The "other" political issues.

[Jaepheth]

Health care, Iraq, the Economy... yeah, they're important. But what other issues are you concerned about that are never really brought up?

For me, I'd want a President who's willing to begin the arduous task of switching the United States to the metric system.

[Rogue 9]

Switching the power grid over to nuclear energy. Should have been done a decade ago, but no one has the political will to just give Greenpeace the finger and get it done.

[Darth Raptor]

Infrastructure in general, not just reactors. Railroads, bridges, dams, levees, water treatment and desalination facilities...

Oh yeah, and schools.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Wealth Inequality, for one. See my thread I just posted for the idea.

Net Neutrality. See any cellphone network for what its opposite looks like.

Victimless-Crime Law Reform. This is a catch-all term for such things as drug use, consensual sex, gambling, pornography, and other things that hurt no one in the actual act of use or manufacture, yet cost much pain and suffering when useless wasteful laws are enforced against them simply for the edification of worthless evil assholes who congenitally cannot perceive happiness without someone else suffering needlessly. These are the selfsame people who hide these evil urges toward torture behind the banner of Morality, Law, and Order.

[Gullible Jones]

Energy and fuel. This country runs on oil, and the oil is running out; we ought to start tackling that problem now.

Also... ethics. Simple stuff, like not abusing power to harrass dissenters, not locking people up without a trial, not torturing prisoners... That sort of thing.

[Uraniun235]

The tax structure is fucked. We should raise taxes. This, of course, is political suicide so it's no surprise nobody wants to even talk about it.

Corporate accountability. Hillary Clinton is talking about freezing foreclosures or some bullshit like that. Why isn't she calling for federal investigations into the practices that got us to this point in the first place? Why isn't Obama, for that matter? (Maybe they are and I haven't heard about it?) This is bullshit. We should be seeing more executives going to prison. Actually, I'd be pretty happy with seeing them publicly lashed, stripped of all their worldly possessions into destitution, and then imprisoned.

For that matter, criminal punishment reform. Prison is not a one-size-fits-all punishment. Even if the thought of physical violence is somehow horribly revolting (despite the fact that imprisonment is a mental and emotional trauma all of its own... but no, god forbid we ever inflict physical pain in any capacity, that's barbaric and barbarism is inherently wrong because... because, because we say it is! are you a sadist?) there are other avenues like fines and compulsory labor. We need to get away from this "rar TOUGH ON CRIME, and TOUGH = MORE PRISON", as well as the retarded mentality of "NO DON'T LET JUDGES MAKE JUDGMENTS ABOUT SENTENCES, LET'S SET EVERYTHING IN STONE LAWS", even if only because we can't fucking afford it.

IP law reform. This includes copyright, but more importantly patent law. Do away with the "patent arsenal" bullshit that companies have to engage in to make sure another company can't bury them, do away with the "patent troll" bullshit companies, and everyone except for the fucking leeches wins.

Infrastructure in general, not just reactors. Railroads, bridges, dams, levees, water treatment and desalination facilities...

Oh yeah, and schools.

As insane as he is in general, Huckabee was very right about one thing; this god damn retarded "stimulus package" would be immensely more productive (and stimulating!!!) if it were instead comprised of infrastructure maintenance/refurbishment/upgrade projects. Projects which create jobs and put people to work, literally fucking capital investments into the nation itself which will see returns.

Congratulations, Republicans! You've gone completely round the bend and are now pushing for government handouts. How does that make you feel? It ought to make everyone feel dirty.

[Guardsman Bass]

Civil Service and the Spoils System. I personally would love nothing more than to see all positions beyond a few of the top ones where you want someone appointed by the current President so he can work his agenda vanish off the list of spoils to be distributed, with a good, solid system in place to promote ability and the like (the distribution of ambassadorships to political fundraising folk seems particularly egregious to me; do you really want the face of your nation in a certain country to be a party hack? This is, of course, different if they actually do have the right kind of background for it.). Sorry if that seems slightly incoherent; my basic point is that I would like to uproot most of the Spoils System.

Environmental issues beyond simply those of "pollution", whether CO2 and Global Warming, or industrial pollution. This might be a particular "Southwestern" American thing for me, considering that I live in an area where the issue of water supplies and drought are already very real issues, and are predicted to only get worse in the future (I'd love to ask one of the candidates on how they plan to help the West get around issues with increasingly smaller water supplies being demanded by increasingly large "water hogs" - AKA Las Vegas).

I'm with the "Metric System" issue too. It would be nice if the US would just get rid of the damn Imperial system and its less convenient unit conversions.

[TimothyC]

Nuclear Power, and ABM. No ABM, No Vote from me.

[Darth Wong]

The big "other issue" is the one the voters already decided was unimportant: the one being pushed by both parties' lame-duck candidates: poverty. Edwards and Huckabee are both pushing it, but neither of them had a chance.