Ok. I noticed that Rashak Mani’s thread on the opposite question generated 5 pages and a lot of good dialogue (and some boneheaded BS too). I thought I’d turn the question around and let the vast majority of the SDMB members take a shot at answering this question in reverse if they care too.
So, what would it take to give up on Kerry at this point? Is there anything at all that would make you change your mind? Are there any former Kerry supporters who have decided not to go with Kerry after all, or who are wavering? If so, why? Anyone, after looking at the two candidates thinking instead of looking more closely at the third parties (or voting none of the above? :))?
Just to be clear about this, as there was some confusion by a poster in RM’s thread, ANYONE is welcome to post here, to give their views on what it might take to shake folks who don’t just vote the straight party line away from Kerry. I’m really interested in those folks who consider themselves non-aligned (i.e. aren’t solid Democrats or Republicans, voting the person, not the party) but are leaning towards Kerry. However, as I said, all are welcome to put in their thoughts.
There is absolutely nothing which will prevent me from voting for whoever has the best chance unseat Bush. If something truly repugnant came up about Kerry (like he confessed to being the Zodiak killer or something) he would be replaced on the Democrat ticket and I would still vote for that ticket. My vote is purely anti-Bush.
If Kerry was actually an evil alien who assumed human form (like Kang or Kudos from the Simpsons), then I’d drop him.
If you showed me a tape of a secret meeting between Kerry and the RNC about his plan to immediately convert to being a Republican if he assumes office, then I’d drop him.
If he dropped his pro-choice stance and became a member of Operation Rescue, I’d drop him.
However, in none of those above cases will I vote for Bush instead. I’d vote for a third party.
Kerry acknowledges rumors about him and Jane Fonda, and announces intention of dumping current wife to make her First Lady, so she can have Jackie’s old dresses.
At a campaign rally, Kerry bites head off freshly-trapped New York rat. After draining its blood, he goes into an Ozzy-inspired rap routine in effort to reach out to the “young voter”. Ends with riding motorcyle into mosh pit, injuring six.
I think Blalron’s about got it. If Kerry suddenly because a religious, pro-choice, pro-death penalty zealot and announced Boston’s More Than a Feeling would become the new national anthem if he was elected, I guess I’d vote for a third party. Still wouldn’t vote for Dubya.
The bar is pretty darn high for me, since it’s not as if I’m a grudging, reluctant Kerry supporter now. I don’t exactly have to hold my nose to vote for a good staunch Democrat! I mean, I generally like his voting record (with a lapse or two – as with all politicians, sadly), his qualifications, his history, and his ideology. I’d say that for me not to pull the lever for Kerry, the circumstances would have to be extraordinary.
But okay, using my imagination … let’s say, he’d have to rip off a plastic mask to reveal himself to be the heretofore little-heard-from sibling Marvin Bush – turning out to be more secretive (and in possession of sinister connections) than George I, sleazier than Neil, colder than Barbara, more vapid than Laura, and greedier, less truthful, and even more of a religious zealot than Dubya.
Otherwise? I’m Kerry’s girl all the way.
In any event, nothing, nothing, would induce me to vote for Bush. Oy, my late parents would swoop down through the ether to haunt me for the rest of my life!
What if we had definitive proof that Kerry and Bush had actually switched minds? That is, a vote for Kerry was a vote for the personality which we now know as Bush?
1.) If he endorsed starting another unjustified war in the Middle East.
2.) If he proposed some idiotic foreign policy manuever such as using nuclear weapons against a civilian population.
3.) If he proposed massive new spending or tax cuts. Note that when I say massive, I mean massive. Bush came into office with 3.1 trillion projected surplus to 2010. Now the CBO projects 2.7 trillion deficit increase by 2010. So I guess if Kerry announced that he wanted a total of 5.8 trillion or more in tax cuts and spending increases, then there wouldn’t really be any reason to prefer him over Bush.
4.) If he supported some moronic constitutional amendment such as severe restrictions on free speech.
But only in case 2 would I vote for Bush. In any of the other three cases, it would be Nader.
All right, skipping all the hyperbole about Republican pod people and brain transplants and baby-eating and so forth, is there a real potential deal-breaker for my support of Kerry?
Yes, I think there is. Namely, if he renounced his support for internationalism and instead committed to the Bush Doctrine supporting unilateral “pre-emptive” wars of aggression, with the intention of launching another such war if he gets elected.
I think the Bush Doctrine is competing pretty closely with international terrorism for the status of Most Dangerous Current Geopolitical Development, and I don’t think I could support a candidate who wanted to advance it, even if he’d be a much better President than Bush in most other ways.
Of course, as others have noted, that hardly means I’d be jumping ship in favor of his opponent. If I’d refuse to vote for Bush Lite, how could I support Real Bush? Kerry and Bush would pretty much have to swap their entire ideological stances and policy prescriptions before I’d dump the former for the latter.
That’s an interesting suggestion, Kimstu. If I may ask, how close would he have to come? I know Kerry has said that he thinks Bush did not do enough to get international support for invading Iraq. But I don’t think he has ever said that he would have waited forever for Franch (for instance) to support the war. That is, I don’t think he has ever said anything like “If the UN security council does not support an action then I would never take such an action”.
I guess what I am asking, is what if he said something like “I would have tried harder to get international support of the Iraqi invasion. Hoever, if a few members of the UN security council, or other allies refused to be persuaded, I reserve the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself.”
pervert:If I may ask, how close would he have to come?
Eeesh, that’s the tricky part, isn’t it? It’s always easier to make qualitative statements than to quantify them! I’m not sure I can come up with a hypothetical “bright line” that would objectively indicate that the thing I was worried about had happened. I think, however, that I would “know it when I see it.” Not much help, huh?
Pervert, the basic position I see Kerry taking (it was very clearly elucidated on his website, I’m trying to find it) is that it would be wrong to handicap America by not allowing it to act in its own defense without the UN, but that acting unilaterally is also a mistake. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
But to take the question seriously, I think the only legitimate thing he could do that would turn me off would be to announce Hillary Clinton as his runningmate. I’d write in Howard Dean’s name in that case, or trade my vote to a Nader voter in a swing state.
If his views were as socially conservative as Bush’s, he wouldn’t get my vote.
Which means I wouldn’t vote. Bush will never get my vote, and I’d rather not encourage Nader. My hope is Nader dries up and blows away this election, so we at least get the lesser of two evils next election.
