Rick Scott's Number 1 Fan

So one of the stupidest threats ANY candidate can make in an election is to not show up to the debate.

Because you know, not showing up and giving the other guy hours of free uncontested airtime to get his message out will sure show him.....

Really why not just donate to the other guys campaign fund so he can run ads against you?

Yet for some odd reason, this is EXACTLY what some republican just did.

And not just any republican, it was an incumbent governor. Specifically Rick Scott, republican governor of Florida.

No really, for like 4 minutes Governor Rick Scott basically refused to debate his opponent, Former Republican Governor of Florida, turned Democratic Candidate for Governor Charlie Crist.

Why? well actually rather then tell you.....I really cant do it justice so I'll just show you.

    

The only thing missing from that clip is "LIVE FROM NEW YORK IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!"

 A couple of things stick out pretty fast

First: This clip exemplifies EXACTLY what is wrong with the media.

So consider the position of the "hosts" in this clip. As far as they know, 1 of their 2 candidates has declined to show up to what is a major hour long (at least) preemption of their usual primetime line up.

And their solution? basically ignore the candidate that did show up and stick their thumbs up their collective asses.

Lets assume for a moment you actually give a flying fuck about someones opinion of an electric fan, well you know when would be the perfect time to discuss that? how about the half hour or so of post debate analysis that follows these things?

But apparently to these jack off's their own opinions are of such interest, not only do they think thats what people want to hear, the actually go so far as to quite the candidate who DID show up from giving his positions.

And hell, sticking his thumb up his ass was the least of the moderators problems.

After all there is actually nothing remotely unusual about a political debate starting with no candidates on the stage. Thats actually how most of them start, then the candidates get introduced and come out.

Now it appears in that clip that Crist was waiting backstage for his introduction, and as soon as he realized he wasnt going to get one, and that the moderator was going to use this standard procedure to create the false equivalency that neither candidate was willing to debate, he hauled ass and got out there.

What the moderator SHOULD have done was introduce both candidates, then explained why one of them didnt come out.

But see that would violate rule 1 of political reporting: "unbaised" mean ALL THINGS must be EQUALLY the fault of both parties. Bringing Crist out, then explaining why Scott wasnt coming, would have made it seem like Scott was the ONLY unreasonable one, and therefore would not have   "unbaised"

Same thing when the moderator tries to cover for Scott by ONLY mentioning the part of the contract that Scott wants him to mention, that being the ban on electric fans.

Which therefore makes Scott seem less unreasonable by giving him "justification" for his actions, and saying his actions were caused by crist's, thereby fulfilling rule one, its BOTH their faults Scott isnt there.

Which would be fine and good, except for one small problem, its NOT TRUE.

The Scott Campaign itself released the section of the contract they cited as "proof" the fan was banned. The problem is, it DOESNT ban fans. What it bans are "any electronics" used by the candidates. Presumably this is intended to mean cell phones, lap tops, ear pieces, anything the candidates could use to get information from.

But Scott Campaign is claiming that the fan falls under the definition of electronic, and therefore was banned, they are NOT actually claiming that the contract out right banned fans.

Which means their justification basically relies on word play, which makes it a very weak justification.

Especially considering that under the definition the scott campaign wants to use "any device used by the candidate that uses electricity" that would also ban the use of the Microphones on the desk the candidates would use to answer the question, not to mention the time clock in front of the moderator to show them how much time they have to finish answering the question.

But I dont see the Scott Campaign demanding the candidates scream their answers while counting to 60 seconds in their heads.....

Oh, except its worse. See not only did the moderator pass off the Scott Campaign interpretation of a rule as the wording of the rule itself, the contract actually DID deal directly with fans. It also contained a sentence explicitly allowing "electronic devices used to regulate temperature" or as they are known to the rest of us Fans.

So yea basically the moderator is outright LYING to people to make both candidates seem unreasonable. Like when he explains the situation he says "Gov crist asked for a small fan to be placed under the podium. The copy of the rules Gov Scotts campaign showed me said "no fans" yet the yet somehow their is a fan"

YES BECAUSE THE RULES SAY THATS OK. Which is probibly why Gov Crist asked for a fan in the first place.....because the rules said its ok, and he's wearing a suit in Florida and Florida is well known for being FUCKING HOT!

Same with the female moderator when she asks Crist a question about the rules. Shes acting like this is an open question.

But heres the thing, the moderators are actually supposed to read the debate rules BEFORE the debate.

So yea, all the moderators KNOW what they rules actually say. But in the interest of looking "unbiased" they pretend they dont and instead operation on the assumption the Scott Campaigns interpretation of the rules is THE rules, that way Crist looks unreasonable.

Second point. At one point one of the moderators claims you cant have a debate without both candidates......why the fuck not?

Unless its an episode of the West Wing, candidates dont actually talk to each other at all during debates.

Usually the moderator asks a general question about policy, both get an answer and retort, and then sometimes the moderator asks one of them a follow up question about a previous stand or point of clarification on the issue.

There is absolutely no reason you cant do the same thing with one candidate. You just double the amount of time he has to answer the question, meaning the process would still take exactly the same amount of time as scheduled.

I mean I suppose officially thats more an interview then a debate, but considering the other side basically forfeited, that actually seems fair to reward the candidate who showed up with basically and extended interview. An heres the thing, if the moderator has done their job, the interview should actually BE challenging because point of the debate questions is supposed to be to challenge the candidate your questioning, and those same questions would be the interview questions.

But then again, that assumes the moderators have done their jobs properly and these 3 ass clowns dont seem to have done so.

But heres the thing, after Scott actually showed up, things got even weirder

Here's Scott explaining why he didnt show up

So you see Scott didnt show up, because he didnt know of the guy who was ALREADY on the stage was going to show up.......

Either Rick Scott is the worlds WORST X-Man, whose mutant power only allows him to in the past, or this is a horrible excuse.

Actually no matter HOW you look at it, its a horrible excuse.

How god damn long does it take to figure out the guy CURRENTLY ON THE STAGE, is actually showing up for the debate. Apparently it takes Rick Scott up to 3 minutes to process the location of a single person.

I'm pretty sure even my old AOL Dial Up connection was faster than that.

But for a second here, lets humor Scott and assume Crist wasnt actually going to show up.

Why would that matter AT ALL to Scott? Even with incompetent moderators, if you walk out, look like your the only one willing to debate the issues, the audience is going to love it and the other guys going to look bad.

Basically if Rick Scott actually thought Crist wasnt coming, he should have been at the curtain, ready to open it in a seconds notice and make Crist look like an elitist little shit who cant even speak without a precious fan.

But whats Scott's claiming here is basically "hey look, I thought my opponent was about to do something amazingly stupid (not show up).....so i decided to do the exact same stupid thing, its not my fault he didnt go through with it "

But even that falls all kinds of short. See the contract is worked out between the two campaigns. So if Crist wasnt going to show up because he couldnt get what he wanted in the contract, and Scott decided not to show up in a sign of solidarity for Crist, it would still raise the question of "what the fuck is wrong with the Scott Campaign that they wont put something into the contract even their own candidate is in favor of?

Also, I mean lets assume for a second that despite the fact its one of the stupidest things he could do, Scott really wasnt going to show up if Crist wasnt, it raises a couple of interesting questions.

1) how badly organized is the Scott Campaign that they apparently forget to station a staffer:
a) in the backstage near the curtain able to look out on the stage
b) near a television that they could actually SEE if crist showed up
c) that they forgot to station the Governor closes enough to the curtain to instantly appear if Crist showed up.

2) Ok so if your not showing up in a show of solidarity with Crist, why did you send a staffer out to the moderators claiming you were protesting Crist breaking the rules?

More to the point if you sent a staffer out to the moderator explaining Crist had "was breaking the rules" and had gotten his way WHY THE FUCK WOULD EXPECT HIM NOT TO SHOW UP FOR NOT GETTING HIS WAY?"

And all of this ignores the much larger and more important fact that fans were expressly permitted in the contract.....that Rick Scott signed.

Yet apparently he didnt actually know what it said.

Which raises the question, how many other things.....like say LAWS, has Rick Scott signed that he doesnt know the contents of.

Does he just make a habit of assuming things say what he thinks they say and signing them?
Does he have any idea of what his own record as governor actually is?  Or is he just assuming the laws are what he thinks they are?

Oh and the final (at the moment) worst part of this.....apparently time hasnt really improved things for the Scott Campaign.

See the day after the campaign Scott's campaign released this statement to the media:

"So, let's get one thing clear: Rick Scott never refused to take the stage and debate. In fact, our campaign was not notified Charlie had even taken the stage because the last we heard, Crist was in an 'emergency meeting' with debate organizers pleading for his precious fan.

"But Charlie Crist can bring his fan, microwave, and toaster to debates -- none of that will cover up how sad his record as Governor was compared to the success of Governor Rick Scott."

Now not only does that "clarification" still contain all of the original problems (why do you care if Crist is showing up and the fan was expressly legal so why would crist be arguing over it/did you actually read the contract), it adds a new ones.

Mainly if Scott's campaign didnt give a shit about the fan, and intended to come out as scheduled, WHY DID YOU SENT A STAFFER UP TO THE MODERATORS WITH A COPY OF DEBATE RULES CLAIMING A FAN WASNT ALLOWED AND YOU WOULDNT PARTICIPATE?

Also, if Scott was going to come out as planned, what the fuck took so long? I mean your claiming Scott was standing at the curtain, waiting to debate, heard the debate start, heard the moderators say he wasnt coming,  saw/heard Crist come out......and just stood there for a few minutes thinking absolutely nothing was wrong.

So yea, the question has to be asked....how little attention does this guy pay to the world?

I mean I suppose the staffer COULD have been a rogue operative, and Scott didnt know the staffer was going the media with that excuse. But then we have the added question of "how poorly is Rick Scotts campaign being run that he cant control his staff AND that his staff is too stupid to go get him when they realized the debate was startin? and why if hes THAT BAD at running his own campaign would you ever want him to run a state?"


So yea. By his own "admission" Rick Scott is:
1) not paying attention to things that are happening in front him him
2) a horrible manager
3) not reading things he signs
4) willing to do something stupid, solely to look as stupid as someone else
5) Incapable of adjusting to changing or uncertain circumstances (like say the location of a debate opponent) until it is too late.

6) not even sure why he does the things he does.

So yea, thats 6 great reasons why you should NEVER vote for Rick Scott for anything, and Charlie Crist didnt even need to say a word.

On the upside, maybe now that someone was actually stupid enough to do it, candidates will stop threatening to walk out of debates because they will realize how fucking stupid a threat that really is....

The KaWAAAAHnsas senate race

So a few weeks back I did a blog where I apologized to Sarah Palin, because it turns out you CAN in fact quit to win.  Now in that blog I covered two stories, one of which involved the state of Kansas.

Ok so to recap for those who didnt read the earlier blog: The incumbent Republican Senator, Pat Roberts, isnt doing so well. Most polls taken at the time of my earlier blog only had him getting about 36% of the vote.

The thing was, that actually meant he win, and get to keep his seat because Kansas was having a 3 way senate race, with the Democrat and the Independent basically evenly splitting the remaining 64% of the vote (so 32% each for those not good at math).

Then the Democrat dropped out of the race, and as predicted most of his supporters went over to the Independents campaign. Which now means Pat Roberts is getting his ass kicked.

Which normally wouldnt be that big a deal, well except in Kansas.

But the thing is, at the start of this election cycle Republicans needed 6 seats to take control of the United States Senate, and (since its assumed they will hold the House as well) Congress as a whole.

And 6 seats is actually quite doable assuming polling holds out.

But that number assumed that Pat Roberts, running in arguably the most republican state in the country was in a safe race for his reelection, which no longer appears to be the case.

And polling suggests that 7th seat republicans would need to win to replace the seat they lose if Roberts loses, is well much much much less unlikely to materialize.

So yea, basically the senate race is Kansas, specifically the Democrat dropping out of that race, could have just cost the GOP the senate for the 3rd election cycle in a row.

So the fact that Roberts is losing is a BIG problem.

Now one caveat, Pat Roberts now only opponent Greg Orman is an Independent, NOT a Democrat. So if elected he COULD hypothetically caucus with the Republican Party and give them control of the senate.

Consider that, if Republicans pick up the 6 seats they are expected to and dont unexpectedly lose any others, the current balance in the Senate, not counting Orman would be 50 Republicans, and 49 Democrats.

Now because the Vice President votes in cases of a tie, and the Vice President is a Democrat the Democrats only need 50 seats to control the Senate, the Republicans need 51 (so the VP cant vote).

So a 51/49 split in this case is a tie, with control going to which ever party Orman chooses to join.

Now of course the problem for the Republicans is, although Orman agrees with them on some issues (immigration) he disagrees on others the Republicans tend to consider more important (Abortion).

Also Orman will basically owe his victory to the Democrats in Kansas, and when it comes down to who in the senate can give him better favors, its usually hard to beat the Presidents party in a situation like this.

So basically Republicans are assuming its much more likely Orman joins the Democrats, and gives them control of the senate.

Which is why the Republican Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, sued to keep the Democratic Challenger on the ballot, claiming he hadnt correctly withdrawn,  Even if not campaigning Kobach and other Kansas Republicans believed just having a name on the ballot might get enough people to vote for the Democrat (presumably believing he was still in the race) to give Roberts a chance.

And in all fairness to Kobach, political motives aside, legally he actually appeared to be correct, the laws of Kansas give specific reasons to drop out and the Democrat hadnt given one of those reasons.

Yet, yesterday, the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas ruled unanimously AGAINST Kris Kobach,
They claimed basically that the law needed only a broad explanation to drop out, and that the Democrat had git under that broad interpretation, as had a few other other candidates Kobach himself had allowed to drop off the ballot during his tenure without challenge.

Now this was actually a very fast case, the suit only got to the Court about a week ago, and they already ruled. Which is an insanely short time for deliberations.

But it turns out the speed was not the courts decision, it was Kobach,

See in court Kobach claimed that in order to insure ballots had time to reach members of the United States military they had to be printed TODAY (9/19/2014). So in order to do his job and get the ballots out, he had to know before then WHO was actually on the ballot.

So given that he lost, and he needs to be printing ballots as we speak, this story is over right?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA o ye of little faith, of course its not over.      

As I explained a few months back, the official republican election strategy this time around is "Fuck the Troops".

You see Kobach is now Demanding the Democrats place a NEW candidate on the ballot, and gave them until September 26th to do so.

Which is a week LATER then the time Kobach said he would need to make sure all Kansans in the Military actually got their ballots on time to vote.

So yea, as I see it, Kobach is now left with only 3 explanations:
1) Kobach believed that less time to deliberate in court would increase his chances of winning, and therefore lied to the court, and attempted to abuse the powers of his office. Which, I would assume is illegal
2) The troops are going to get different ballots with different candidates on them then everyone else.....which basically means they dont get to vote in the same election as everyone else. But hey fuck fair elections.
3) Fuck the troops, who gives a shit if they get to vote on time or at all. I mean hell they should have stayed home if they expected their right to vote to be respected.

Actually, come to think of it, 2 and 3, are basically two different methods of the same idea......

Oh and actually, turns out lying in Court, or screwing over the troops isnt the only problem here.

--------------------------------------------------------UPDATE-----------------------------------------

It appears option 2 is our winner. Earlier tonight Kobach announced he is attaching disclaimers to the overseas ballots informer voter this ballot may not count if the democrats name a new candidate, and the person in question must vote again. 

So much for 1 person 1 vote......not to mention honest, free and fair elections.

UPDATE 2
It seems the text of the disclaimer includes a line "To ensure that your vote is counted your ballot must be received by November 4th 2014, UNLESS A LATER DEADLINE IS COMMUNICATED IN OUR SUBSEQUENT CORRESPONDENCE TO YOU" (Caps mine)

So yea, the election will be nov 4th, unless its not, which we arnt going to tell you until later.....

Other parts: "You may vote using the ballot accompanying this letter as soon as you receive it, or you may wait to vote until you've received further notification from us,"

Again, no rush folks who knows when the fuck this election will be.....

 "If a replacement ballot is sent to you, and you have already returned the ballot that accompanies this letter, only your replacement ballot will be counted."

Even if you dont send the replacement ballot back......because hey YOUR SUPPOSED TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT SO THE REPUBLICAN WINS.....otherwise we dont count your vote (presumably for the independent) so the Republican wins.

-------------------------------------------------Resume Original Post---------------------------------------------


The other problem is that........Kris Kobach doesnt actually have the power to force the Democratic party to do a damn thing.

Consider; How many times have you heard of a 3rd party candidate dropping out, then never actually being replace? All the freaking time.

Also have you ever voted Libertarian or Green or any other 3rd party for president? Did you also vote for that same parties candidate for State or National House and Senate? Probably not, because those candidates didnt exist.

Or how about an unopposed election? Hell I dont think my hometown has had a competitive election for Mayor in my lifetime.

Cause parties are free to run who they want for what ever position they want.....or dont want.

No one can compel them to run anyone for anything.

So this is basically Kris Kobach crying like a baby, with a nice side of fuck you to the troops.

Now what Kris Kobach DOES have the power to do is strip a party of its "major party" status if they fail to meet state standards for such.

Of course theirs a problem here too, namely the requirements in Kansas are about the GOVERNORS race, and say nothing about the Senate at all. And since polls suggest the Republican Governor may actually lose, the chances are 100% the Democrats will clear the 5% of the vote threshold needed to remain a major party in Kansas.

So yea basically this is all just a bunch of WAAAAH WAAAAH WAAAAH from Kobach, but it turns out even that is good news for Democrats. You see just like Senator Roberts and the Governor, Kobach himself is facing a tight race to keep his job. So the more whining he does about this, the more likely he is to annoy voters and lose his job.

At which point he will have plenty of time to sit at home and get the poopy out of his diaper.

I quit: an apology to the visionary Sarah Palin and the 2014 election.

Since 2008, Sarah Palin has been a household name, and the butt of an ungodly number of jokes.
Most of those jokes involve one of two things: shes a moron and she quit.

Now on the charge of her being stupid well:

BUT on making fun of her for quitting......well on that one we may owe Mrs. Palin an apology. In fact the last week suggests Mrs. Palin was merely a trendsetting ahead of her time.

See early last week Byron Mallott the Democratic Candidate for Governor of Alaska, basically the guy running for Palins old job, 1 uped her and quit before the election even happened.

Which means for the first time in the history of the State their wont be a Democrat on the ballot for Governor. 

And I bet your assuming the Democratic party of Alaska is FURIOUS right?

No actually they are freaking overjoyed.

You see, the Alaska Governors race was a 3 way race, and while the incumbent Republican was beating BOTH the democrat and the independent, polls suggested he would have a much harder time head to head with either one individually.

Oh and Mr. Mallott isnt out of the race, he was just announced as the candidate for Lt. Governor on the 3rd party ticket, basically ensuring his supporters wont vote Republican.

Which means Mr. Mallott may be on his way to successfully completing the very stunt that tragically ended the political life of the trailblazing Mrs, Palin, he may be about to win by quitting.

And a word of warning, this ISNT just another Alaska phenomenon. Its taking place ALL over the country.

It happened in Kansas this week too (sorta).

Democratic Senate candidate Chad Taylor announced HE too was quitting his 3 way senate race.
Now their is no "Lt. Senator" so clearly Taylor doesnt expect personal advancement from this.
But what he did expect was to totally fuck up the GOP's chances of taking the senate.

See most people believe the GOP will quite handily take the 6 seats they need to take the senate. In fact most polls only give the Democrats a 35-45% chance of retaining the senate (to be fair, this is similar to the 2012 numbers where Democrats actually gained seats)

The problem is that 55-65% chance of the GOP taking those 6 seats and the senate assumes the GOP wins all the seats they currently hold.

Kansas WAS one of their safest seats, despite having a very weak incumbent. The current senator was leading in the polls despite only drawing 36%, which is actually a winning margin in a close 3 way race.

But now, in a head to head race 36% is a landslide LOSS for the incumbent. You see the independent was a centrist, midway between the Democrat and the Republican, so its unlikely any of Taylors supporters would move to the Republican and not the Independent who is now the candidate most closely aliened with their views.

In fact the polls that have come out since Taylor quit have moved the Democratic chances of retaining the Senate up to 55-85% (no thats not a typo).

It seems that now needed 7th seat may be a "seat too far" for the republicans, especially with other should be safe seats (like McConnell's) more competitive then they should be.

EXCEPT it turns out the story has a twist......the person who oversees the election the Secretary of State of Kansas, Kris Kobach who is a Republican, is refusing to let the Democrat drop out claiming he legally can not drop out of the race.

Now in fairness, it does appear Kobach is legally correct. Kansas law only allows withdrawal from a race if the candidate would be unable to discharge the duties of the office. 

Now at the end of the day this may not matter much, even if his name is on the ballot, the law cant actually force Taylor to campaign or prevent him for campaigning for and endorsing the independent. But if his names on the ballot at all he will get some small number of votes....which could determine a close election.

But yet their is one more twist to go.  Taylor is claiming he actually talked to Kobach's office prior to announcing he was dropping out and got approval from the office to do it. Because of that, Taylor is indicating he may in fact sue.

If he does this could create a situation where the Republicans are actually in favor of the Democrats running, and the Democrats are in favor of not challenging the Republicans for the seat.

All in the name of quitting for that the entire party wins.

So yea like I said, I should stop making fun of Sarah Palin, it appears she was on to something when she quit........she was just too stupid to time it right or get an advantage out of it.     

A republican primary pre-mortem.

I know I know. your thinking the title is supposed to say POST mortem not PRE mortem, because you cant examine something untill its dead. to which I say, you clearly havnt been watching the unofficial republican primary for 2016.

I truly believe and have stated previously that many inside the Republican Establishment, namely RNC chairman Reince Prebus and House Republican Leadership (or at least the leadership team prior to Eric Cantors departure) actually think Hillary Clinton's quest to the presidency in 2016 is this close to a fait accompli.

One needs only look at Republican attacks in the last few months to see this. After all we've all been told the person 100% responsible for the fictional version of Benghazi that exists only in Republican's minds is Barack Obama.....I mean Hillary Clinton.......I mean Barack Obama......I mean Hillary Clinton.  Now ever since they started waffling on whos at fault, suddenly theyve gotten a lot less traction because no one takes them seriously. Yet they HAD to do it because they had to find SOMEWAY to attack President Elect in waiting, Hillary Clinton.

But I think the bigger indicator of the "Hillary effect" on the GOP is the fact that they basically started the 2016 Primary on the Republican side the hour after Mitt Romney lost in 2012. And the single factor they seem to use to pick candidates is who matches up well in polls with Hillary Clinton (I say matches up well because to the best of my knowledge I dont believe their has been a poll yet saying a republican can BEAT Hillary Clinton, of course to reasonable people a poll this far in advance doesnt mean shit and it totally worthless).

And because of that desire to get the "Hillary stopper" republicans have burned through a TON of now presidential ex-candidates.....because no one alive could ever withstand a two year primary.

Now in all fairness to Hillary Clinton, there is 1 republican ex-candidate who managed to implode without her help, former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell.

For those who havnt been paying attention, McDonnell was elected governor of Virginia in the 2009 governors race, one of the first two (new Jersey being the other) state wide races after Obama's election. His win (and Christie's in NJ) was seen as a major push back against the Obama Administration, and he was  even picked to give the GOP response to the State of the Union back in 2010.

And now its possible that as soon as tomorrow,  Bob McDonnell might be headed to jail, depending on how the jury (currently deliberating as this is written) finds him on his 13 counts of corruption, 11 of which basically have to do with him accepting bribes, and 2 of bank fraud.  His defense by the way, is that basically his wife was actually the one taking the bribes on his behalf, he never knew they were actually bribes so never did any special favors

So yea, my guess is even if he's found not guilty on all counts (which doesnt seem likely) his presidential aspirations are over, you cant blame your wife, call her corrupt, and throw her under the bus and have any real chance of surviving an election

-----------------------------------UPDATE: -------------------------------------

In the time it took me to write this the Jury has decided that Bob McDonnell is GUILTY of  11 of 13 corruption counts. 

Still no word if the ex-governor is going to jail, sentencing has been set for JANUARY of 2015, however at this point, no matter the sentence McDonnell is out of basically every presidential race for the rest of his life. So he is now 150% an ex-candidate.

----------------------------Original blog resumes below------------------------------

And theres a second possible candidate who also may be out of the race in a way that has NOTHING to do with Mrs. Clinton......Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.

Rand Paul currently has two problems, the first is Jesse Benton, his former senate 2010 campaign manager, and assumed campaign manager for any presidential campaign. Until late last week Mr. Benton worked on the reelection campaign of Senator Mitch McConnell, until he was forced to resign after evidence surfaced that he had previously illegally bribed and paid off people for endorsements in the 2012 presidential election.......when he was working for Rand Paul's father Ron Paul.

Now thats clearly not a crippling scandal for the younger Paul, hence why I still call him a "possible candidate", but its definitely one of a number of issues that might dog Paul should he run, and the only one that ventures beyond the realm of whats legal.  

But like I said, Mr. Benton is only one of Rand Paul's problems. The other is the state of Kentucky itself.

See used to be policy in every state that you could only run for one state wide office at a time, until LBJ got the rules changed in Texas so he could run for Senate and President together. Many if not most states followed suit. However one of the states the didnt is Kentucky. And Rand Paul is up for reelection to the Senate in 2016.

Which means he has to pick one, he can either try to keep his current job or try for the super long shot of being president. And most people always saw his father as the "protest candidate" no one expected him to win and I believe the younger paul is being seen the same way.....so basically everyone admits he wont be president any time soon

Thing is if he runs for president and loses, thats it, he's out of national politics for at least 4 years.....at which point he would have to decide once again to run for president or for what is currently Mitch McConnells senate seat, losing that, its another 2 years till he could challenge for his own seat again.

However should Mr. Paul skip this election (which I actually believe he will do), he CAN run for president in 2020 with no conflict, he wouldnt be on the ballot for Senate that year. In fact he could run for president without this conflict popping up again until 2028.

So I assume for mechanical reasons, Mr. Paul is effectively out of the race, until 2020.

Which brings us to the first ex-candidate Hillary Clinton can actually take some credit for: Senator Marco Rubio.

See at first Rubio seemed like the best choice to combat Clinton. Like her he had appeal to minority voters (latinos in his case) and even had an immigration policy plan that could help hit hillary were the former Secretary of state is likely the weakest, domestic policy, but that early attention to Rubio also brought early attention to his plan......which it turns out wasnt a plan in its current form that the GOP base could stomach and Rubio was forced to lead the charge to block his own bill.

In otherwords he was totally for it, before he was against it. And despite that fact that given the way congress works that CAN actually sometimes be a consistent logical and coherent position (it wasnt in this case) we all know how well that kind of stand can work. Just ask Current President Romney and Former President Kerry.......

Now had he not been elevated so early its possible Rubio could have gotten his plan passed, actually gotten Latino votes for the GOP and had a major accomplishment under his belt to point to in his campaign, but because Hillary had to be stopped yesterday, he was elevated prematurely, and is now basically totally out of the 2016 presidential race.....or possibly any presidential race which given his relative youth (he'd be 45 in 2016) could have been any race in the next 20-30 years.

Next up was Chris Christie. Now I'm tempted to put an asterik on Christie, in that I have always believed Christie was DOA. He had a scandal right when he first took office that involved him screwing up, costing his state billions of dollars, and then blaming a subordinate for his mistake and firing him, Despite Christie getting caught on tape making the mistake he lied about and said he didnt. He then proceeded numerous times to try to "redirect" money from other parts of NJ to cover up his mistake....and was repeatedly overruled by the supreme court of NJ.

And none of that got national attention, however given the narrative there (no accountability, seeming incompetence, attempted coverups) I think that would have ended his campaign had he ever run.

And thats before Bridgegate and the allegations "misuse" of hurricane sandy relief funds, which I believe in the public eye have basically ended his future aspirations, reguardless of what if anything hes actually found guilty of/corrupt, in the trial by public he already lost. Here's the thing though, had he not be elevated to "front runner" status by the GOP need to counter Hillary, theres a good chance those two scandals would have gotten as little attention as the first one I mentioned. So assuming he was cleared by the investigations he could have easily claimed they were "water under the bridge" (all puns intended) and at least attempted a run (although I still think he'd have been sunk when the 3 stories would have simultaneously come to national attention)

Next up was Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin. Like Christie before him, he was next to be [briefly] elevated to "front runner" status. Now Walker had made a name for himself because he survived a recall election after he basically destroyed unions in Wisconsin (although last I checked the legal fight over if that bill is actually law is still on going but most people dont know that). Now destroying unions is like crack to the GOP base, they went totally nuts in love with the guy, who then basically dropped off the map keeping his head down (a good move for anyone actually looking to run for president this early on). Then Christie imploded, and the GOP came a calling.

And for about a week Scott Walker was king of the world.....until he was suddenly revealed to have been under investigation by the FBI for electioneering and campaign finance fraud, an investigation that has already put 3 of his aids in prison.

Now at the end of the day it doesnt look like there's a good likelyhood Walker will be joining them, so this is another scandal that might have been totally missed by the national media and one Walker might have been able to explain away after the fact. But as the then current "front runner" of the non existent "shit we need to stop Hillary now" primary,  well the story got national media attention and now no matter what the outcome EVERYONE is going to want proof the governor isnt corrupt (this being the second investigation into that, and the 3rd if you count the possible illegality of the union busting). Meanwhile and perhaps much more problematic for Walker, one of his 3 aids in prison right now is gay, and his boyfriend was also indicted and sentenced (although not to jail) for corruption in this scandal. Now most Americans arnt going to give a shit that the gov has two gay aids who are dating, but the problem for Walker is the Republican Base he needs to win the real primary arnt most american's. So now thanks to his elevation they have a whole new disqualifying fact that they never would have known about had the media picked up on this after the fact.

Next up, Republican Governor Rick Perry. Now Perry kinda ko'ed himself the last time around with this line:     

But still, mostly out of desperation, some republicans still saw him as a front runner to counter Hillary....cause hey a Texas Republican Governor whose kinda an idiot, what could POSSIBLY go wrong.

And then, as great a candidate as Perry was, well it turns out he has something in common with fellow ex candidates Walker, Christie and McDonnell......he got indicted for a crime, specifically abuse of power as he punished only democratic government employees for drunk driving and not republican ones (although in an ironic twist his indictment is totally because of actions by republicans)

Now look not gonna lie of the 4 governors currently being investigated for crimes, Perry has the smallest chance of actually going to jail, most likely he will be acquitted and may actually be innocent, and no one would ever have heard about this at all if it wasnt for all the national attention.....

And to be honest he might have even survived even with the attention, EXCEPT he felt the need to address the issue to the national media, and said this to ABC news: "I’ve been indicted by that same body now for I think two counts, one of bribery, which I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t really understand the details here,"

Now that sounds fine, until you try to figure out how bribery fits into the scandal outline I listed above. Hint it doesnt. Because no one is actually accusing Rick Perry of bribery......but he seems to think they should be.

So yea, either Rick Perry's memory hasnt gotten any better in 4 years and may be getting worse, or hes so corrupt he forgot what corrupt things he hasnt been caught doing yet, or both. Either way, thats a fatal attachment to the preexisting narrative he's an idiot.

Which brings us to the "new" republican Front Runner, Mitt Romney. You remember Mitt Romney right? The guy who lost in 2012, the guys whose lose in 2012 kicked off this massive "we need a front runner NOW" crisis before he even gave his concession speech? Well he's apparently now the best person to solve the problem he created by losing.

or he's just the only one left.

I mean basically we havnt even hit the 2014 midterms yet and the republicans have already burned though an entire primaries worth of candidates trying to find some one ANYONE who can take the aura of inevitability off of Hillary Clinton.

By the time 2015 rolls around I'm actually not sure the GOP will have any remotely viable candidates left.   Consider that so far, in 10 months they have gone through 6.5 candidates (.5 being Rand Paul, cause as I said he COULD run and nothing massively disqualifying has happened to him yet, I just dont think he will), given that the primaries wont start for another 10-12 months, its likely more than a dozen possible GOP candidates will fall before the election even begins.

And its all for naught to. I dont expect Hillary to be the Democratic nominee. As much as republicans are loath to admit it shes actually a conservative fiscally, and is at least more conservative than most democrats on a number of social issues. On top of that her inability to give straight answers on simple questions like "greatest achievement as sec of state?" or "did you evolve on gay rights" dont bode well for her ability to take on those kinds of challenges that presumably the entire democratic field will throw at her. I mean dont forget we've been here before. Hillary was the President in waiting in 2008.....then a guy who sounded liberal (but wasnt) ran to her left, and tripped her up on simple questions like supporting the iraq war, and went on to be president. The blueprint for beating her is there and I have seen nothing to suggest hillary has done anything to address her deficiencies.

Which means when the GOP heads into the general election against whatever democrat actually beats Hillary Clinton, they will be doing so with a much weaker candidate than they ever needed to, because they have preemptively set pretty bad national narratives for their top tier candidates. Not only that, but I expect the GOP is going to get caught with their pants totally down, and will have spend every moment up to the 2016 Democratic Convention attacking Hillary and will have to do both opposition research and attempt a massive narrative switch to attack whoever wins the nomination, which makes it highly likely the attacks will be disjointed and likely to fail.

So while Hillary WONT be our next president whoever it is (I assumed Deval Patrick the gov of Massachusetts until he took himself out of the race last month by announcing he wasnt going to run, no idea anymore who it will be) is going to owe Mrs. Clinton one hell of a debt for clearing the field.

Granted they are also going to owe Rence Prebus one hell of a debt too, I mean its mostly been his belief in the inevitability of Clinton that's driving this whole thing, and he was already nice enough to remove the Republican primary debates from any network not named FOX, thereby ensuring no one will actually know who his candidate is.

Actually that removal is pretty much indicative of my point here. Prebus removed the GOP from the other networks because of rumors the other networks would be doing documentaries of Hillary Clinton.

They arnt, but by the time that had become known, Prebus' RNC had already passed the motion to preemptively officially bar republican participation in ANY debate (including general elections?) on a non fox network. All over something that never happened.

it seems if they know history of not, the GOP seems condemned to repeat the same mistake now. 

Getting outraged over sexy spiders.......

You know I'm always amazed at the shit that gets people fired up sometimes. Especially because it seems more and more frequently they miss the point.

Take for example, Marvel's newly released alternative cover for their new spider woman comic:

A lot of people are getting pissed because they say its way too oversexualizing of the character, and object to the fact it was drawn by a well known erotic artist.

Now on its face that seems all well and good. I mean quoting from the article in Elle about the picture

"All in all, the image seems to toe the line of pornographic; imagine Spider-Man in that position instead, and the concept would have never gotten this far." 

that seems fair right? After all Marvel would never ever put a male in that pose, that pose is purely sexual.

The Vox version of the article even outright points out the differences in how Spider Man and Spider Woman are drawn, stating
"To be clear, that is not how Spider-Man poses or is drawn when he climbs buildings:"
Then to drive the point home, they add a helpful picture of the two you can slide back and forth to see the difference. (you can take my word for it, or go to this link since i cant copy there image)

io9 gets even more specific stating "First of all, even the dumbest, horniest teenage boy on the planet knows there's no fabric on this earth that could possibly cling to Jessica Drew's individual buttocks like that. "

Point is though. Clearly Spider-Woman is forced into unnaturally sexy positions you would never ever ever ever ever find a man in.........

That picture by the way, is the cover of Amazing Spider-Man volume 2, number 30. Which was printed in June of 2001. Oddly I cant find any angry posts about the inherent sexiness of that pose and how its degrading to the character for that cover. Also to i09's point, I'm seeing a fair amount of ass cleavage, but I guess fabric can cling like that to man ass? 

Speaking of past covers no one seems to find objectionable:

.

And these are just the ones with Spider-Woman in them. Of course no one said anything at the time. I could find plenty of other much worse examples with other characters.

All of which leads me to one inescapable conclusion. The people who are outraged either dont know anything about comics or dont actually care about the sexiness. They care only that an erotic artist got a job drawing something that everyone still [incorrectly] believes are children's books. 

 Which is a shame, since they almost have a valid point. Comic book characters are overly sexualized. But lets be honest, some of that is inherent in the idea. These are idealized humans. I'm sure there are very few if any women who naturally look like Spider-Woman. Conversely I dont know very many men who look like this:

Just saying.

Now look I'm not going to lie, the playing up the overtly sexual/physical appearances isnt gender equal. Historically its weighted towards women. However an interesting thing has happened. Most of the images I've used so far are fairly recent (last 10-15 years), and theres a reason for that, thats the current marvel style. Now that style has a very detailed body with "depth" to it, so its a basically allows for much more realistic sexy image then this

That's Ms Marvel crica 1980, and that costume is [rightly] the usual go to default for people criticizing the sex appeal built in comic book characters (mostly women) at the time.

But this is her now, in her much less revealing, hailed as "not sexual" current costume:

 

I dont know about you, but I think I find this second lady much more attractive then the first.

Point is though, ever since Marvel adopted its current style, the sex appeal/sexy poses for Men and Women have gotten much closer. Yes it still learns towards women, but we are getting nearer to equality.....just not the equality people had in mind.

And thats a point everyone upset about Spider-Woman's new cover has missed. You can be against the sexiness of comic characters at this point, but if your only aiming it at women your missing half the point, cause men are strutting their stuff now too

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Incredibly unclothed Hercules....

Oh, hey ant man, what were you doing down there?

Furthermore of all the characters to pick on for being overly sexualized, they seem to have latched onto a awkward choice.

You see Spider-Woman isnt a Spider-Man clone. She has her own unique power set. Including Pheromone control, which she can use to make her opponent feel fear repulsion or attraction.

Thats right, she actually has the power to make her enemies (or friends) attracted to her....and how exactly would you depict that in a visual medium? by making her sexy looking. Which would kinda give marvel an excuse to make her look hot....shes using her powers

Oh and before you point out that's sexist to give that power to a woman, meet Starfox, the brother of Thanos (for those who've seen Guardians he didnt make it into the movie)

His superpower? he can stimulate your pleasure center with his mind (not touching the possible contexts for that with a 10 foot pole) and make you fall in love with him....or anyone else. Oh and did I mention his real name is Eros? And how did he get the name Starfox? Well according to the wasp, he came from the stars and he's foxy......

So yea. turns out Marvel's pretty equal opportunity on that too....well except that both Fox and Spider have been accused of using their powers on a lover......want to guess which one wound up in court fighting a rape change and which one got off scott free? I'll give you a clue, the fact that Marvel didnt make it clear enough Fox didnt rape the women (they stated it in the text, but as an aside after the trial that he hadnt done it, not at the trial himself) is one of the reasons he will likely never be seen again, readers incorrectly think he's a rapist so he's now bad PR for Marvel.

Whereas no one really mentions what Spider Woman keeps doing.....

Anyways point is, the overall argument the people who are outraged over the new cover are trying to make is for the moment still somewhat valid. Women are sexualized more than men in comics. But they likely could have picked a better [read earlier] time to do it, before things started to equalize, they should have picked a different hero then the one with a built in excuse as to why she might look unrealisitically attractive, and the definitely should have picked a different cover to fight over, and a better reason to fight, because as I showed, Spiderman, whom they all turned to to make their point, has been shown in exactly the same pose, which actually undercuts their argument of sexism. Which in turn hurts the valid part of their point.

Now thats the end of this rant, but before I leave you, I uncovered one more comic book cover while writing this that I want to include but didnt really fit well anywhere else:

Whatever Herc and Wolverine were doing right before this cover I DONT WANT TO KNOW!!!!!!!!

The war on Whites.

So it seems Congressman Mo Brooks is the first person to actually figure out the truly evil plans of the Democratic Party's stand on immigration reform. You see, you might think its about fixing a broken immigration system, or helping people brought here illegally as children. If your more cynical you might think its actually about pandering to Latino's by trying to convince them your policies are better for them. But you'd be wrong. You see Democratic immigration policies, nay ALL Democratic policies are actually about a WAR ON WHITES!!!!!!!!!

Or as Rep. Brooks put it, “This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else, It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well that’s not true.”

Now first off I think we all need to admit the truth of Rep Brooks statement. If there is one group through-out american history that has been repeatedly victimized its white folks:

I mean just look at those poor guys. Not only are they required to hide their faces when they go out in public, they are forced to wear white robes to identify themselves publicly as white people, and forced to endure all the scorn that comes with it. Plus look at their chests, like the Jews in Germany they are forced to where a symbol identifying their religion and  singling them out for even more scorn. All thanks to the muslim socialist fascist President. Thanks Obama.

And its not like thats the only example. Take a look at this offensive mocking of the White People.

That woman is CLEARLY in White-Face. She's clearly mocking the chapped lips problem white people can have when its cold, the fact our noses can turn red when we are sick and the fact that our hair can grown in a wide range of colors. Point is its OFFENSIVE and needs to be stopped.

And its not like shes the only one:

Cant you just hear them "Hey dude, you know what would be HILARIOUS? lets all dress up like White People and walk around town for a while....you know with the 3 piece suits, the rosey cheeks, the sneers and weird mustaches" "Dude youre right, that would be TOTALLY EPIC"

So I mean, at the end of the day, you cant deny Congressman Brooks has a real point. Just look how badly white people are singled out in this culture.

Although then again, maybe the identification is needed. I mean, maybe its just me, but it seems I'm a little confused what a white person is.

You see I thought those were all white people (except for Sen Hirono). But it turns out most of them are Democrat's.

Same here:

And here:

Like I said, I thought all those groups were white. My mistake, I guess we really do need the hoods to tell the difference.

Now I know what your thinking, maybe they ARE white and some white folks vote democrat? Not according to Rep Brooks who tried to clarify his first comments with these:

"As best I can in the time limitations I have, I try to make sure people understand what the Democrats are doing by raising race as an issue every chance they get. It's much like the congressmen during the (immigration) debate on Friday: Democrat after Democrat was talking racism and race. And the motivation for their doing so was to try to cause bloc voters of race to vote solely on skin color.

I'm one of those who does not believe in racism and I believe everyone should be treated equally as American citizens. It's high time folks started calling out the Democrats for their racial appeals. Certainly if you were to flip the coin and a white person were to say vote for me because I'm white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so. So why do we allow blacks to say vote for me because I'm black or Hispanics vote for me because I'm Hispanic? Race is immaterial and everybody ought to be treated the same."

See. Democrats only run on the fact they arnt white and you should vote for them because you arnt white either. Its never been that the policy endorsed by Democrats is seen as being better for minorities by minorities One of the most famous examples of cheap vote for me due to my race pandering:

Now as we all famously know "ich bin ein berliner" actually means "I'm Hispanic so vote for me my Hispanic brethren". 

And I mean its not like JFK is the only one. This guy is famous for supposedly being America's First Black President:

  

Which is a TOTAL LIE. I mean we all know who America's first black president really was:

But then again, maybe he was Asian, I really cant tell apparently........but as America's first Democrat president we KNOW he wasnt white.

Point is though, Republicans would never NEVER run a candidate based solely on the fact they werent white and assume that would bring them minority votes.

Remind me again, why this clown was declared the Republican Frontrunner for 2016 8 seconds after the polls closed in 2012? Clearly it was because of his wealth of experience and policy like the famous [editors note find the name of a bill Rubio wrote that became law and edit this later] that he wrote and is now law.

By the way, is Marco Rubio still alive? I'm just saying no one seems to have mentioned him in like a year...ever since he laid out his policy ideas..........

Eh, must be a fluke that ever since he said what he actually stands for, Republicans wont support him, but before when he was only his appearance they loved the guy.

I do legitimately fully agree with one thing Congressman Brooks said though "[If] a white person were to say vote for me because I'm white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so." And credit to Congressman Brooks for having the guts to test and prove that theory personally.

5 most important Vice Presidents in US history.

So I thought this would be a cool follow up to my 2 recent 10 best/worst presidents list. Especially since as a rule the Vice President is kinda an unknown. In fact the only real requirements for most Vice Presidents has been to have a heartbeat......or in the case of Dick Cheney, a reasonable substitute.

So unlike our Presidents list, the rules for Vice President are a little different, their entire political career up until becoming vice president counts....however nothing they did after being Vice President will count, since this is about what made the important vice presidents, not people. (this is also to prevent the list from being populated by presidents who had been VP's)

Also, the rules for electing the Vice President changed in 1804 when the 12th amendment was passed. Prior to 1804 the Vice President was simply the runner up in the electoral college. Which also means the reasoning behind who became Vice President and why also changed in 1804. Therefore in order to ensure an even playing field (and give time to some lesser known VP's) the men who were VP prior to 1804, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr are disqualified. However since the idea usually is that the VP is most important before the election, ALL other VP's including Joe Biden and Dick Cheney are eligible.

One last thing, please take note of the word IMPORTANT. This is not a best or worst list, just a list of Vice Presidents who did something that had a big impact, for better or worse.

First up we have:

Elbridge Gerry. 5th Vice President under Madison

Ever wonder why Gerrymandering is spelled with a G and not a J like is sounds? Because it was named after this guy. In 1812, Gerry "invented" (or perfected) the practice when, as governor, he approved a map of Massachusetts congressional districts that used lots of irregular shapes to make it much easier for his party to win seats in the states, and much harder for the opposition. Pretty much every time we redraw districts after the census the party in control of a state legislator that year will try to do the same thing Gerry did 200 years ago. And it can work really effectively.  Consider, in 2012, the Democrat's got 1.17 million more votes in House races then Republicans, but Republicans still hold a near 30 seat majority. How? because the democratic vote was spread out and mimimized into highly republican districts using gerrymandering in the 2010 redistricting (and to be clear, this is not an indictment of the GOP, the dem's would and have done the same, it just so happens the this is the most recent example). So yea, thats the power of Gerrymandering and lasting legacy of its originator, Elbridge Gerry.

On one last thing, it should also be noted Elbridge Gerry is the only person on this list to not have a post vice presidential career of some kind.....because he died 18 months into his term (the second of 7 VP's to die) prompting people everywhere to go "Dude you had ONE JOB! ONE FREAKING JOB! HAVE A HEARTBEAT! AND YOU FAILED!"

Number 4:

Andrew Johnson. 16th Vice President under Lincoln.

So somewhat shockingly, given his placement on my worst presidents list, Johnson is actually here for a GOOD reason. If you live in the midwest/great plains, you've likely heard of the Homestead Act, a congressional bill that gave public land to settlers to encourage westward expansion. In fact its arguably one of the main factors for all original US migration west of the Mississippi, and it was all the idea of this guy. In fact he introduced it for the very first time during his first term in office as a congressman in 1843....and basically spent the next 20 years pushing for it in both the house and the senate (with a 4 year break to serve as governor of Tennessee.) In an ironic twist however, Johnson would leave the Senate in 1862 just months before final passage occured. Unlike most of his southern ilk though, Johnson didnt leave due to secession, he actually left to become military governor of occupied Tennessee.  As military governor, Johnson, devoted to the Southern way of life (even if he supported the idea of the Union) got an exception for his state from the Emancipation Proclamation, ensuring no matter who controlled which parts of Tennessee after 1863, the whole state could keep their slaves. In another ironic twist, Johnson's final act as Military Governor, before assuming the Vice Presidency, was to sign into law Tennessee's new Constitution.....outlawing slavery forever.

Number 3: 

John C. Calhoun. 7th Vice President under Q Adams and Jackson.

Calhoun is famous in his own right, but most of the reasons he's famous come from his stint as a senator, AFTER being vice president (which it should be noted was not at all unusual, most still living ex Vice Presidents up until and including Andrew Johnson at least ran for the Senate). But he was actually pretty important before that senate stint as well.

First he's an AMAZING set of trivia answers, Second (and last) vice president to serve two different presidents, only vice president to serve two different parties, first vice president to resign the office.

And its actually that last one that gets him on this list. People may remember that when I was talking about Andrew Jackson on my worst presidents list, I mentioned he cant even take full credit for his crack down on nullification because his vice president had mainstreamed the whole idea? yea well this is that Vice President. And the idea of Nullification, was one the south pointed to as proof they could legally secede, and that idea had actually more or less entirely Calhoun's.  So in a nutshell he's kinda responsible for the civil war.

One other less important, but intended to be more positive thing Calhoun did: before becoming VP Calhoun had been Sec of War, and as such was supposed to oversee relations with native america's. In an attempt to better address relations with them, Calhoun created the Bureau of Indian Affairs inside the War department to draw up treaties with native tribes (which as far I can tell Calhoun assumed [incorrectly] we'd honor).

Number 2: 

Thomas Marshall, 28th Vice President under Wilson

Thomas Marshall was only the second vice president in history to serve two terms under the same president. The first was Daniel D. Tompkins under James Monroe a century before. But in addition to serving what was at that point a once in a century term, Marshall was also the first modern Vice President.

Most VP's had focused almost exclusively on their role in the legislative branch (as leader of the senate) up until Marshall. Although the Vice President would continue to preside over the senate regularly until Alvin Barkley (VP under Truman), Marshall would be the one to take the first steps to moving the Vice presidency into its modern fit as part of the executive branch. In fact he was the first to be regularly invited to cabinet meetings (although he often didnt attend after the first year or so), and was the first to be used as a surrogate on campaign speeches and later liberty bond/support the war (WWI) propaganda speeches, regularly.  This would lead to him being the first Vice President to actually conduct a cabinet meeting after President Wilson left the country to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles ending world war I.

Actually to be honest, Marshall had a chance to BE president in his own right. Not long after returning from europe, Wilson suffered a stoke that left him incapacitated. Many members of congress believed without Presidential leadership the Treaty might fail and "League of Nations" (a fore runner to the UN) certainly would (and did). So they called on Marshall to assume the powers of the President due to Wilson's incapacity. Marshall refused citing the precedent this would set for forcing a president from office for a sickness. (Wilson refused to officially admit to his incapacity, so legally it was if he was only ill). The ensuing battle and unsuress on correct legal policy would eventually lead to language clarifying when the Vice President was required to assume power in the 25th Amendment (paving the way for Bush Sr to assume the mantle of President a few times during Reagan's term while Reagan was undergoing surgeries). How many Vice Presidents do you know of who would pass at a chance to BE president? not to many and that alone makes Marshall remarkable.

However even outside of what he did as VP, Marshall was notable, and a kinda awkward pairing for the racist Wilson.  As governor of Indiana, Marshall took a trying to overturn the states Eugenics and Sterilization laws, at the height of such laws popularity in the country (and laws favored by future president Wilson) going so far as to order state institution to NOT comply with the law.  He also was opposed to capitol punishment and would pardon anyone sentenced to death during his term, as a result he was the first Governor to execute no one during his term in office.  He also helped pass Child Labor laws and Anti corruption legislation during his tenure.  All in all he made a rather activist liberal running mate paired with a somewhat conservative racist president.

Number 1: 

Richard Cheney. 46th Vice President under W. Bush

As if it was going to be anybody else. Dick Cheney is possibly the most powerful and influential VP in american history. Rumors persist that he was basically the senior partner and the one calling the shots during the first term of the W. Bush adminstration. He's credited as the architect of the Iraq war, and many of Bush's other policies during that time. He's also so modern I dont really need to go on about him, EVERYONE knows him and why he's famous. Which is actually unusual for any vice president, even the incumbent, and goes a long way to showing why he tops the list.

In fact the best example of his influence comes from hearing talking heads talk about the period between 2000 and 2008. Its just as often referred to as the "Bush/Cheney Administration" as it is just the stand alone "Bush Adminstration". In fact my prediction is in 100 years, Dick Cheney will still be the only vice president (other than the ones who became president) that any school kid will actually know.

(side note: the reason I dont have a "statue" picture of Cheney like I do everyone else is because the statue doesnt yet exist, not for any reason of bias)

So there you have it, the 5 most important Vice Presidents in history, 2 of whom you know, 2 of whom you likely never heard of, and 1 you likely never knew was VP.