to say that the choice of Biden would put me off Obama would come off as silly as those who blame Palin for McCain's defeat.)  Gravel seems a bit like Perot's vice presidential running mate, not quite sure of where he is or what he's doing there.  Not very inspiring.

And, speaking of inspiring, that's probably the biggest reason of all, his oratory style always inspired me.  Reagan was like that as well.  Of course, I was too young to vote for him, but I always made it a point to go out of my way to piss off my parents (both of whom were die-hard, pro-welfare, anti-Vietnam War, anti-capital punishment, pro-Union Democrats, 70s style) by telling them how much I enjoyed hearing Reagan talk.  But to be honest, it wasn't all just teenage rebellion.  Sure, becoming a Republican was mostly my form of rebellion, but liking Reagan's speeches was genuine.  No, I don't agree with Reagan all of the time, just as I don't agree with Obama all the time, but I do like a man who knows what I need to hear, and knows when I'm feeling down, and can talk sweetly to me--even if just for a little while--before he rolls over on his pillow and falls asleep and dreams of another.  Who wouldn't want to be with such a man?
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Stranger in a strange land
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« Reply #74 on: November 19, 2008, 01:51:40 PM »

Back in early 2007 I supported Richardson, but switched to Obama once it became abundantly clear the Richardson campaign was going nowhere and that he was a better candidate on paper than in reality.
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