The Shrine

I cut this to the highest-ranking major party candidates and selected minor party candidates to avoid the current depth-of-field problem that would result in a TLDR-style ballot, but will be happy to add your favorite candidate or write-in if this person is not represented here!

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I tried in FF & IE, no luck.

Anyway, I originally was going to vote for Bernie Sanders but now I'm leaning toward Hillary Clinton. I agree with Bernie Sanders more on the issues and Hillary's support for the Iraq War is an albatross around her neck. However, I am interested in there being a Democrat in the White House to hold the line against GOP regression for the next 4-8 years and Hillary stands a better chance of winning. I agree with her on most issues.

I basically just want someone who will:

• Preserve and continue ObamaCare and move of even closer to Universal Health Insurance coverage
• Keep us out of unnecessary wars
• Appoint sane people to the Supreme Court who don't believe that money = speach

There's a Catch-22 to all of this: the party that controls the White House gets blamed for everything and loses in the legislature and in the states. With Obama in the White House, the Dems have the lowest representation everywhere else that they've had in decades. So, even if the Dems win, they lose. Whereas if the GOP wins, the Dems really lose but with a chance to come back later. However, any comeback will necessitate another backlash. Wash, rinse, repeat. I'm just not very excited about the prospects for the next several years (decades?) as far as progressive policy-making goes.

The notion that Hillary can win and Bernie can't is...not actually supported by certain numbers if people look deeper. Bernie's clobbering in New Hampshire and Hillary's got like 25% fake Twitter followers...I don't know that I want a candidate who is faking the funk up against the curious mixture of vaudeville theatrics and Nazi nonsense that Warren Buffett really nailed it on with this last GOP debate.

The issue as I see it is this:

Pretty much everyone knows that yes, Hillary will probably win if it's politics-as-usual...

...which means, at least in my opinion, she can and will win if she cheats, pumps up her numbers, plays the buy-the-media-game, and generally practices politics as usual.

I'm still wincing at that notion. Most people I talk to seem to feel that, with or without "conspiracy theories" - it's been an uninspiring round in Washington for some time now at best, and one dangerous to truth and human liberty at worst. I've had enough artifice in politics already for ten lifetimes and I've talked to many that feel the same way. And I've seen people among the Democrats with let's-bomb-and-spy-on-everyone-we-don't-like issues too, and they tend to flock to the Clinton wing of the party more so than the progressive Warren-Sanders wing.

ANY political party can go off the rails if it doesn't consistently try to rein in its worst behavior. I'd much rather see the Dems take the high road; and the Clintons aren't exactly it anymore.

Rand Paul.

Reasons covered here: https://www.randpaul.com/issues