I thought this would be a fun topic.

Basically pick a couple of big names from the political spectrum and post how long you think they would last and why they would get booted.


Howard Dean: 2 days at best... Would definitely get booted for multiple blanket statements about conservatives. And never backing up statements with sources.

Michael Savage: Less than a day. Would be booted for Ad-Hominem attacks and bashing of gays and telling people to shut up.

I could do many more but figured I would let others have fun with this.

Ted Kennedey [sober]: A few days at best. "All conservatives are" declaratives would earn him a swift Jaime execution.

Alan Keyes: X is a selfish-Hedonist would earn him the boot in a day, tops.

Jerry Fallwel: Babbling about religion and damning gay members to Hell would earn him the dubious distinction of being the quickest ever to be kicked out of AD. Total Elapsed Time: 35 minutes.

CP

Sen. Tom Coburn would probably last 3 posts. After declaring he wants people who have abortion's executed, calling Schindler's List a porno and expressing beliefs that homosexuality and gay union's are a bigger threat to mankind then global terrorism. I do not see him lasting long.


Howard Dean would last a few hours. 3 in 10 posts would be so inciteful that he would have to spend another 10 posts trying to cover what he just said. His hands would become cramped and he would be forced to leave because of injury.

Let me take a different approach.

Congressman Ron Paul would have a glorious run on . He would likely last for years, though his postings would be sporadic at best considering his job, and all his pet projects.

President Bill Clinton - would likely have a very successful run here as well. I also believe that once he had some serious face time on to discuss he moderate positions in detail he would actually gain followers from the current "I hate Clinton" crowd, and might just loose a few followers on the left.

Senator Hilary Clinton This one might be a toss up. I don't think she would be booted / banned. However, I think she will tire of trying to discuss her current positions on issues only to face constant questions about White Water and the like. In the end, I think (unless someone challenged her by saying she wouldn't stick it out ), she would last about 30 days and leave of her own accord.

Senator Jim Talent He would surprise you all. I know he has surprised me on several occasions. The man would last forever, and he would likely make alot of us think in new ways on at least a weekly basis (changing minds might be another matter ).

Sec. Donald Rumsfeld would be a hit around here I think. Whenever he's in the spotlight he's almost always calm and reasonable. Even when the press core...isn't.

Press Secretary Scott McClellan on the other hand is a dead man. Not through banning or anything, but once our spin-killers get a hold of him, the man's got nothing left.

He'd quit in three days...tops.

Karl Rove- With all of his falsehoods and propaganda against his own(John McCain) and the Democratic party. His motto-A good offense beats a good defense, anyday.

Jesse Jackson- Don't do as I do, but do as I say.

George Bush- Being president is a hard job. After repeating that about 100 times, I would be sick. Or the comment, Bush is taking a 5 week vacation to clear brush at the ranch.

Ann Coulter - Likely would be gone after a day of trying to "talk to Liberals" and realizing that the ones here talk back, and pretty darn well.

Al Franken - I think he'd be an excellent contributor here, but might drift in and out of suspensions due to inflammatory remarks like calling people liars and big fat idiots

John McCain - A moderate like him I think would do very well here.

Rick Santorum - The more I learn about this guy, the more I at least respect where he's coming from. I think he would do well here as long as he doesn't pimp his book as often as Al would.

Tucker Carlson - Owned in a NY minute and run out on a rail.

Paul Begala: Would barely make it through one day. Would not be able to back up statements like "The republicans want to kill him and his children"

Rush Limbaugh: Would not last long because he would be mad at Mike for not getting him a Golden EID Keyboard on which to post with one hand tied behind his back.

Bill O'Rielley: I think he would surprise alot of people. He may tend to get short and acerbic with people at times but would probably last.

James Carville: Wouldn't last longer than a fox in a hen house... as he would say

Robert Novak started to register. He came to the page where he had to agree to the rules, and said "This is B-------," then went to FreeRepublic where he now has a small cult of worshippers.

Bernie Sanders would last a long time - and have us all converted to democratic socialism within six months.

Bill O'Reilly lasted 2 days. He was banned for using a hack which allowed him to post "Shut up!" messages right in the middle of other people posting.

The Dalai Lama would never even get a warning - and next year he will take Mrs.P's "Most level-headed" award away! And immediately he would give it back to her, of course.

President Bush never got banned, but with his disjointed rhetoric and vague postings, he swiftly became one of the least credible members at AD. An excerpt from a typical "W" post, in the "Are we winning the War on Terror" thread:


Karl Rove joined at 10am. His first post was at 10:12. His ban came at 10:16. Here is an excerpt from that post:


Bill Clinton never got a strike, but he did cause two new award categories to be created - most wishy-washy, and most annoying (for constantly telling people he felt their pain).

If I may be allowed to jump into the Wayback Machine:

Socrates -- After multiple warnings about one-liners, still refuses to add any posts that don't consist entirely of short, rhetorical questions. Banned reluctantly, since he seemed to be a nice guy.

Aristotle -- Respected for his intellect, but drives everybody nuts with his endless classification of everything.

Plato -- His posts are interesting for the gimmick of offering them in the form of dialogues (including his buddy Socrates) but wins a reputation for being a fascist with his weird plans for the perfect "Republic" (sic).

Aristophanes -- The word-filter nearly breaks down trying to censor out his dirty jokes, and he gets banned pretty quickly, but his political satires crack everybody up.

If Tom DeLay joined up I'm not sure how long he'd last but I know I'd be banned for life from AD and preemptively banned from all political forums as I'd finally be able to get it all out.

Were the last ten presidents to join...

Ike - Despite constant baiting by the neocon element here (and accusations of being a RINO), he would quickly be voted Most Level-Headed Member.

Jack17 - He would be a literate, well-researched participant and would receive Most Convincing Post awards despite rarely providing foundation for his arguments.

Lyndonbird - He would last about a week. After repeated profanity violations and warnings about name-calling, he would simply escalate his unconstructive and abrasive posts and get banned.

Tricky_D - He would receive repeated warnings about profanity as well as anti-semitic and racist remarks. After two strikes, he would declare that he was "not a quitter" - and would stop posting to AD forever.

GolfProGerry - He would join, but never contribute to any active threads. After a year or so of inactivity, his membership would be deactivated.

peanutfarmer - He would be extremely diplomatic and fairly well-liked, but would be so blandly moderate that his posts would seldom get a response of any kind. He would nevertheless continue posting forever.

Uncle_Ron - He would be a very well-liked member, but would rarely post to anything apart from the Casual Conversation forum. When posting to more political discussions, his rambling anecdotes would be largely ignored, though he would receive constant Mod Notes for being off-topic.

Poppy - He would fast become popular with the right for his well-constructed and researched posts, but would never seriously challenge his opponents. Having occasionally reversed his positions, he would lose a bit of credibility and eventually stop posting altogether.

Stud4u - While his posts would be heartfelt, well-researched, and thoroughly convincing, he would be banned for harassing female members via PM within about two weeks.

daddysboy - His posts would be virtually incomprehensible, off-topic, and grossly misinformed. He would be banned within three or four days for creating multiple accounts due to the fact that he could never remember his password for more than a single session.

I've had a contributor ask me to provide a key to the user names in my previous post. They were the last ten presidents in order:

Ike - Eisenhower
Jack17 - Kennedy
Lyndonbird - Johnson
Tricky_D - Nixon
GolfProGerry - Ford
peanutfarmer - Carter
Uncle_Ron - Reagan
Poppy - Bush I
Stud4u - Clinton
daddysboy - Bush II

Apologies for any confusion.

I liked the little nicknames and I do not see how it could really be that confusing BUT I do not get the Kennedy reference....Jack17 is that a reference to the year he was born in or is it a play on the Irish catholic tons of kids family? I understood all of the others but not that one.

going back in time-

Thomas Jefferson- in trouble sometimes for slamming the religious right, his eloquence makes him voted "poster most people want to meet". Frequent poster in the libertarian debate.

John Adams- though friendly with Thomas Jefferson in the chat room, and also a libertarian, spars with Thomas Jefferson repeatedly, earning strikes infrequently for personal attacks.

Patrick Henry- keeps getting redirected to belief net for his frequent thread starts about for turning all political discussions into an exercise in religious dogma.


Thomas Paine- very eloquent, with great sources, but nearly gets banned several times for flaming patrick henry and other religious conservatives. Makes the news after being assassinated in France by muslim religious extremists for his public condemnations of Islam, to everyone here on AD's sorrow.

Goerge Washington- though eloquent, sometimes seems purposely contradictory in some of his posts, usually considered a bit of an elitist among his fellow ADers, is voted "member we wish posted more often"

Benjamin Franklin- nearly banned for his ribald sense of humor, this registered libertarian is very popular with his witticisms, though he does stir some occasional outrage amongst the conservative female members, and even among the liberal female feminists for his sexist beliefs.

European (well, mostly British) examples:

Margaret Thatcher would be popular with American posters, and might even be elected to the staff, but would irritate the hell out of half of the Brits here. She'd be forthright but sensible for a few months, then become more and more doctrinaire and divorced form reality until she got ejected from the staff. Then the rest of her membership would become consumed in a mission of revenge on the staff for their "betrayal" (when actually she'd long since ceased to be any use) until she finally descended silence punctuated by wild-eyed alcohol-fuelled rants nobody paid much attention to.

Jacques Chirac would be banned after a few posts for his point-blank refusal to debate in English.

Tony Blair would be superficially popular and convincing, and would be an enormously active poster in all forums on all subjects, but after a while his response of "but I am just plain right" in reply to requests for supporting evidence after having been caught out fabricating such evidence in the War on Terror thread would alienate all but the most gung-ho posters such as Dubya and Halle Burton.
He would, however, constantly luck out of getting strikes and other disciplinary actions by somehow managing to capture the mood of the entire board in the first reply to all the major issue threads as they arise.
By comparison Dubya's responses would be way down on page two or three of the thread, and would be largely one liners of "what Tony said", merged with "God Bless America" and some sabre rattling.

Peter Mandelson would be the oily little tick whose apparent insincerity led everyone to ignore him. Except TB, because they are firm friends that go back a long way, but they would never both appear on the same thread, instead corresponding entirely via PM.

Rupert Murdoch wouldn't post at all - he'd be trying to buy the board from Mike & Jaime.

Silvio Berlusconi would be a loud and omniprescent poster, saying many of the same things as TB and Dubya.
AND he'd be trying to buy the board from Mike & Jaime (for much less than [p]RupeForever[/b]). And denying that he sent unpleasant and violent fat men in track suits and shiny socks to Savannah by way of persuasion.

Kofi Annan would be trying deperately to stay as a Moderator and be taken seriously, but would make huge gaffes every now and then that undermined his credibility.
Plus, since he never actually issued any strikes or mod notes in any active threads, everyone would wonder why he thought he was so important.
Some posters would also be suspicious of the way he moderated another poster with a similar handle using the same IP address in the War on Terror thread.

Nelson Mandela would be universally respected, despite a youth that involved the active fomentation of virulent flame wars on other boards, albeit in a good cause, and albeit that these boards had draconian and racist moderators. Having had not internet access for many years following successful court action by the now defunct racist debate forum, his membership of this one became in itself a cause for celebration. His measured and constructive posts, though increasingly rare, make him a popular and well respected member.

Gen P Musharraf is an infrequent poster here, and mostly parrots Dubya, TB and SilvioTVStar when he does appear. However, in the Urdu Language forum Pakistan's Debate, he seems to pander to the other extreme. Nobody on bothers to check there very much. Except Wertz who occasionally sends him a PM challenging his apparent hypocrisy, which Gen P ignores.

Osama bin Laden two or three virulent and flagrant rule violations in his first few posts earned him a lifetime ban. However, his fevered rantings on his blog page - www.beardie-weirdo-al-jazeero.org.pk - continue to inspire the odd newbie to enter the board quietly, say a few uncontroversial things to put everyone at their ease, and then competely ruin a thread with an unsubstantiated and offensive outburst, often at the same time as another similar fool does the same thing on another thread. The rants usually contain straight lifts from the bin Laden blog, though it's hard to say whether the shadowy blogger is directly behind them, or the attackers just like his rantings.
Despite the best efforts of Dubya, TB, SilvioTVStar and particuarly Gen P, who owns the ISP that Osama is thoght to use, to close his website, he remains at large.

I was going with the date of birth.