Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Im surprised this hasn't been asked yet

but, While i was watching CNN tonight i thought to myself "who would be the BEST candidate for FIRST?" i have my answer, which i'll post later, but i would love to hear what you guys think

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

I'm a Obama fan myself. I think he is a smart man who can and will lead our nation to change. I think he will take a real interest in technology. I'm hoping he will take an interest in FIRST.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

As of now, the only candidate who seems to have the interests of the youth in mind is Obama.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

As I mentioned here, tune in the FIRSTruth next week for a VERY in depth look into how the (remaining) candidates match up on FIRST issues.
The conclusions may surprise you.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Obama. I'm not yet convinced that he's my favorite candidate, but at least in terms of understanding young people and technology, it'd be difficult to argue that there's anyone better left. His interest in Creative Commons and net neutrality are encouraging. The one caveat is that his plan to give incentives to teachers who want to try new programs (good for FIRST) is going to cut funding from NASA (bad for FIRST).

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Ditto. The 2008 election will be my first election to participate in. Although all of the candidates have flaws Obama is the only one who supports the Creative Commons and Net Neutrality and those are major issues for me among other digital rules.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

I was thinking about voting for Romney, but I guess that is out the window. Of the candidates, I really don't see one that I like. For me, this is going to come down to picking "the lesser of two evils". Pardon the saying, but I think it fits.

A side story on politics: I was flipping through the channels the other day and stopped on Nickelodeon. (yes, the kids network.) It had kids (about age 10) name a candidate that they supported and then explain why. Their explanations for each candidate were far better then that of the candidates themself. I have heard all of them speak for at least ten minutes (some more then others) and think most of the time that they are speaking non-sense. These kids spoke for about 2 minutes each and everything they said sounded smart. The plans of each candidate made sense. Just a thought, but maybe we should lower the voting age.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

I've read Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, and a lot of the things in there are encouraging for science, technology, and education. Within the first chapter of the book he wrote "I wish we had more engineers and fewer lawyers".

And while I may not agree with everything he says, it's things like his willingness to bring both sides of the table together to work out a solution that are really encouraging. As such, I don't fear for NASA if he becomes president and all of us citizens uphold our constitutional responsibility and stay involved in politics.

If we all let him know that taking funding from NASA ultimately hurts programs like FIRST, then I believe he would change his funding sources.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

On FIRSTruth this week, as promised, an in depth analysis of the main candidates positions and whose lines up best with the position of FIRST.

Thread available here.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Why should the government be involved in FIRST? Let FIRST be a private organization and leave the feds out of it. Unless you want your tax rates to be through the roof, please separate FIRST and State.

McCain/Romney '08.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

I'm sorry to hear that. I shall notify the 164 NASA sponsored teams that they should plan on dissolving next year. Also I should notify the planning committees of VCU, Buckeye, Portland, Florida, Silicon Valley, Lone Star, Wisconsin, Los Angeles, Bayou, and Hawaii that their regionals are cancelled. Maybe if we hurry we can get the teams to go to other regionals that aren't funded by the government.

I'll let you be the one to tell Dean that DEKA should give up on prosthetic limbs, and you can also tell the soldiers that had their limbs blown off during the occupations. Also while you're at it, please tell all of the teams of your plan to privately broadcast the Kickoff, the Championship, and regionals over the internet, since we can't use NASA TV anymore.

Seriously though, the "taxes through roof" arguement is tired and childish. FIRST seems to be doing quite well, thank you very much, with government funding. I'd rather my tax dollars be going towards something worthwhile like FIRST instead of inane things like holding investigations on steroids in baseball. Besides, if you just eliminate the $275 million we spend on one day of the occupation, you could fully fund FIRST for the entire year, so don't go around with this bull$#!% about taxes going up.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

I really think that out of our current options, Obama is our best shot. In one of the debates I was watching the other night, Obama mentioned his dedication to science and technology, which really grabbed my interest and made me watch him more. I think out of McCain, Clinton, and Obama, Obama is the one who appears to understand the need for technology the most and would probably be more receptive to a program like FIRST than the other two candidates.

That being said, I wish the democratic debates had more substance and less bickering over who said what and who did what.

And John McCain is basically 4 more years of Bush thinking. No thanks.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Why does NASA need to sponsor teams? Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say "Taxpayer dollars should go to robotics clubs"? Hell, where does it give the Federal Government power on education? What is the legal basis for federally funding FIRST?

The other regionals seem to be doing just fine without government help, thank you.

What does prosthetic limbs have to do with FIRST?? That's a whole separate issue involving health research. I never said "everything should be privatized." I simply said FIRST should.

I believe the government has the privilege of protecting its citizens. $275 million going to saving American lives from terrorist attacks is worth me paying 8% sales tax and 4% income tax. Forcibly sponsoring something that can and should be privatized is not.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Yes, many of them are doing fine, but that's after YEARS of having NASA support the regional. The whole idea is to have NASA be there as a foundation to get the regional started and then substitute that funding with other sponsors as years go on. Do you realize how much it actually costs to run a regional? I won't give an specific figures, but needless to say, it's quite a bit of money.

And a whole other issue on why does NASA need to support teams? Do you want FIRST to continue to grow? Because without their support, it's a sure fire thing that team growth would slow down instantly. NASA and FIRST have been partnered for a long time now and I would not want to see it any other way.

Re: Election 2008, Who's the best Candidate for FIRST?
 

Personally: GO MIKE HUCKABEE