Talk:2008 United States presidential election
Should we mention rumours about Ron Paul possibly running as an Independent Candidate?
- no need. Paul did run in 1988 and got under .5% of the vote.Richard Jensen 19:30, 3 January 2008 (CST)
Also Rans
"Also rans" is standard language in American politics for 80 years. It is not disrespectful, as shown by [1] and books like Presidential Also-Rans and Running Mates, 1788 Through 1996 (1998); Also Rans: Great Men Who Missed the Presidential Goal (1928); and in ancient history: Candidates Defeated in Roman Elections: Some Ancient Roman "Also-Rans" (1991) Richard Jensen 22:37, 4 January 2008 (CST)
Candidates named
For the sake of neutrality, of course, some Republican candidates should be named in the first paragraph, if some Democratic candidates are. (I should have thought this was obvious enough not to need anyone to point it out.) --Larry Sanger 22:14, 8 January 2008 (CST)
Also, if Al Gore never announced his candidacy, then why is he included in a list of "withdrawn candidates"? --Larry Sanger 22:16, 8 January 2008 (CST)
lede
The lede should to contain the status of the main contenders. Bloomberg is making some preparations but the experts do not say he is expected to be a major contender for winning in the fall,
compliments
This page is doing quite well, I think. It exhibits a sensitivity to some of the issues we've been dialoging about in Politics, and I very much appreciate that. Keep up the good work!Pat Palmer 10:33, 20 January 2008 (CST)
- thanks from all of us at election desk central. Richard Jensen 21:05, 20 January 2008 (CST)
Referee statement
For the moment I'm planting my flag here, as available to help resolve any issues that arise. I've noted a couple of general "article policy issues that probably will arise.
1) What happens to text that becomes outdated, do we just ditch it and the links with it? There will be an understandable reluctance to delete someone's hard forged prose and the research behind it, but we need to keep the article topical and fairly concise. I think that it would be a shame to lose such text, so we might consider a "News timeline" page as an archive for the links that are lost. In other words, if and when a news story is edited out by the passage of events, any links and a brief summary should perhaps be preserved in the timeline archive?
2)quotes. Topical quotes can make an article lively, at the same time they can be inflammatory and selection is a problem.
I think we should reflect that probably this article will not have a decisive effect on the outcome of the election, however good it is. We shouldn't get too obsessed with balance at the expense of readability; judging balance is not going to be a perfect art. What we can't reasonably do is, every time a lively and pithy quote emerges, wonder desperately how to balance it. But if such quotes never live on the main page for long, perhaps that will be less of a problem, as we can think that the article will be balanced over time if not at every instant. Perhaps again we should have a "gallery" of quotes, so that a quote is used for a while and then archived in the gallery. Just a thought???? Gareth Leng 12:09, 21 January 2008 (CST)