Come on, 72% Sharpton vs 14% Bush … is LSD an alternative, again, before you go to vote? :rolleyes:
There’s one reason, and only one reason why I’m going to be voting for Bush (and it’s not that I agree with Bush on very many matters, I don’t, but I think that they are less important than the one area I do agree with Bush). Bush has stated that he wants the US to go back to the Moon and then onto Mars. Kerry has made no such “promise.” Kerry has only said that he’d increase NASA’s budget (the prime purpose being to enable more technological spin-offs from NASA research).
Yeah, I realize that it’s most likely electioneering tactics on Bush’s part, and that if he does get reelected, it’ll go the way of 99% of all campaign promises (the garbage can), but Bush said it, and space exploration is the one thing I feel strongest about, so for that reason, and that reason alone, Bush gets my vote.
As much as I’d love to explore space, we have problems here on Earth that will just get worse if Bush remains in office. 
They’re the same old problems we’ve been having for years. No matter who wins come November, we’ll still have them, and we’ll wind up with others just as nasty with the folks on the losing side screaming, “See! See! If our guy had won, we wouldn’t be dealing with this crap!”
That $1200 is stolen from our children, who will have to pay back the Bush deficits. Based on principals and ethics, you should give it back. I’m not holding my breath.
By the way, it was a $2,800 difference and I did put into a college fund for my children …
You probably think of Bush and Kerry as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, right? So you’ll vote for Tweedle Dee because he favors a pet project that you like.
I think this case is seriously different. That is, if you care at all about how the United States relates to other countries (Unilateralism versus Multilateralism), about the seperation of church and state (“Faith Based” initiatives), about the wisdom of trying to stop AIDS primarily through “Abstinence Education”, about a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion (Bush is against), about skyrocketting deficits brought on by tax breaks to the wealthiest 2% of american, about stem cell research (bush has blocked federal funding of what could potentially be the biggest medical breakthrough in human history).
I have a hard time believing you could shrug your shoulders on these issues and go “meh, I don’t care either way. Promise me Mars, that’s how you’ll win my Vote!” 
I freely admit I would vote for stuff I’ve scraped off the bottom of my shoes before I’d vote for Bush, but that said, Kerry’s platform generally works for me.
Yes, definitely voting for Kerry.
He’s way more in line with what I think a president should be than Bush ever has been.
Well, you’re just going to have to accept it. Let’s take the pisspoor job of international relations that Bush has done. He’s managed to piss off nearly every one of our allies, and yet, they’re still willing to cooperate with us on matters of great importance, like terrorism.
The budget deficit is pretty much a non-issue. Really. Remember all the screeching that went on about the huge deficits ran up during the Reagan/Bush 1.0 years? And how the Clinton Administration was able to bring them under control in a relatively short period of time? All done without the huge slash and burn tactics that the political wonks were certian would have to be employed. The same thing can (and most likely will) happen again.
AIDS is a serious issue, and I’ve lost one friend to the disease, and have one friend who is HIV+, so I’m well aware of the facts of the matter, and I know abstinence education won’t work to stem the tide, but neither will telling people to slap a rubber on their willy. The only thing that will work is a medical breakthrough, and AIDS is an important enough issue that if American researchers don’t find it, someone else will.
As for stem cell research, that’s much like AIDS research in that it’s such an important endeavour that even if the US doesn’t do it, someone else will. Also, I’ve seen reports which indicate that fat cells in adults are loaded with stem cells. If true, then the whole issue of using fetal tissue is no big deal, since the stem cells could be extracted from fat cells.
Abortion, well, every Republican president since Roe v. Wade has tried to put the brakes on it and has failed. What makes you think that Bush will be able to put something in place that the first Democrat president elected after him (most likely in 2008 if Bush manages to snag a second term) won’t be able to reverse it? Should be pretty easy, all he’d have to do is show lots of pictures of women who’ve died from back alley abortions.
As for the “faith based” initatives (i.e. let’s give churches government money), well, the last time I checked, there hadn’t been much movement on that. Folks were still trying to figure out how to do that and not run afoul of the ACLU.
IMHO, the benefits of spaceflight outweigh everything else. I’m not kidding. I could argue about how the spinoff technology from spaceflight has changed everything that an American interacts with on a daily basis, but I’m not. I’m more interested in the benefits that a renewed space program can give to everyone, not just Americans. Orbiting platforms could beam electricity from solar farms to Earth, cutting our dependance on fossil fuels, drugs made in microgravity could be made purer and in forms not possible on Earth, space based manufacturing will lead to cars which are lighter weight and more fuel efficient than anything that can be built on Earth, and a billion other possibilities. None of which Kerry seems to be interested in (Clark, however, did make comments indicating that he’s a bit of a space nut, so had he gotten the nod, I’d have happily voted for him.). Kerry seems to be interested in pimping NASA for what it has now and not pushing the envelope, and it is pushing the envelope which is what will lead to bigger and better things (it’s only when someone comes up an inexpensive method of spaceflight that the real benefits of space travel will happen, that can’t come about if you’re not trying to do something like going to the Moon).
Any cites regarding purer drugs/better cars being made in space? Not asking because I don’t believe you, just sounds like some interesting reading.
As far as the internet goes, no. I’ve tried finding them in the past, but haven’t had much luck finding them on line (they do exist, but it’s pretty difficult for me to find them, and I always forget to bookmark the damn site). I’ve got magazines which detail much of this, and one of these days, I’m going to drag them out, scan 'em and put them up on the net. www.techbriefs.com is a NASA site which has some of the information (not in an easy to find format, I recommend subscribing [it’s free], and you’ll get a monthly magazine which has information on some of NASA’s current research projects).
I can tell you that crystals grow better in microgravity environments, so medications which have a crystaline structure tend to be purer (as do things like silicon). Ball bearings cast in microgravity are perfectly round, without the deformation found in those cast on Earth (which means that the space made ones have a lower friction coefficient than Earthly ones), and metals cast in space tend to be lighter (while remaining stronger), and have a more uniform density than those cast on Earth.
I always believe in voting for the Presidential candidate who’s best suited for the job of leading the nation. In a contest between John Kerry and George W. Bush, it’s a no-brainer – only one candidate has brains, and it ain’t George.
I’m voting for Kerry. I don’t give a rat’s butt what he said 31 years ago; I said a lot of things then I would not say now. And, times they were different then…(really different).
I’m not just going to vote for Kerry, I’m seriously considering volunteering for his campaign.
Mostly just to meet chicks, but still…
Damn, Tuckerfan, that’s the first good reason anybody’s ever provided me to consider voting for Bush. I won’t, but you at least made me consider it for a micro-second.
What? You didn’t immediately spend it on American products, thus growing the economy and creating jobs? I am shocked, *shocked * I say! Makes your President look pretty foolish now, doesn’t it?
I am voting for Kerry, but only 0.0001% of the reason is that I happen to agree with the vast majority of his policies. The other 99.9999% of the reason is to evict Mr. Bush. It is difficult to imagine a candidate that I would prefer less to Bush, unless their names were Cheney or Rumsfeld.
I posted in 2000 that you couldn’t get me to pull the lever for Bush if you went into the voting booth with me and put a loaded gun to my head. My opinion has not changed.
Another ABBA here.
I detect a note of sarcasm here. George Bush is indeed a uniter, and I can prove it:
He managed to unite the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, right? So there you go!
I’ll be casting my vote for John Kerry. That is, if it even matters. Between the prospects of rigged electronic voting, another “attack” sometime in October, the “discovery” of WMDs (which are probably being planted right now), or the “capture” of Bin Laden, who knows if Election Day will even count for anything.