Piffle. All campaign promises carry an unstated proviso, that the pledge be possible. As well, that the pledge can be realized without undue damage.
It was Mr.Clinton’s opinion, and mine, and Mr. Goldwater’s, that sexual orientation has no bearing on military service. This is friend Gobear’s opinion as well. But if resistance to reform is to such an extent that insisting on it might actually damage our services, then it is time to back off, be patient, and proceed with calm deliberation.
The day will come. When you don’t know The Other, you are impressed by how different he is. When you do know him, you are impressed with how much alike you really are.
I’m pretty sure that none of us voting for NotBush have any illusions that John F. Kerry is another FDR, or even another Bill Clinton. Nor do we expect him to be honset. On the contrary. I expect him to say whatever the hell he has to say to get elected. We all understand that campaign promises are a game. Has anyone in history ever really expected a politico to keep his promises?
Hell, I would be upset if Kerry wasn’t out there lying his ass off and promising hookers and blow and four years of Camelot. I want him to be as dishonest as it takes to get rid of Bush. Like my Youth League Basketball coach used to say, if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.
Having said that, I do have a very minimum set of exectations for policies I assume will be executed by the second JFK administration. To wit:
-Appoint moderate to liberal Supreme Court Justices and other federal judges.
-Roll back tax cuts for the extremely rich
-Open up stem cell reasearch
-Do fucking something about Iraq.
-NOT support the same-sex marriage amendment
There are more things that I would he he would do but don’t necessarily expect (getting rid of Homeland Security, for instance) but if he just does what I listed, then that, along with the hugely beneficial accomplishment of getting Bushco out of power would satisfy me just fine no matter what JFK has to say during the campaign.
Thank you for the weight loss strategy. Just reading that may have ruined my appetite forever.
No, I don’t think you are.
What you are talking about is idealism, which is fine. But at some point you are going to have to think in pragmatic terms. Voting for Nader this time around isn’t going to get you a tripartisan system. It’s not going to send a message. It most certainly won’t put Nader in office. It will have one effect only, and that is to keep Georgey-boy in office. That’s how things are going to work in the real world.
It seems to be the same problem as the last go around. An uninspiring boring candidate who is barely capable of motiving people to vote for him. I don’t feel that Nader poses a significant problem, I feel he brings one to attention.
Yes that burning passion is called insanity.
Coulldn’t agree more. I can’t stand Kerry because all he does is rag on Bush. I’d like to hear an idea once in awhile, not a bunch of tired cliches.
I don’t care, I’ll say it a million times. People should vote for the candidate they want, if they don’t like Kerry, they shouldn’t vote for him.
Just to put you at ease, I’ll probably be voting for Kerry. I never said I liked Nader, just that I don’t blame him for Bush getting elected. On paper it’s easy to say Nader got 200,000 votes, therefore Kerry lost out on 200,000 votes, but how can you prove to me that he really siphoned them off?
If Bush gets another 4 years, I fault the insanely blind people that voted for him, no one else. On the flipside, if a very minor thorn in the side like Nader poses such a threat to Kerry, that’s a big indication of how fragile the Kerry campaign is, and frankly that’s something only Kerry can something about.
With that I must agree. Kerry’s best strategy right now would be to put forth some positive messages about the good things he will do. Right now it’s all negative, and that won’t get him elected. I keep hoping that by the convention, at least, he will start in on the positives. I’m not holding my breath, though.
What’s so idealistic about it? If someone (who I’m sure is aware of what heppened last time), weighs the issues, looks at the candidates, and decides to vote for Nader, who the fuck am I to say anything about it. You know if all you people voted for Nader and not for Kerry, bush might lose too. :rolleyes:
Look, I understand that mathematically RN might muck up Kerry a bit, but the point is I realize this, yet I still don’t care. Either Nader can call it quits, or Kerry can do more to connect with the people, so Nader ain’t a problem.
If Bush stays in office, then we deserve everything we get. The fact that his approval rating isn’t teetering between 0% and 1% boggles my mind every second of the day. Fuck Ralph Nader, just let that shit go, we have much, much, much bigger problems.
I never understand why candidates who are challenging incumbents have so much trouble being positive. It seems to me to be obvious that voters will be more apt to move to a candidate talking about what he loves about America and about how America is great enough to do better than it currently is than a candidate who gripes about everything that’s wrong. How come so many candidates find it hard to couch their criticisms in positive language?
It’s not just Kerry. Bob Dole had the same problem in 1996, Walter Mondale in 1984. It seems like only Clinton and Reagan were any good at the “I love that America can do better” angle. Strange.
If they remain as allegations, then the charges haven’t been proven. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that. Though I wouldn’t blame you for being suspicious of Milstien in the future.
This thread was originally about the Dems trying to keep Nader off the ballot in Arizona. I didn’t want to mention at the time that I’d seen articles about the GOP actively working to get Nader on the ballot, since I couldn’t seem to locate them.
The Dems can legitimately say that the GOP is using Nader as a tool to divert votes from them. And given that the GOP is gathering sigs to get Nader on the ballot in various states, it seems only fair to me that two should be allowed to play at that game, and that the Dems should play hardball to keep Nader off the ballot, if he can’t get on it through the efforts of his actual supporters.
Ideology is a funny thing. I said that about Bill Clinton for eight years. If you beleive in certain things, you can’t conceive how someone could think differently. But they do. Millions of them. Millions of people don’t speak in dirty word shorthand like “Halliburton” or “Ashcroft” and roll their eyes at those who do.
I do agree that as the electorate continues to polarize, there will be less and less middle ground. And as passionate and intelligent as some on the left side of the fence in here are, I think they are at a numerical disadvantage.
You fucking charmer, you. 