Had dinner with Mom yesterday. She likes discussing politics and is always big on pushing voter registration. I thought it would be fun to stir things up. I told her that I voted in 2000 and sat back and watched the “powers that be” demonstrate in a perverse manner that voting in America is actually a TOKEN priviledge and didn’t mean all that much. I announced that I would never stand in line to do it again.
Errrr. Huh?
So, mom says registering to vote is a good thing. And then when you say you registered to vote, she says it’s no big deal. Is that what you’re saying?
I’m saying that I registered to vote and I told her that I now believe it is a waste of time. I also added that I think it has been made a token priviledge and it’s a shame men have died for it.
Oh, right, I understand it now. I misread. Sorry.
Well, call me a flaming pinko Eurotrash naive bastard, but I’d say voting is never a token privilege. I do agree that your current administration is [euphemism] ever so slightly making a bit of a fucking mess of things [/euphemism]. Don’t let it discourage you - let it motivate you to vote Democrat in 2004. 
Umm, I think what the OP is saying, is that they did NOT vote for Mr. Bush. This is the case with the majority of Americans, yet somehow, he ended up as President. Nice to have a brother who has the power to lean on the right people to swing things your way, eh? (Yeah, the previous statement IS my perception. No, I won’t respond to flames or attempted persuasion otherwise, so don’t bother.)
I didn’t vote in the last election. Maybe if those of us who cared had all voted, we’d have a president with an IQ higher than cabbage right now.
I’m definitely voting this time. I want to be part of making Bush go away. They may have been able to fix a close vote, but let’s see them do it with a really definitive one.
Well, luckily for you, you only need to register once.
Good point FisherQueen. I rather like Howard Dean and I don’t even have a rebel flag in my truck.
Howyadoin,
I believe the word we’re looking for here is…
WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Listen to me, all of you… Your guy lost. Three fucking years ago. He was a loser, on so many levels. Get the fuck over it, you bunch of spoiled rotten overprivileged fucking crybabies.
You want Bush out? Fine. Get a better candidate, you know, one that can carry his fucking home state? I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool Bush supporter by any stretch, but if I have to listen to any more of this insipid whining, I’ll not only vote for him out of sheer spite, I’ll start passing out fucking bumper stickers!
-Rav
Are you blind, The_Raven?
In this thread, we have: [ul][li]People who didn’t vote in 2000, so “their guy” didn’t lose;[]People who aren’t from the US of A, so “their guy” didn’t lose;[]The OP, who seems to suggest that she voted Democrat in 2000, so “their guy” did lose. Not because he had the least number of votes, but he didn’t get the presidency.[/ul]Where do you get off on your crybabies-rant, here?[/li]
The only reason the 2000 elections were such a tight race, was that both candidates were equally incompetent: the one lacked charisma, and the other lacked intelligence. The American public largely lacked the motivation to show up at the voting booths, and hence, through a rather comical legal procedure, GWB became #43.
I think we can all agree on that last paragraph, yes?
Then how is the OP a crybaby? She sounds disappointed in the system, and I can understand that. The only way to tackle that is to vote for another candidate. Not by calling her a crybaby.
It’s bad enough so many people are apathetic towards politics. Don’t aggravate it by calling them names when they DO form an opinion.
Y’know what, Raven – I accepted Reagan’s two elections and GHWB’s election without a murmur of protest, because they won honest elections fair and square. I would feel likewise about GWB if he had legitimately carried a majority of the Electoral College – that’s the system we have agreed to use in choosing our leader.
But the fact is that there are a lot of Americans who feel that GWB with the aid of his brother and the Florida Republican Party stole this election. And there are a fair group of people who believe that he won Florida, and that those who complain are just being sore losers.
My problem is not that Gore lost and Bush won. It’s in how he won. And even if it were proved that he won Florida fairly, the fact of the matter is that millions of people believe otherwise.
That, quite simply, does not bode well for the American electoral system. It needs fixing. And IMHO it’s clear that nobody is particularly interested in fixing it.
My son looked forward to exercising his franchise. He’s vastly disillusioned with this country – and has moved from moderate Republican to strong Democrat in consequence, in a region of a state that the Republicans have to carry to remain competitive statewide and nationally. He’s often the bellwether for trends among folks of his age group – a natural leader.
Think that one through. IMHO, the Republicans have won the battle and lost the war, with the 2000 election chicanery and then the polarization both in 1994-2000 and with the current Administration.
Oh, man. Not this again.
- Put me in that catagory. Although by this point I’d thought the democrats would be happy to push Bush out of office, not whining he’s still there by “Cheating”.
- He won because no one could prove he didn’t. Why didn’t those democrats push the issue? Wasn’t it something they believed in? Didn’t they want Gore in office?
- History has show that the electoral process can survive worse that this little goof-up.
Poly: Let’s just make sure the past doesn’t happen again. I think we all can agree on that, at least.
You said it yourself:
Oh, and…
I specifically said that those who were upset with the 2000 election should support another candidate.
Oh, and Polycarp, as a Presidential candidate, you should understand that the discord and dissent that followed the 2000 election was the product of the media manipulators and spinmeisters that were playing tug-of-war with the poor, disgraced American presidency as the rag in the middle of the rope. Everyone felt like they were getting jobbed, and the percentages either way just changed from day to day. It wasn’t just the Democrats that thought it was a circus.
The truly sad part is that the manipulators were able to use this to keep everyone wound up, lest one side gain advantage over the other. It continues to this day. The public face of American politics is more partisan and bitter than I can ever remember. But I’m beginning to see it like professional wrestling, where the public personae that are trotted out for media consumption and the insults to the public intelligence that are spewed daily are nothing more significant than brand name soap flakes or NASCAR drivers. Presented for your adherence, insanitized for your protection from reality.
Ultimately, the spirit of the 2000 election is like poison in the well. We would be better served to get the hell away from it, take a fresh perspective and move on.
-Rav
Guys, ignorant English question here, but how the hell did you manage to elect a leader who the majority of the population didn’t vote for? Who decided that was a good idea, and why? Wierd. shakes head
Really. it’s a serious question.
Lil
And I don’t care if you called me an ignorant shithead for asking dumb questions, as long as you answer the question.
lilabet,
I think the idea was that a presidential election wouldn’t come down to just a few votes out of a country of millions.
What?
Three issues:
- In the USA, each state tallies up their votes, and whoever wins that state wins the electoral votes for the state. The number of electoral votes are based on state population, but it doesn’t matter if a candidate wins by 51% or 99%. In real life, this usually doesn’t matter much - usually the popular vote = real winner.
- There were issues with counting the votes in Florida. Many people voted for Gore, and their votes got counted for Buchannan (a very convserative, third-party candidate). Others voted, but their votes simply weren’t counted. Other people said that absentee votes (which many were from the military and thus probably more conservative) weren’t counted or miscounted.
- There were other issues with voters being turned away at the voting booths, because they were registered as felons, who couldn’t vote in Florida. Most were lower-income, African-American.
(ha, three things in a list, so I don’t need an Hi Opal!)
No, it’s a good question. It boils down to the fact that we don’t vote directly for the President. The President is elected by the Electoral College; what we vote for is the way to tell our representitives in the college how to vote.
Each state has a number of reps to the college equal to the number of Representatives that they have in the House of Representatives. At the end of the 2000 election, both candidates had garnered enough electoral votes that they were neck-and-neck. Florida’s votes gave the majority to whomever won them. Mr. Bush won and became President, it’s as simple as that. He is NOT the only President in history to be elected after not winning the popular vote.
And for those who say why bother to vote, my vote doesn’t count, it’s all a sham and that sort of crap - the election was won by around 700 votes. If 701 of you had gotten up off your dead asses and voted, we would have had a different outcome. Your vote does count, but only if you make an intelligent, informed decision and not just vote for someone because you had a bunch of rhetoric blown up your butt.
Voting is the single most important thing that we do as citizens. And if one doesn’t vote, one shouldn’t bitch about the outcome, because one has not earned the privelege of doing so.
Not so. They voted for Buchanan, period. That they intended to vote for Gore is their problem, becuase once the lots are cast, determining intent after the fact is what leads to messes like what happened in Florida.
The voters are to blame, plain and simple. They couldn’t read a simple card or operate voting machinery that had been used for many previous elections. That’s the crux of it.
Aaaahhh. I see.
It does explain how the system works, but why is it that you use the electoral college system, why not just vote for a party and you get stuck with the leader of that party as President.
Just thought of something - does this mean that you could elect a party, and they could technically not vote as they should (are they legally bound to vote the way that they are told to in the Electoral college?) and then you would end up with a President that hadn’t got a majority party behind him?
And does this post make any sense?
Lil