Political Time Capsule: Open this four years from now

Let’s make some predictions here about how the next four years with Dubya are going to be.

First of all, I see Dubya pushing his “tax cuts” through. It will be heralded a victory for the people by Dubya, though time will show that hardly enyone notices a difference.

Well, some people do notice that the economy takes a dramatic turn. See, the defecit that was run up with Voodoo Economics will get run right up again, and this will naturally make things tough in these parts.

I see a ton of battles with the religious right who use their new found access to the white house as a way to get a lot of states to start looking at having science class teach that God made the world in 6,000 years, and that those commandments at the door should be proof of this.

I envision a major battle about abortion taking place in this country. And while a complete overturn of Roe V. Wade does not happen I don’t think, I do see rights encroached and people dying because of it.

I think that Dubya’s voucher program will go the way of Hillary’s health care plan: A lot of hype over flawed ideas that never get anywhere. In spite of this, schools don’t get any better.

If a lot of negative things happen in only two years, some of this may be averted, but only if the Democrats will back a lot of seats and gain control over the House and/or Senate.

At the end of the four years, Dubya will, having been shown for the sham he is, get greeted with chants of “four more months” just like his father was and get voted out of office.


Yer pal,
Satan

*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, four weeks, two days, 5 hours, 56 minutes and 44 seconds.
8529 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,066.24.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 1 day, 14 hours, 45 minutes.

David B used me as a cite!*

Although I am an inveterate optimist, I must sadly concur with you Brian. We are in for some grim times.

Shall we chant a chorus of “Phyrric Victory” to the Green Party voters?

I love their new motto-The Ends Justify The Means

Satan -

Right on vouchers. The more people hear about them, the less they like them.

Wrong on the Religious Right infiltrating our schools and politics. Just ain’t gonna happen.

Also wrong on abortion, methinks. I predict Bush will now move to the center on such issues. He never was a particularly ardent Pro-Life proponent in his campaign. I think he realizes that his support will evaporate quickly if he messes with a woman’s right to choose.

Look for him to put up centrist, only slightly right-of-center judges for Supreme Court justice.

I know many liberals tend to be emotional people, and are reacting emotionally right now. Relax. It will all be OK. Really.

You don’t see me gnawing my wrists open over the Hillary-for-President-2004 Campaign officially kicking off in New York this evening, do ya?

Well, the demos picked up seats in both Houses, and with any luck the Senate is now 50-50 (still GOP, but very close)- thus after 2 years of nonsense, the public will elect a few more Demos, and balance things out. Actually, Bush as Prez, with a Congess with a slight Demo lead would be a GOOD thing.

Bush will move slightly against abortion- he will ban things like “stem cell research” and “ru 486”, any funding and other such stuff- he will not try to ban abortion outright.

Th economy will not go in the toilet, but will take a downturn.

If the Supreme Justices can hold out for 2 years, there may very well be a small Demo majority in the Senate- which will block any super-right wing appointees. Even @ 50-50, if the appointee is too rabid, all it takes is one GOP defector.

The religious right will get a few concessions- but not too many, unless he gets 8 years in office + a GOP Congress. <shudder>

Tax cuts? He will pass the “death tax cut”- ie he will get rid of estate taxes. Some of the others are WAY too expensive, and he won’t be able to get them thru. Those who were looking for big cuts will not see them.

Vouchers will die, quietly.

I predict that people will see their greatest fears not being confirmed, and they won’t feel the slightest bit of foolishness from it. In fact, I also predict that they recycle (won’t Nader be proud?) those same fears for 2004.

I predict that a Bush presidency will be rather uneventful internally, with the only sort of excitement coming from the current problems overseas.

I predict that Hillary’s Senatorship only results in a few more years of the word “Clinton” being splashed over headlines nationwide, but ultimately results in “Much Ado About Nothing”.

I predict that Bush appoints Colin Powell and John McCain (Sec. of State and Defense, respectively), although this is hardly my own prediction.

I predict that any Supreme Court appointees will be relatively to everyone’s satisfaction when they provide adequate rulings for the many cases that they preside over, not just Roe v. Wade.

Any other aspects of the gov’t that you wish for me to comment on? Or should I just kick back and see what others think?

Well, the view from across the pond is fairly clear.

Its back to the good ol’ days for the manufacturers of bomb shelters as the panicked residents of the UK observe W’s good friends in the aerospace and defence industry assure him that any problems with theatre missile defence are merely easily overcome temporary glitches.

This is as nothing comprared to the panic going on in South Korea as they wave bye-bye to the 37,000 US troops and turn round to spot Kim il Jong advancing towards them saying “gotcha, it was all a joke with Madeline, and by the way, do you like my new missiles?”

I just watched the response from our Foreign Secretary - a man who makes it nice and easy to loathe him - who was assuring the nation that the chuminess so evident between our dear leader and your ex will continue under the new regime. It looked exactly like a three year old tugging on the sleeve of his father’s jacket and saying “daddy, daddy, watch me, daddy”

SPOOFE - You’re definitely right on Powell, but I will be surprised if you are on McCain.

I think McCain sees himself as one of the great leaders of the Senate, and sees that as the best forum from which to continue to be a conservative/maverick.

(BTW, the margin in this race has gone down to razor-thinness in Florida, but Bush is still on top. There are like 2,000 outstanding military absentee ballots, and Bush leads a state that cast about 6 million votes by 223. Absolutely historic.)

It’s 224, which is incidentally, the age of the United States :cool:

906 now.

Incidentally, these exact numbers–are you guys getting them from tv or a website? I haven’t found a site with info on the exact numbers but I would like to.

I’ve been watching this CNN website, which has yielded pretty good numbers all night, except for a short period of time when the site was obviously overloaded.

Well, most of the televised tally’s have been continually-updated (there was one point where the vote numbers were jumping by several dozen per second), so I’ll be surprised if you find two different sources with the same numbers regarding Florida.

And Milo… perhaps I’m off with McCain, but he was such a big name early on that I don’t doubt he’ll play some role before Clinton steps down, and possibly after, too. Remember, there’s lots of positions to be filled (it’d be nice to see Alan Keyes get something, too)

Florida’s Dept. of Election site had Bush up by like 1785, but C-Span has him by 1655. But C-Span’s numbers are higher, which means they have counted more votes, so I’d believe C-Span’s numbers.

This is a real nail-biter. I’m guessing the Military absentee votes would go more for Bush. And, there is some dispute in a few counties about Gore’s and Buchanan’s places on the ballot being switched. So perhaps some people voted for Buchanan when they meant to vote for Gore. That’s bizarre.

Looks like we’re in for a recount, folks. But Bush will probably prevail electorally if not popularly. (Gore up 200,000 last count).

I admit that when the Bush victory was first prematurely announced I wrote an e-mail to my friends telling them that I was officially extending my expatriate vacation (been living in Bangkok for a year) for another four years.

But I think Spoofe is right–Bush will have to move to the center if he’s gonna lead his administration anywhere. With such division (and Al winning the popular vote) W will have to make good on his “politics of unity” schtick. Which, in my most optmistic moments, I think he actually WANTS to do. He’s not an extremist. Extremists study.

CNN has Gore leading slightly with the popular vote and leading 260 to 246 with the electoral. And that is with 98% reporting. Bob (imthjckaz) and I were jokingly talking about moving to Canada.

Now CNN is reporting that the Presidential election is too close to call; that we may not know for days.

My predictions are a lot like Milo’s, SPOOFE’s, and Daniel’s.

Vouchers die a quiet death.

Nothing is done on either Medicare or Social Security, but only after months and months of debating.

Bush moves to the center on abortion, like his father. A partial-birth abortion bill may get passed through, but I don’t see Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Powell gets Sec. of State. (Thank god.) I’d hope McCain gets Defense, but I’m not sure on that one. The one thing we’ve known all along on foreign policy is that Bush will let someone ELSE handle it. I see Cheney doing a lot here as well.

Miltary budgets go back up. The estate tax is repealed. Unlike Brian, I’m not sure if we’ll have deficit spending again - I think the newsmedia and public would crucify him. (Which would let Gore win in 2004.)

I’ll join in with Falcon, SPOOFE, Milo, and Daniel, with a few revisions.

The tax cuts- though not nearly as big as expected- pass.

Social Security reform almost becomes the Health Care
Reform of the Bush presidency- a lot of action, a lot of talk, a lot of sudden realization that there isn’t quite enough support for such an action (much to my disappointment).

We get hit by a minor recession in '02 or '03 (which is not Bush-dependent- Gore would hit the same recession); if it hits in early '02, Bush rides it through and wins re-election but faces a Democratic Senate and House, if in '03 then the Republicans make small gains in the House and Senate but the Democrats take the trifecta in '04.

W. runs foreign policy the same way his father did- handshakes and smiles, and leaving the details to extremely competent advisors who understand that sort of stuff (Baker for Bush Sr., Powell and Rice for W.).

Rehnquist and O’Connor step down. Appointee #1 turns out to be liberal; Appointee #2 turns out to be conservative. No major SC change noticed.

One BIG prediction, the Dems will not be obtuse enough to put Al Gore back on a presidential ticket. America lost this election no matter which way it went, I have rarely seen people debate the mediocrity of two candidates the way these two have been matched up.

Bush STAYS, not changes to centrist on Roe v. Wade. [Just as a belated side bar, if the Democrats were really so worried about losing this issue in the Supreme Court, they should have gotten their Justices to retire under Clinton instead of using this as a campaign montra]

School vouchers are filibustered out by the NEA… err I meant the Democrats. Republicans try and possibly succeed in disbanding the NEA in favor of State’s rights to educate. This would accomplish two things, vouchers by State mandate and teaching of Creationism by State mandate. Dopers get angry, the Christian majority are satisfied. The voucher program never flies in any states besides Texas and Florida.

Texas gets 20 additional electoral votes, taken from California… just kidding.

Tax reform: The estate tax is repealed (thank you) and a mild tax cut is given to the lower and middle classes. Perhaps a cut in the capital gains tax rate.

Unions get their butts kicked out of control of any federal government contracting in the first two years and have to compete on an even par with non-union contractors.

New Civil Rights legislation is enacted to replace the perceived need for hate crime legislation. (Homosexuality continues to be excluded)

Religion makes a slight move back into public schools as the ACLU is slapped in the face a few thousand times by the new Supreme Court Justices.

Billions more dollars are thrown at a missile defense system that continues to fail, being off by ‘that much’. Billions more will be pledged for before the next election.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops will be pulled from any and all peacekeeping missions ASAP, (by Christmas 2001). The Middle East will break into a war with the U.S. on the side of Israel, but only as a threat to other Arab countries NOT to get involved and let their Palestinian scape goats get exterminated.

The CIA will inform Bush who targeted our ship and he will subsequently, early in his administration, bomb that country, but not kill anyone. His approval rating, however, will go up significantly.

Republicans and Democrats will actually start talking for a change. Bush will not use his veto power to bully his own laws through, even after the Democrats retake both houses in 2002. Bush will get alot done, but not on the scale of his campaign.

Social Security will get the 1% privatization from the employee side. In four years, new numbers will be run to determine that Social Security will be bancrupt in 2030 and the masses will scurry to make it yet another campaigns’ signature issue. Bush will campaign to shore SS up through lower benefits in 2030 and his numbers will never match CEBO’s; The new Democratic candidate (no Jewish people on the next ticket, possibly Hillary as VP if she doesn’t act like a total bitch over the next few years) will wave the lockbox again.

Medicare will be revised to include prescription drug coverage, and allow an opt out to HMOs, which will only help the wealthy who can afford the difference between Medicare and HMO charges. Medicare will be touted as ‘in danger of collapse’ as more people opt out.

That’s about all I have right now.

With Gore winning the popular vote, don’t count him out as a candidate again in '04. If Bush’s administration has a couple foreign policy debacles, an economic downturn, or a scandal, Gore can come out as a candidate with the public knowledge that more people voted for him in this election than Bush. And as far as Hillary goes, wouldn’t a Gore/Clinton ticket be a surreal addendum to this Bush-Clinton-Bush thing?