I think that was probably elucidator’s point.
Yes, he takes a stand, and then he holds on to it mercilessly even when the facts contradict it. This is discussed at length in this excellent article by Will Saletan, who is not exactly a pinko liberal.
Oh, pschaw. GWB is the best recruiting tool Osama ever had.
That article IS excellent. I hope the Kerry campaign sees it and covers the bulletin board with it.
As an Impendent I actually thought about voting for President Bush in 2000. So I am not one who would fit the stereotype liberal caste. It’s my opinion (and I think this is a grand idea) that Kerry will really stick it to Bush when he picks his Vice President Nomination, how about the Former Governor of Texas, Ann Richards? It would be the first female ever running on the V.P., and someone from the south to balance the liberal from MA criticism.
I don’t think Kerry is as bad as you all seem to think. Even if he is, so what? Bush is going try to run on his war record (because that is the most convincing argument he has). I would look forward to watching Bush stammer something about his honorable discharge from the Texas National Guard; the only reason he was in the Guard was due to his family’s money. Kerry could have done that very same thing but decided it was his duty as a responsible citizen, and was mightily decorated. How can Bush possibly act like his record beats Kerry’s?
You also have to wonder about Cheney. How can anyone possibly not consider this crony a liability? Any objective analysis would conclude that his past positions and behaviors makes some of the contract in post-Iraq improper. Here is a very good article on this subject:
Is it Croneyism or just Capitalism?
I have come to the conclusion that Kerry’s coming landslide victory will be as much to do with Bush’s faults as Kerry’s benefits.
“would be the first female ever running on the V.P”
Ferraro?
I don’t think Kerry’s bad, codzilla, I just think he’s dull. He doesn’t rally the people behind him or excite people as well as Bush does (or even Kucinich). I think Kerry’s a good guy, and definitely a hell of a lot better than Bush, but will he fire up the country enough to get the votes out?
That’s just it, I think Bush has underminded so many reasonable moderates in the last three years that they won’t possibly be willing to vote for him. His foreign policy has been a joke since his first few months with the re-con. plane over China. Remember when the submarine emerged out of the water just outside of Hawaii and happened to run into a Japanese fishing boat? History had already shown his and Reagan’s tax cuts to be a failure, but that didn’t stop him. Fiscal policies? Rather than cutting back on some of these tax cuts like Reagan did Bush has only gotten two additional tax cuts! Environment? HA, He thinks so lowly of the EPA he first nomination for the EPA was Idaho’s Governor Dirk Kempthorne, talk about a joke!
Dean was correct in pointing out that this Administration ignores or changes facts they feel don’t support their case. I can’t possibly imagine any reasonable human being wanting to vote for President Bush.
I guess we can now safely say that friend elucidator has been called every name in the book, including the Father of Geometry
The sons of the squaw on the hippopotamus…no, that’s not it…
“I guess we can now safely say that friend elucidator has been called every name in the book, including the Father of Geometry”
LOL!!!
Oops 
Why silly? I know that the candidates won’t talk about this, but why should that stop us?
I’d guess that Osama didn’t much care who won in 2000, failing to realize the US threat to the continued existence of certain regimes should his planned attack succeed. But if he did notice, he would surely have wanted to put in office the Uriah Heep* of presidential candidates, George W. Bush, and would have wanted to keep out Lieberman.
This time, Osama might decide he has no dog in the fight if Kerry picks Rendell for VP. Otherwise, he has to want Kerry.
A big factor? No, it just crystalizes that Bush is stronger on foreign policy, just as IMHO Kerry will be stronger on the economy.
Re my mind being made up, the kind of people who post are generally the kind of people who have their mind made up. I post to clarify my own thoughts and understand the other side a little better, and, most of all, have fun. If you are posting to help Kerry, I suggest this is an ineffective forum for doing so and that you should volunteer for his campaign.
Dickens character who stressed his humility. In the 2000 campaign, Gore was the internationalist while Bush said over and over that he wanted a “humble” foreign policy devoid of “nation-building.”
Now that’s it. I’ve stood idly by while elucidator has been called every name imaginable, by righties unable to address the facts or logic in his argument.
But now he’s been called a suburb of Cleveland. That is simply unconscionable. The gloves are off. Pistols at dawn, you cad!
Oh, and if I were Osama, I’d think I’d been doing just fine with Bush as President. I’m still alive, still living in a cave, and now I’ve got a lot more people willing to join my cause. I’d have some worries that Bush might actually try to get me before November, but if I can hold out that long, it’s gonna be alright. Kerry I’d have some worries about - he might try to finish business.
Steve, where did you get that bit of intelligence about Osama’s preferences? Did he post that on a website somewhere? Or are you just yanking it out of your partisan ass?
Sam, do you really not think the world is so complex that positions that can seem contradictory on the surface may really reflect a deeper understanding? Kerry has done that, yes - as for the war, he says he was for the bill as written, but not as executed. A cursory reading of it will reveal some serious differences - and we’ve been over that here.
Yes, all Democrats have had great trouble even getting bills considered since the GOP takeover. That proves what, exactly?
This other thing you’re worried about, his attendance record at votes, is (as you may not know) one of the standard cheap shots to take at a sitting legislator who’s been out campaigning. We don’t mind that down here if we know why the candidate is doing it. It does not reflect his “commitment” to issues, as you assert so unquestioningly - what vote can you point to where he would have made a difference if he’d been there? The assault-weapons ban? He came back from campaigning for that one. So what have you got to back up that swipe, and what blog did you crib *that * from anyway? Why not save us all some time and link to your sources, if you’re not ashamed to do so?
Now, for the OP itself, sure Kerry is a little dull. It would be more instructive to ask why that’s been so attractive to the electorate this year. Perhaps it’s in response to the results we’ve had from so many having picked a drinking buddy last time instead of hiring somebody to run the government. “Dullness” has an attractiveness all its own under any circumstances, if it also connotes understanding and competence, and that’s especially true this year. His biggest vulnerability may be in the close-in knifework that will be the hallmark of this campaign, but so far he’s done quite well in fighting back. Don’t think it’s gone unnoticed by the alienated center that Bush is concentrating more on Kerry’s “character” as on his war and his economic record.
I’ve been prodding around the websites of both Kerry and Bush and I think Bush needs to get his campaign strategy in order.
For example, looking at their campaign commericals so far. Kerry’s commericals attempt to be factual and focus on issues, and they attack Bush very harshly. Thats going to work well for him. He needs to make it “ok” to criticize an incumbent, war-time president. When future poll numbers come out and it shows a good half the country is against Bush, and then one sees commercials criticizing Bush, they’ll give him a second look. It would be even better for them to compare typical conservative platforms that the democrats have picked up (for example, some form of fiscal conservatism) and challenge him on that. What kind of Republican is this guy? They need to make it ok for John Patriot to say that this guy is betraying his own ideals, our countries ideals and we can do better.
Bush is trying to play his entire re-election campaign on it being tough times and him being good leadership, with implications that terrorists will win or something equally dreadful if you don’t support his leadership. Thats completely it, there were no real policies in any of his ads. The closest he came was passing the buck on to Clinton in his recent ad on all the economic issues.
Perhaps he will attempt to refute the various allegations against him in the future, but as of right now, Kerry’s campaign has the right idea and Bush’s is out of steam.
I can only hope John Kerry reads the SDMB, and looks here for good advice.
“Ann Richards! What a brilliant idea! George W. Bush kicked her butt when he ran against her for governor, so she’s SURE to deliver the state of Texas for me! Why, that’s the greatest, most inspired idea since Nixon picked Henry Cabot Lodge.”
For the record, I thought Ann was a very capable administrator and a perfectly decent governor. She’s also a hoot to listen to. But she can’t deliver Texas, and she can’t deliver a single Southern state.
It’s as easy to compose a list of Bush’s flip-flops as it was to compose a list of Bush’s lies:
Are they legitimate or not? I dunno: is anyone really taking the time to examine whether Kerry’s flip-flops are or not? Is that really the point?
Flip-flops is simply what the RNC decided would work well as the theme of their negative campaign. It doesn’t represent any deep difference between the candidates: but it’s certainly laughable to see people’s saluting their marching orders and getting on the case, without even realizing it.
I think it is very odd that the democrat nominee is the more liberal senator from one of the most liberal states in the country. His personality is usually described as aloof and unlikeable. He has no legislative accomplishments to speak of despite his fifteen years in the senate. He was born into wealth and married more of it. I don’t think any GOP strategist could come up with a better list of qualities to run against, and yet his main selling point is electability. It reminds me of 1996 when the GOP ran a crippled old man with peculiar speaking style and were suprised when he didn’t win.
As opposed to, say, commitments to wealthy donor groups and fundraising dinners? Puh-lease, Sam, point your discerning critical eye at both combatants in this particular fight. One cannot on the one hand critique the attendance record of a minority party legislator engaged in a national campaign while ignoring the extended vacations, propaganda appearances, and cross-country fundraising tours of the most powerful elected official in the world. If Kerry is to be rapped for missing roll calls, then Dubya must be equally accountable for his time spent out of the office.
Lest we forget, the Shrub had only recently returned from his historically long one-month vacation in Crawford and was on a photo-up publicity junket with Florida school children when the most devastating terrorist attack ever to occur on U.S. soil took place.
Now I’m not arguing that by his absence Dubya was somehow culpable - that is a question better left to the 9/11 commission. What I will argue is that Sam’s reasoning is specious, and blatantly so.
And you reached this conclusion by studying the guy’s positions and views? Or are you merely parrotting Republican stereotypes here?
“Oh, George W. Bush is from Texas, and everyone knows Texans are rednecked idiots, so don’t vote for the rednecked idiot candidate.” :rolleyes:
Actually, George W. Bush is also a born-into-prestige ivy-league-student from New England, yet he doesn’t get branded as “too liberal” from the idiot redneck voter bloc… wonder why? 
This doesn’t make any sense. If Bush’s vacation is not the reason for 9/11, it is illogical to compare it to Kerry’s absence from his job functions, which clearly has impacted Kerry’s job performance.
Kerry’s voting record is quite weak, as he is missing a lot of work campaigning. His record when he is at work is still weak, as he has gotten very little legislation passed (as Sam Stone points out).
Which is, in my view, one of Kerry’s biggest weaknesses. Nobody is really for him, or supports any particular position he has taken. He is just another generic Democrat, chosen because he is the least objectionable to mainstream voters.
I am not sure if this is an artifact of the SDMB, or true of American liberals in 2004 in general, but hardly anyone mentions Kerry in political discussions. Practically everything is about Bush. In the end, practically every discussion ends up saying in one way or another, “Kerry should be President because he isn’t Bush”. And I don’t think that is an argument that resonates with anyone who isn’t already predisposed to vote against Bush.
I don’t think a Kerry win would be the end of the world. Given his legislative record, and the high probability that his entire term would be spent opposing Congress, I suspect he would simply gridlock the government. Nothing that he wants is going to get passed, but nothing the Republicans want is going anywhere either.
Unless he pulls a Clinton and botches things so badly as to install a veto-proof majority in Congress. I expect in that case that he would be reduced to Clinton-esque whining about how he is still relevant, even though he is accomplishing nothing. And Kerry, at least to date, lacks the Clinton flair for taking credit for things he opposed, and this bodes poorly for a Kerry second term.
Kerry is just another Democratic empty suit. Nobody is passionate about him, but everybody supports him because they think everyone else supports him - he is “electable”. What he is likely to achieve if he really gets elected is essentially nothing.
If that is good enough for Democrats, fine. I lived thru one Carter Presidency, I can live thru another.
Although I still don’t think Kerry is going to win.
Regards,
Shodan