Not true. The news made it look like he was put on the first bus out of town.
I wish it had occured to me that there would be protests, because I would have been there. Now what am I going to do withall this homemade tear gas? 
Who’s Buckley? 
It violates the First Amendment right to free speech. Period.
No. No, it doesn’t. Political expenditures are protected by freedom of speech, political contributions are not. Period.
I’m probably not all against public financing of campaigns since I don’t think ADM should be giving money to any campaign behind close doors with the implicit notion that the receptiant might review some regulations and tax bumps that ADM may find difficult. If the regulations is so bad, why not give some marketing people money and buy ad time directly. And say who exactly you are, non of this “Smokestack Factories for Clean Air” non-sense.
oweve, I can’t see it implemented nationwide witout banning all corporate, special interest, and union donations. Can you imagine how expensive a it can get, especially if one guy manages to raise $50 million privately. The publicly financed guy probaly couldn’t win without responding in kind. And if there are a lot of races like that in the country…
Freedom of assembly? Who is the gov. to say what I can and can’t do with my money? But I’ll start a thread soon.
So I take it you’re just fine and dandy with people bribing police officers, right?
From Buckley:
Is it okay for the government to tell you what to do with that money if you’re using that money to gain a corrupting influence upon the system?
I’ve started a new thread. I’ll reply there.
Gore clearly won the debate, so clearly that I can’t understand how some people can call it a draw. Even so, Gore overplayed his hand.
Bush’s “fuzzy math” comments were boggling to me–if anything, Gore was using non-fuzzy math–actual numbers and statistics. Of course, similarly damning statistics could be drawn from any tax plan, but the “fuzzy math” comments were Bush’s off-the-cuff attempt to dismiss the points without admitting that they are correct (or, worse, admitting that he does not know if they are correct.)
Had I been Bush preparing for this debate, I would have hired a dozen statistics and economics grad students for a week, given them a copy of my tax plan, and had them come up with every negative statistical inference they could wrestle out of it. I would have then given that list to my spinmeisters, so they could come up with good-sounding rebuttals.
Bush’s gaffe on the Milosevic situation was inexcusable. It wasn’t an unreasonable question, and it was one he should have been prepared for. He also should have been more ready to talk about RU-486–his comment that the FDA should “take its time” with its approval (which already took 12 years) demonstrates both his unwillingness to express an opinion on the issue and his ignorance of the issue itself.
Bush would have beaten himself, if Gore had only let him. Instead, though, he pushed too hard. [poker analogy]He played like the guy holding three of a kind who wants to push the guy with the flush draw out of the game. Instead, he had a nut flush against Bush’s three of a kind. Sure, Bush could draw to a full house or four of a kind, but he probably isn’t going to, so the best thing to do is to sit back and let him throw money in the pot. [/poker analogy]
Then again, maybe he did need to force the issues. If he hadn’t, Bush’s gaffes and dodges might have slipped under the radar even more than they did, leaving him the clear winner. As it is, even though Gore came off as abrasive, at least it highlighted Bush’s shorcomings.
Not a bad debate, considering. I can’t believe they wouldn’t even let Nader in the hall. Were they afraid that he would bring intelligent discourse in with him or something?
Dr. J
DoctorJ said:
According to Charles Babbington of the Washington Post:
See http://www.washingtonpost.com for Babbington’s survey of when both candidates were fudging the issues. So, DoctorJ, while Gore was using “actual facts and figures”, he was fuzzing those facts and figures in order to present the issue in a different light. As a further note, when talking about his tax plan, Gore didn’t consider the extra interest as part of his “total cost”, which Gore did when discussing Bush’s plan.
Gaffe? You mean asking Russia to participate? Just like France and Germany are doing? You mean just like the White House suggested the morning before the debate? In other words, Bush was only suggesting something that other countries- and the White House- either feel is a good idea or at least is within the realm of possibility. I don’t see how that’s a ‘gaffe’.
Oh, and as a final note- it turns out that Gore never went down to visit the site of the fires in Texas with FEMA, and Winifred Skinner (the poor lady who has to collect cans in order to survive) has a wealthy son but she refuses to accept any help from him.
Doctor J (may I call you Julius?)
I agree with you that Gore was clearly more prepared and demonstrated a far greater command of teh details of both his proposals and Bush’s proposals. Where I disagre with you is in the initial proposition that a political debate is won by the candidate that best demonstrates knowledge and capability.
Were that the case, we would never have been subjected to Reagan/Bush term 2.
A political debate is won by the candidate who best convinces undecided and independent voters that he is someone they would like to have in office. On that score, I call it a draw, since I felt both candidates performed very unevenly. Bush’s “advantage” comes only from the extremely low expectations that many had for him going in. (“They said he was a C student, but look, a solid B-.”)
I do think, though, that if Bush is not stronger on the details in the follow up debates he will suffer significantly as his non-responses start to seem like evasions.
The point here being what exactly?..That you are supposed to first correct for any parts of the plan that might disproportionally favor the rich before analyzing its distributional aspects!!! I’m confused!
John–I’m sure Gore’s statistics were cooked to the limit. However, rather than point out the flaws in Gore’s numbers, he resorts to “Oh, you Washington types and your fuzzy math.” Gore speaks in specifics and Bush speaks in generalities (neither of which are necessarily bad), and Gore’s specific (if questionably assembled) allegations needed a more specific rebuttal.
Similarly on Milosevic–Bush either was unaware or seemed unaware that Russia is, for the moment, siding with Milosevic. It was a pretty big “detail” of his proposed plan that Gore had to point out to him. It looked bad.
Spiritus–my opinions are, admittedly, coming from my own perspective. To me, a demonstration of knowledge and capability is necessary but not sufficient to win such a debate. I think the problem is that I already see Bush’s non-answers as evasions (as I do Gore’s, although he didn’t give nearly so many non-answers as Bush last night, IMO.)
Dr. J
Sorry…I shouldn’t have included the Dr. J attribution line in my last post.
I understand Ralph Nader showed up with a ticket given him by a student, but they refused him entry.
Naturally. He would’ve mad ethe other two look bad.
OK, someone might have mentioned this, but I was just kind of skimming. So . . . don’t you think Gore’s sighing AND Bush’s constant snorting and sniffling were both annoying.
Hey pkbites:
Uhhhhhh, it’s called a joke. It’s the same kind of stupid joke that dads and uncles make, it’s a polite kind of joke. Don’t take everything so litterally. You don’t actually believe people when the call you an a**h*le, do you?
I was more inclined to vote for Gore before the debate and now I’m more inclined to vote for Bush. On some key issues of gun control, campaign finance reform and finding cleaner fuel sources, I agree with Gore. On the issues of school vouchers, private investment of SS, and capping the income tax at 30%, I agree with Bush.
So purely on the basis of policy, it’s a toss up for me.
However, I just couldn’t get past Gore’s phoniness. His heart-wrenching stories about “Bill Jones from Montana” came across as maudlin and canned. He evaded Lehrer’s questions and used them as a platform to launch into what was obviously a well rehearsed speech. His sighing and ignoring Jim Lehrer’s request to stay within the pre-set time limits came across as rude. His use of exaggerated statistics made him seem untrustworthy. And to hire a drunk mortician to apply his makeup…!
Bush is no rocket scientist, agreed. However, it’s a sad fact that you don’t need to be smart to be a good president. Reagan is a good example. Conversely some of the smartest men (Carter) made the worst leaders.
With regard to the internet thing, I thought I had seen in several other threads here that this is a misleading distortion of something else he was trying to say. A quickie snopes check turns up this explanation:
Visit the link for the details.
I felt that Bush did an extremely sorry job (though, for the record, I’m voting for neither). A few things that really bothered me:
This upset me the most–what a gross simplification of an extremely complicated problem. The fact that Bush either believes such or can’t articulate otherwise deeply troubles me; since a disproportionate percentage of these children “at risk” are minorities, what does this say about Bush’s perception of their capacity to learn?
I’ll admit my wife and I were rolling on the floor after this one. Though we know what he meant (I think; never can tell with him), I still can’t say I agree. Policy-making does involve targeting certain groups over others for benefits, fiscal attention, or special legislation. The challenge is for the politician to justify these decisions; that Bush “opposes” this only reflects how ill-prepared he was in rebutting Gore’s whole “1%” mantra.
I would not say that Bush is exactly the best person to talk about taking responsibility for his past, although I thought this was one of Bush’s stronger moments rhetorically.
I’ll admit I misheard this first time around; still, aren’t we just becoming more dependant on other foreign sources this way?
Overall, I thought his response to crisis situations was inept, I thought his handling of foreign policy was pedestrian, I was disgusted by his failure to mention any sort of alternate energy programs, I don’t believe anybody could believe his Supreme Court response, and I could never figure out his math when it came to privitization: if you invest at double the current rate (from 2% to 4%), then how do you triple your yield (from 1m to 3m)?
As for Gore, he never responded to the whole “last 7 years” issue adequately, he made his presence evident a little too much, I got sick of the Joe-Sixpack-from-Bilgewater-KY pandering, and he used every question as an opportunity to digress. Still, I believe he came off better.
Unfortunately, my candidate was stopped at the door.
Just my $0.02
Bush came across as being terribly unprepared. He was stuttering and stammering throughout.
Bush’s jokes were absolutely horrific. They seemed so stressed and practiced and he still did a bad job, they didn’t come anywhere close to sounding naturally. Who was the genius that is writing Bush’s “material”? Bush wants to get more oil here at home by taking it out of Alaska.
And his idea about allowing people to invest their SS into the stock market is incredibly stupid. It’s not as easy as some think to make money in the stock market. If he thinks people will just invest in something “safe” like a mutual fund that is wrong too. 75% of mutual funds underperform the market.
Dignan:
So put it in bonds. Put it in a CD. The worst of these incredibly safe investements is better than the 2% “return” on Social Security.
And what about index funds? By definition, those can’t underperform the market.
Chaim Mattis Keller