[ateamstupid]

Originally Posted by Danzig

it just kills me that they spout that a candidate has to appeal to his 'base'. in mccains case, the base is his ultra right religious zealots. you know, the kind of folks who think someone should lay hands on the governor of alaska to protect her from witches spells(and yeah, that really happened). jeez louise.
but why do they have to appeal to them? if mccain had chosen a normal person for example...what, the far rights would be so pissed they'd vote for obama?! yeah, RIGHT!!
much of the reason that congress went from majority R to majority D is that many ran on a ticket of reform, as being centrists. that drew a lot of votes. problem is, then you get to d.c. and the corruption inhales these newbies and spits them out as party pols.
term limits should be instituted in congress. it's in the executive, as well as in many state govts. it should be there as well, so that these folks won't be able to grow their offices, their lobbying groups, etc like they do. they don't become entrenched, and corrupted if they aren't there long enough to get to that point. how many staff members does a freshman senator have? i read once that ted kennedy had over 500 on his staff.
you think ted's paying for that?

While I agree that it's ridiculous that McCain was required to appeal to the lunatic fringe of his party, the fear wasn't that they'd vote for Obama, but that they wouldn't vote at all.