You’ll have the Bush supporters on these boards going after him tooth and nail.
The Kerry supporters around here will be forced to criticise him for any and all mistakes he makes, as they did Bush. Or they will be called hypocrites.
Since I’ve heard from many a poster that he is merely the lessor of two evils he should be attacked in a regular manner on these boards, as Bush is.
The main exception being the way Iraq is handled. Kerry is playing Monday morning quarterback. (There is always the possibility that he could screw things up (worse) if he mixes things up too much over there.)
Everyone is on record here during Bush’s reign. It will be hard to change positions without looking foolish.
Simply stated, I think Kerry is in for it as far as this board is concerned if he wins.
Should we really care? This board isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things.
I think some people will react badly to a Bush victory, and others will react badly to a Kerry win. Most people will get through it all just fine, either way, and life will go on.
Yes. While Kerry was not many people’s first choice, he is the one they ended up with and have supported. Most on the “moderate left” (i.e. excluding our socialists) will defend him just as earnestly as the conservatives have defended Bush.
I’m not sure why that would be considered ugly. I wanted Clinton to win in 1992. Yet, I criticized him almost immediately after taking office. I support letting gays serve openly in the military, yet I don’t think that was the first thing he should have implemented.
Reading Clinton’s book did help me understand how that issue was hyped by the media at that time.
I’m sure I’ll criticize future President Kerry. His administration will make mistakes. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t prefer him to Bush.
What is he doesn’t make any mistakes, just like GWB says he hasn’t.
Does not follow. Kerry is the lesser evil so he should be treated the same as a greater one?
That’s not hard to do at all. There are a lot of people who were pro-war until it was revealed that the casus belli was constructed upon a tissue of lies. Is everybody who changes their mind a (come on you know you wanted to say it) flip-flopper?
Can we put the man on trial before we hang him, sheriff?
I know I won’t be freaking out if Kerry wins, though I certainly hope and work towards a Bush victory. Contrast that with the ‘end of the world is nigh!’ rhetoric that comes from the anti-Bush crowd now; When Bush wins, there’s gonna be anuerisms, much less heated rhetoric.
Should Kerry win, he’ll get a free pass from most of the board Left. Anything potentially negative will be explained away as dealing with the ‘Bush legacy’. (Actually, they’ll probably say ‘Bushco’ or something similiar. Awful predictable, that lot.)
As if that matters. I think you underestimate the bounds of peoples’ ability to rationalize. That’s why some Republicans condemned Clinton’s adultery but not Giuliani’s. How did they rationalize that? Simple. They said that all throughout Clinton’s troubles, Giuliani had maintained that the president’s private life was no one else’s business. Therefore, they held, Giuliani’s adultery was okay.
If (and when) Kerry does something worth criticizing, I’ll certainly pipe up. Honestly though, I expect to have a lot less to criticize than I do with Bush. Why else would I vote for him?
Kerry is a vastly right-wing panderer to the backwards, self-serving ignorance currently rife in the US electorate. When his ineffectual tinkering does precisely nothing to stop the US sliding into plutocratic Third World politics, he shall receive all the bile he deserves.
But first, he must displace the aphasic psychopath who is currently incumbent.
Kerry WILL win. Like Joe Willie Namath, I’m calling this one. WHEN he wins, it will take him a while to steer the ship away from the reef. If he makes mistakes, I intend to hold his feet to the fire just as I have held Bush’s. Unlike Bush, I fully expect Kerry to admit mistakes when he makes them.
I don’t think its so much an inability to admit mistakes as it is an inability to recognize that they have been made. Which wouldn’t be so bad except it precludes any understanding of why they were made.
Anything that goes wrong with the country will be Bush’s fault. Anything that Kerry fails to do will be Congress’ fault. Anything corrupt that Kerry does will be the Republicans’ fault.
There won’t be much to criticize, since he will be largely ineffectual.
I think we shouldn’t expect a lot to change if Kerry takes over (excepting the war). He’s not drastically different, policy wise, from Bush. We can expect lots of things to continue as is, me thinks.
If that’s the case then I, as a conservative, should not be able to logically criticize Kerry as often as the liberals currently criticize Bush. However, the liberals will be forced to criticize Kerry when called to the carpet by the conservatives here.
Ignoring Liberals great point about the human need to rationalise, we should see a larger volume of Kerry criticism than most people realise.
I think if people truly hold their principles sacred then we will see the conservatives here a little more relaxed and the liberals here will be spending a great deal of time criticising Kerry and not being able to defend him as well as they think they might be able to, since principle and the search feature will get in their way.
I think Kerry looses (here) if he wins (the election). I don’t think it will be as bad for the conservatives on the boards if Kerry wins. Our pressure gets shifted off of the war and defending Bush to ‘what has Kerry done for us lately’. The liberals will see a lot of things they don’t like in Kerry, or should anyway.
I don’t know about that. I think since we have more liberal to moderate conservatives in congress than we have conservative to moderate liberals Kerry may suprise us with his ability to get things done. Since the shift will take place at the highest position (conservative to liberal) congress won’t be as divided. You’ll have a number of the soft moderates willing to side with a liberal (Kerry)than with a conservative (Bush).
[Not saying that Bush is conservative by definition or that Kerry is liberal by definition.]
Some people have the misperception that just because a person has your support, that makes you blind to his failings. Not true. I feel perfectly confortable slamming anyone who screws up while in office. If Bush is elected, I will just figure he won. If Kerry is elected, I’ll just figure he won. I’m not one of those who say “My guy is perfect”. If Kerry does win, and turns out to be grossly incompetent or stupid or full of it, I will call him on it, just like anyone else would.
If Al Gore had gone into Iraq under false pretenses and screwed up the war as badly as Bush has, I’d be campaigning for whoever the hell was running against him right now. If, in four years, Kerry has proven himself to be a lying incompetent asshole, the situation in Iraq has deteriorated even further, and Al Qaeda is still running loose, I’ll campaign for John Fucking McCain. Once he’s elected, the ball’s in Kerry’s court. If he can’t get the job done, I’ll support sombody else next time. If that somebody else happens to be a Republican, then so be it. Shodan,Lib, can you say the same? Be honest: are there any circumstances where you can see yourself voting for a Democrat? Not necessarily this time around, since it’s obvious that Kerry hasn’t convinced you, but anytime, anywhere?
I will say that Kerry’s got his work cut out for him. I think it’s very important for the good of the country to try and heal the great divide that separates us.
I never claimed to be a swing voter. I’m as Republican as they come, complete with membership in the county committee and election as a delegate to a state Republican convention.
While I have voted for Democrats in the past, I’ve never done so for president.
I’ve not made any secret about any of this. Besides, partisanship isn’t so bad a thing. It’s blind partisanship that’s an issue with me, and I’m nothing of the sort.
Actually, as I announced some time ago, I am voting for Kerry this time around. Although I usually vote a straight Libertarian ticket, this election is too critical, and the polls are too close to risk not unseating a known tyrant. Moreover, I routinely vote for Democrats. Usually, it’s like this. I vote straight Libertarian, then fill in the rest (where no Libertarian candidate is running) by this criterion: I vote Republican for fiscal offices and Democrat for social offices. So, for example, I’ll vote Democrat for sheriff and Republican for auditor. I usually vote Democrat for judges.
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