Like a Phoenix - A 2012 Election Game (Gameplay Thread)

[NyIndy]

First Democratic Debate



[The 2008 Democratic candidates at a debate. (LISA HORNAK / REUTERS)]

Location : San Francisco, California on the 16th of August, 2011

General Questions

1. Despite holding the White House for the last 8 years, the Democrats have lost more races across the country than in any other time in the party’s history, including the 1920s, thus the American voters are clearly sending a message of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party as of late. How would you go about changing that dissatisfaction and win a third Presidential Election in a row?

1. Well, I believe we were elected on a promise of making the economy a more fair system. Under President Kerry, the economy has gotten fairer in the sense that everyone is worse off now than at the beginning of 2008. While we did have foreign policy successes, most were achieved through war. America and her people are tired of war! We need a progressive change in this country. Especially in times like these when Republicans are going to be in control of all three branches of government if we can't pull a win off in this climate, we have to give voters some hope, let them know that if we win we will help them dig themselves out of the hole they have found themselves in. The way to do that is not with more of the administration that has handed the Senate to Republicans for the next 2 decades. 

2. Currently, the Republican Party has 85 Seats in the Senate, 35 Governors, and 355 House Seats, clear overwhelming majorities against the Democrats. As a Democratic President, how would you go about compromising with the Republican Party to get stuff done?

The Republican Party has not allowed us to help the people who are suffering the most from the economic downturn. We need to turn our anger against Republicans in Congress and win back the house by showing the people that they care more about bailing out the big banks than they do about bailing out everyday Americans. In the Senate we also need change. we need to convince Moderates that their party's corporatism and economic conservatism are not the way. We need to show that Congress being so overwhelmingly Republican is what has so greatly hampered our ability to recover from this economic crisis we face. 

3. It’s easy to list the failures of President Kerry, but it is easy to list his successes for many Democrats. I want to see both. What do you think, personally, are the President’s biggest failures and biggest successes?

Look, President Kerry and I have not agreed on everything these past years, but I admire many of his achievements like freeing Kurdistan, Democratizing Libya and making Health insurance more accessible to families in America. On the other hand, the President has lost us congress, pursued foreign conflicts we are still mired in as though we never learned from the endless wars of Iraq, we went in for regime change and never left because we've been fighting insurgent groups since. In addition, he has not done enough to change the way that the economy worked. We have seen the devastation brought by the recession because of the fact that banks have not seen enough regulation and now have been bailed out for their recklessness.

4. From the current Republican Field, who do you think is the strongest candidate and who do you think would be even stronger if they joined the race? Why do you think so and how would you go about defeating them?

Gordon Smith and Tom Kean have shown their prowess in winning in blue states and as Gordon's Senate Colleague, I know he's a tough fighter and skilled campaigner.

Candidate Specific Questions

To Senator Wyden : Senator, it is usually very rare and very difficult for the Vice President of a current administration to face a Primary challenge and usually, those primary challenges don’t succeed, such as the Primary challenge of Cecil Underwood to Vice President Nixon in 1960, the Primary Challenge of Bob Dole to Vice President H. W. Bush in 1988, and the Primary challenge of Bill Bradley to Vice President Al Gore in 2000, yet here you are, facing Vice President John Edwards for the Democratic Nomination. Why are you doing so and how would you gain the Nomination despite trailing the Vice President heavily in the polls?

I'm doing this because I see that John is running as a third term of Kerry. It's not only a message that would certainly lose us an election but if it did, that would mean a third term of War. A third term of Republican Domination Downballot, and no change to show for it. I'm running to give American's a second choice, one of change and an opportunity to stop the Republican domination of Congress and Politics, thank you.

Closing Statements

I'll do this later, running late for something