current American politicians that you respect

[fsuplayer]

for the OP, ron paul, al gore and frank are the only ones that come to mind, but im sure there are a couple im forgetting.


edited to add: i didnt include any supporting reasons since they have already been discussed in detail in this thread.

[fsuplayer]

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I respect John McCain because he is a badass who survived tougher conditions than I can imagine.

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i certainly respect him for that, but it ends there.

im afraid he's lost pretty much all his credibility in the last few months with various comments/stances on the war andagreeing with and supporting bush no matter what happens.

[amplify]

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I respect John McCain because he is a badass who survived tougher conditions than I can imagine.

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i certainly respect him for that, but it ends there.

im afraid he's lost pretty much all his credibility in the last few months with various comments/stances on the war andagreeing with and supporting bush no matter what happens.

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I agree completely. He has blown the credibility that he spent 20 years building. McCain has been defined by bipartisan efforts, free thinking, doing what he thought was right rather than towing the party line. But put him in this primary situation and he moves to the far right and abandons everything that made him who I thought he was.

[Chump Change]

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I respect John McCain because he is a badass who survived tougher conditions than I can imagine.

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i certainly respect him for that, but it ends there.

im afraid he's lost pretty much all his credibility in the last few months with various comments/stances on the war andagreeing with and supporting bush no matter what happens.

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Yeah... Sigh... Basically what Amplify said. So, so disappointing.


p.s. I can't believe he'd side with bush ever again after the way Rove railroaded him.

[DannyOcean_]

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I hate to break some unfortunate news, but Ralph Nader is not a libertarian's friend. Maybe you are saying you respect his character, but the main wants to maim and rape the free market. Screw him.

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you can also thank him every time you get into an accident because he fully advocated that the auto industry actually help keep people alive rather then just cut as many corners to keep costs down by not providing seatbelts and crumple zones in cars that saves lives on a daily basis

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This doesn't change the fact that he wants to rape the free market.

[ctj]

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What bill are you talking about?

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McCain-Feingold. Yet another in a long line of Incumbent Protection Acts.

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I think you are wrong.

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See The Speech Police (WSH June 27 - you may need a subscription to WSJ online to view the link).

Some excerpts:

In February 2006, Norm Feck learned that the city of Parker, Colo., was considering annexing his unincorporated neighborhood, Parker North. Realizing that it would mean more bureaucracy, Mr. Feck and five other locals wrote letters to the editor, handed out information sheets, formed an Internet discussion group, and printed up anti-annexation yard signs that sprouted throughout the neighborhood.

Annexation supporters responded with a legal complaint against Mr. Feck and his friends for violating Colorado's campaign-finance laws. The suit also threatened anyone who had contacted Mr. Feck's group about the annexation, or put up one of their yard signs, with "investigation, scrutinization, and sanctions for Campaign Finance violations." Apparently the anti-annexation activists hadn't registered with the state, or filled out the required paperwork disclosing their expenditures on time. In February of this year voters defeated the annexation proposal -- but Mr. Feck and others still face steep fines. The case remains in litigation. [not directly related to McCain-Feingold]
.....
During the 2000 presidential race, four men placed a homemade sign, reading VOTE REPUBLICAN: NOT AL GORE SOCIALISM, on a cotton trailer along a Texas highway. The FEC spent nearly 18 months investigating, because the sign lacked the legally required information about who had paid for it. In 2004, Nascar driver Kirk Shelmerdine spent $50 to affix a BUSH-CHENEY '04 decal to an unsold spot on his car's advertising space. The FEC admonished him for making an unreported campaign expenditure.

Such cases are not merely examples of bureaucratic excess, points out campaign-finance lawyer Bob Bauer, a lonely pro-freedom voice in Democratic circles: Under today's intrusive laws, Mr. Shelmerdine's activities demanded an FEC inquiry. Nor are such cases rare.
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Though they claim to speak for average citizens, reformers don't care much about the way their reforms hurt those citizens. Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center and a McCain adviser, has dismissed complaints by arguing that campaign-finance laws are no more complex than antitrust or patent laws. "They are worth the inconvenience and lawyers' fees they generate," says Mr. Potter -- who also heads the campaign-finance practice at the law firm of Caplin & Drysdale, where partner billing rates can range upward of $750 per hour.

Another disturbing trend in campaign-finance regulation is the attempt to directly regulate speech. For example, in the Shelmerdine case, the FEC valued the driver's "contribution" not at the $50 it cost him to place a decal on his car, but at several thousand dollars -- what the FEC determined to be the advertising spot's monetary value.
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"I have come to doubt that the masses of the people have sense enough to govern themselves," wrote Ben Tillman, the founder of federal campaign-finance reform, in 1916. Many years later, in 1997, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt famously described the battle over campaign-finance reform as "two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can't have both."

[JohanCruyff]

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Can you be more detailed please? Is giving senators free golf trips and expensive hookers a form of political speech?

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Yes, actually, it is.

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Well obviously it is. But is it something that does way way way more harm than good?

[amplify]

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Can you be more detailed please? Is giving senators free golf trips and expensive hookers a form of political speech?

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Yes, actually, it is.

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Well obviously it is. But is it something that does way way way more harm than good?

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Not even close.

[Borodog]

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RON PAUL,

because he actually acts on his beliefs, rather than being a giant douchebag and voting in pork.

I would honestly forgive just about any politician for anything ever if they swore off ever voting for pork spending bills.

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Ron Paul is many things, but he is hardly kosher when it comes to pork.

One of many Paul pork articles

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This is the one issue with Dr. Paul that greatly, greatly disappoints me. While his rationalizations for the earmarks he's requested may seem plausible (he's just passing on the requests of his constituents as is his constitutional duty, he is just trying to recover funds lost from his district to federal taxes, he votes against the appropriations bills that contain his pork requests, etc.), they are really just that: rationalizations. For unconstitutional pork barrel spending. Period.

This is one issue where he needs to take a page from Jeff Flake's playbook.

[Borodog]

I just made a post in response to the Paul Pork article, explaining why, even though I completely agree that the issue is Paul's great ideological weakness, and may be his Achilles Heel, it will not change my support of him in the upcoming presidential election. I made a handy Venn diagram to illustrate my reasons and summarize my argument: