All I wanted were specifics on what his policies would be and what his “vision” for American consists of. The best I’ve seen so far is that he’s not Bush. Such is politics I guess.
I think you really have hit on an interesting point here although clearly not the one you intended. You have explained the Bush campaign strategy to me. I was really puzzled as to why they were being so mean and nasty given that Bush is the incumbent and Kerry is the challenger. You expect the challenger to go after the incumbent while the incumbent is more dignified and touts his own accomplishments. Instead, as the conventions illustrated, one has the reverse.
And, the reason of course, is that Bush is so bad that he really does have to convince us that “Kerry is Hitler”. That is his one hope. He is really running a campaign based on making us fear the other guy more.
I just hope the American people don’t fall for it.
Okay, 80 Nobel laureates think Bush’s stem cell policy is a bad idea. They wrote him a letter begging him to not restrict funding. He did it anyway.
He offered the “compromise” of letting work continue on 78 or so extant lines. Only guess what, only 21 of them are viable. Very few are available for new researchers–maybe 11?. Some compromise.
Scientists have continued to appeal to the White House about these lines, pointing out that they are insufficient in number, are of limited therapeutic value because of how they were grown, are potentially tainted with viruses, and offer no access to research on stem cells among minority populations. Members of his own party have sent letters emphasizing these points, some of them respected conservatives.
What does he do? Vow to stick with it through the next four years if he’s elected.
Kerry has stated he would lift the ban on federal funding of research on new stem cell lines.
Yeah, add me to those who are insulted by the OP’s response. Of course, I predicted in my post that we wouldn’t convince him since it was obvious he didn’t want to be convinced. But, at least I expected more than a 35 word blow-off.
Do us a favor, duffer, next time you have some brilliant rhetorical question to pose, why don’t you pose it to yourself in private and save us the bother?
It’s enough for me that Kerry probably will not invade Iran, Syria, North Korea, or Cuba, and Bush almost certainly will invade some of them, if he gets a second term. (Rumsfeld is already making noises about the Iranians supporting Iraqi insurgents.) But you want things apart from “He’s not Bush!” How about this: Kerry has more and more relevant political experience. Pubbies like to disparage Kerry’s Senate record because he has produced relatively little legislation with his name on it – but he was a moving force in dragging the Iran-Contra business into the light, and the BCCI investigation, among other things. He also helped normalize relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. Just the fact that he has been in the Senate for 20 years, and on the Foreign Relations Committee for 19, should make him a more effective leader than Bush even if he does not have Bush’s advantage of a Congress controlled by his own party. He knows how things work on the Hill, he knows how to negotiate with Congresscritters. When Bush came to D.C. his only experience in public office was as governor of a state where the governor has less effective power than the commissioner of agriculture; as president, he owes his success in getting his way mainly to stubbornness, arrogance, a sympathetic partisan majority in Congress, and the unique political climate post-9/11.
As for specifics, you can go to his website if you want them. To be honest, I don’t really think it is worth getting bogged down in the specifics because, let’s face it, situations inevitably throw a monkey-wrench into the works and the specifics are likely to change. (Hell, I’d be happy if even the generalities of what candidates said were true…like, for example, when Bush said that he wasn’t much for “nation-building”. In an odd way, that seems to be true since he hasn’t shown much skill for it in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the implication was that he wouldn’t get us involved in situations that required nation-building, not that he would seek them out [at least in the case of Iraq] and then not follow through very well.)
What you should be looking for IMHO is their general vision, qualities of leadership, and priorities.
There are no Dummycrats, just Dummies! The Dummies are the ones who STILL support Bush’s war even though he failed to find any WMDs…and had to admit to the world “Oops, I had bad intellegence”! Well, that might be the only statement Bush uttered that I agree with! Plus, it’s so funny how that little man claims America will be less safe under Kerry! Really? Then, why did 9/11 happen on Bush’s watch, hmm???
So, if you still support Bush while our American economy dives deeper and deeper into the honeypot (shitter) while Bush just fiddles around and pretends to play the role of a leader…I mean, what more can I say? You either get the picture about Daddy’s Boy, or you don’t!
The election is a simple as that! I hope Florida and Ohio give Bush such immeasureable heartburn come 11/2! (Actually, I think there are a total of 6 critical swing states.)
As for the “vision thing,” let Kerry speak for himself. The Kerry campaign website (http://www.johnkerry.com/index.html) outlines his policies in the following areas: National Security:
Economy & Jobs:
Health Care:
Energy Independence:
Homeland Security:
Education:
Environment:
Civil Rights:
National Service:
Science & Technology:
Stronger Communities:
Veterans:
Women:
So, the ball’s in your court, duffer. What’s wrong with any of these policy positions? How are Bush’s policies better?
There are no Dummycrats, just Dummies! The Dummies are the ones who STILL support Bush’s war even though he failed to find any WMDs…and had to admit to the world “Oops, I had bad intellegence”! Well, that might be the only statement Bush uttered that I agree with! Plus, it’s so funny how that little man claims America will be less safe under Kerry! Really? Then, why did 9/11 happen on Bush’s watch, hmm???
So, if you still support Bush while our American economy dives deeper and deeper into the honeypot (shitter) while Bush just fiddles around and pretends to play the role of a leader…I mean, what more can I say? You either get the picture about Daddy’s Boy, or you don’t!
The election is a simple as that! I hope Florida and Ohio give Bush such immeasureable heartburn come 11/2! (Actually, I think there are a total of 6 critical swing states.)
In the next four years we will have up to four Supreme Court Justices retire. If Kerry is the one choosing the nominees, the Court will end up more centrist than if Bush does.
Not being Bush is an important attribute. The main issue in this election, as I see it, is the Bush administration.
I will vote for Kerry. Had someone else been nominated – Dean, Graham, Gephardt, Lieberman, Edwards, whoever – I would have voted for him. The urgent necessity is to turn the disasterous Bush administration out of office. The most effective way to vote a Presidential administration out of office is to vote for the candidate of the other of the two major parties.
That being said, I can think of a number of positive reasons for voting for Kerry. Others have already mentioned most of them. I think the environment is a biggie. Bush has presided over an alarming rollback of 30 years worth of environmental progress. Kerry, OTOH, gets high ratings from environmentalists. When it comes to the environment, he isn’t just nutral or okay; he’s good.
Thanks, Brain Glutton! I had not heard of some of the items on your list. School’s Open Till 6:00 is a great idea. I’ve thought for years that we should do something like that. We’ve got the buildings; let’s use them for as many hours/days as we can.
It beats me why people think 9/11 is a reason to keep Bush in office. I’d say it’s a primo reason for turning him out. Two reasons: (1) With a better, smarter, more alert administration – an administration with sounder priorities – 9/11 might have been prevented. (2) His response (attacking Iraq) made about as much sence as it would have if we’d responded to Pearl Harbor by attacking Mexico (I’m quoting someone, but I can’t remember who).
I don’t see how voting against Bush would be such a bad thing. In my opinion it would be perfectly reasonable to vote republican, if it weren’t for their candidate. Bush’s past actions should speak louder than sugarcoated words at an election. If that’s not the case, then let’s have a look at your take on Kerry:
I interpret it this way: Kerry doesn’t want to retreat now that the troops are there. He wants to stay till things are in order and then pull out. While Bush claims the same thing, his past actions rather show that he’s more interested in securing contracts and oil deals first and then perhaps pulling out. Or maybe not. That’s the difference here and not a wishy-washy position at all.
Furthermore Bush started the Iraq war for no good reason and there’s a good chance he’ll start other unnecessary wars if he gets reelected.
Same thing as above. It’s not hard to understand, really.
It’s sad that it boils down to that, but yeah, that’s pretty much it. Anybody but Bush - a republican president that isn’t Bush would fill that bill nicely as well imho. This isn’t an election with two brand new candidates and the population should have enough responsibility and awareness to punish bad past behaviour instead of believing election day propaganda despite prior knowledge to the contrary.
No, didn’t skip it, just haven’t had a chance till now to respond. One question. Can anyone tell me I’m wrong in my belief that Ted kennedy co-sponsered the NCLB Act? I thought it was a bi-partisan education thing they did, or was it a different education bill? BrainGlutton, that’s the closest I’ve seen for a reason to vote for Kerry, but it was just a quote of his website. The most glaring was the part of veterens getting better health care when Bush already got that passed.
I’m still waiting for someone to state why they want Kerry as president and how he’ll do things better. So far I’m getting campaign promises and “he’s not Bush” stuff.
I doubt anybody ever expected me to switch my vote. And that wasn’t really the point, I was just asking for reasons to vote FOR Kerry. But the swing votes are what both are after, and Kerry has the advantage of saying what he wants to do if elected, while Bush has over 3 years on record to stand on. I’ve seen it in polls, editorials, and right here on the SDMB. Hindsight is better than 20/20 and the entire campaign is based on what Bush did wrong. Not on what Kerry will do right.
Why is nobody pissed about Kerry’s Congressional testimony when he admitted to killing babies and burning villages? Even if he didn’t personally do it, he testified it happened. Which means he saw it happen, yet did nothing to stop it. He’s a vet of 4 months with 3 purple hearts, now under Navy investigation. He might have been better off not playing the vet status. And before anyone mentions the “lies” of the SBVT, those men were in theatre as well. They are every bit a hero as Kerry is.
Though I can see 3 wounds in such a short time with him carrying all that camera equipment. I don’t have that many pictures from my frigging wedding.
What’s wrong with the ones copied from his web site? Are you looking for top-secret reasons to vote for Kerry or what?
Ignoring the issue of whether being in theatre automatically makes someone a war hero… being a hero certainly doesn’t automatically put someone in a position to testify about events that he didn’t witness.