Anyone watching the debates?

[mrstickball]

PDF said:

scat398 said:
PDF...you obviously are not well educated in today's political spectrum. There is very little difference between dems and repubs in the greater political universe. Ron Paul is far closer to what a real Republican is but keep in mind that a real Republican is closer to libertarian than the current party.

But just to make this clear...Romney and Perry are not Republicans.

What world or time do you live in?  You offer no real evidence.  Sure you may argue Paul may better represent what a Republican used to represent but times and parties change.   When it comes to social issues Ron Paul Libertrian views are more similar to what a modern day democrat would want.  Economically he is vastly different.  

All I know is that I live in the real world with real people.  You look at what the modern day republican voters want and that represents what the party is and what it stands for.  They ideals they share fall more in common with Perry and Romney.  Hence why they have higher polling numbers.

I understand that if you look at the large politcal scale inlcuding socialism, communism, statist, facist.  It shows how close the two parties really are but in American politics we have no major support for those other extremes.  It causes the difference between the two parties to be magnified.  There are some real big differences between the ideals of the two parites.

If I am not educated then teach me,  what do you mean by todays political spectrum?

You want evidence? Look at the laws passed by both parties in the past 10 years:

• Who passed more federal education requirements via No Child Left Behind? Who authored the bill? Who ratified it?
• Who passed more federal health care via Medicare Part D? Who authored it? Who signed it into law?
• Who passed the Patriot Act?

The reality is that the dichotomy between Obama and Bush isn't as far as you'd think. Obama is about as pro-war as Bush is, with a little bit more leftist economic policies. But the chasm is not as far as you'd think.

Go take a look at PoliticalCompass.org's chart of US & European leaders. They do a great job scoring all candidates on where they actually stand in opposition to one another. McCain was only about 1.5pts away from the center of the Democrat nominees.

Compatatively, then you have guys like Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul who are actual ideologues that are likely better representatives of what politics should be - something that isn't always center-right or right.