IRAQ

I'm very apprehensive about writing this blog, so I'm just going to give my straight opinion and those who disagree, more power to you.

I strongly feel as if the public is misinformed entirely too much to develop a strong definite stance on the Iraq issue. I believe that the public does not know 100% of the facts, so it is hard for me to judge the actions of our nation's government without some doubt. We would all like to hope that our government serves our best interest, but it seems more and more that this war lacked more than just strategy.

9/11 and Iraq are definitely two different conflicts, and yet they are continuously grouped together as if one was a catalyst for the other. I feel this is wrong and a poor reason to instigate war in Iraq. However I clearly do not know enough information to even try to make a correlation between the two. Is it possible that war was necessary and 9/11 was a foreseeable act that was not deterred on purpose? I relate this strongly to WWII. Pearl Harbor was a foreseeable act, we knew they were going to attack and we waited for Japan to do so(you may disagree.) We used Japan as a reason to enter the war in aid to France and Britain, similarly to the Iraq situation. Therefore I do agree that 9/11 was wrongly used in the decision to go to Iraq, but cannot make a complete judgement of whether it was necessary to do so or not.

Do I think we should pull troops out of Iraq? No, absolutely not, at least not right now. This is a dream we all may have but I believe we need to finish what we started, regardless of the reasoning for its start. Our main goal should be to involved more countries in decisions(yeah I know this is obviously not likely,) establish a government fit to run the country without intervention and slowly remove our troops. If we pulled out now, the war will have been for nothing, no positive ending, and lives that were lost could truly be considered a waste of life.

God bless our soldiers!

Also, I do realize I used the wrong colors to represent the parties below... ahem, I meant to do that(:

Candidate Evaluations

I chose Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Candidate Rudy Giuliani to evaluate.

We determined that Clinton is much more strategic with her campaign.
-She lets the fights come to her instead of instigating
-She attempts to win voters by being everyone's bff
-She uses her minority status to an advantage

Clinton's campaign relies on the publicity from her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and her strong ties to both New York and the Midwest. Hillary will win votes by telling you what you want to hear, not necessarily what actions she really will implement while in office. She's very much to left and looks funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ROk2CKktI

Rudy Giuliani is less strategic.
-He supports many issues that conservative do not, therefore making him questionable to some Republicans
-He has a background of being a democratic moderate with a transition to being a socially liberal Republican... this sounds slightly flip-floppish to me

Giuliani's campaign relies on his involvement and praise while dealing with the events of September 11, but I feel sadly that he may have made up his own nickname of "America's Mayor." He is credited with the fight against organized crime in New York and is strong on immigration issues. The fact that Giuliani has been married three times, supports gay marriage and abortion rights may hinder his votes from strong right-wingers. However, this may attract many moderates and swinging democrats to his campaign.

Build Your Own Party

In our class exercise my group built a new party based on the demise of the our current Republican party. We(Tony, Nick, Shannon, Mike, myself) called ourselves the "Neo-Whigs," with an economically conservative yet socially moderate platform. We are pro-choice, strong on defense and support a flat-tax system. We support lenient gun laws and are neutral on religion issues. Our younger more moderate generations are our target voters with high hopes to maintain the older conservative republicans. Our campaigning will take place mostly in the Midwest, with exceptions to sway votes in CA and NY.

Our idea is good for the more moderate conservatives who steer clear from extremists. However, because our party does not focus on extreme morality, we may lose a lot of voters and support from those with strong religious participation. Because it seems that the demise of the Republicans is due to the split of the party, the Neo-Whigs may lose interest of those who are very much to the right.

The Neo-Whigs would no doubt pull voters from the Democratic party, and eliminate a middle independent candidate option. I think that this would end up with an independent rising as a strong conservative and then the party system would be back where it started conservative-moderate-liberal. For this reason, I don't believe that the Neo-Whig party is a strong direction to move in, because essentially it's just moving in a circle by pushing the independent to the back of the line.

In conclusion, the Neo-Whigs have strong ideas to receive votes, however I don't believe current parties could move in this direction because there is nowhere to go.