P-PS: By my logic, this election won’t be over soon. It’s far more entertaining if there’s contested results, cliffhanger results, Constitutional Crises (real or imagined), etc. And so there will be. Watch for 'em.
So is she an adopted Liberian refugee/orphan, or were Mr. and Mrs. Cheney living there when she was born?
Pray, friends. Pray that we get the President we need, and not the President we deserve.
I thought Mary Cheney was Lebenese…
I blame everyone… well not everyone, but all partisans. I used to be able to discuss politics with people. Now I can’t. Republicans are evil, Democrats are idiots, conservatives are this, liberals are that… whatever…
I wish both sides would quit arguing and figure out how to work together. We need a third party in politics, one that takes the moderates from both sides and blends them into a party of sanity and inclusiveness. Right-wingers and left-wingers can keep their parties and be happy that they’re keeping the faith while their parties get marginalized.
Huh, I thought she was a thespian.
You’ve certainly learned that lesson well.
Fucking exactly.
I thought there might be a chance that McCain would try to fill that role but he turned out not to have the balls.
I’m not going to say who, because I honestly don’t know, but someone has to be right once in awhile.
Never going to happen, ever.
I disagree.
Not that I find all of the partisan mudslinging fun, but it’s alive! It’s alive! This Frankenstein’s monster of a democracy or republic or whathaveyou is bursting with energy, puttin’ on the Ritz.
People are pissed off. Good! There’s been enough apathetic ass-sitting. Now it’s time for real fights about real issues and yes, some of the electorate is gullible and will believe any Big Lie you might want to sell them, but when has that been any different? At least right now we have competing voices!
People are mad because they care. They care! When I was in high school, I felt that no one really gave a damn anymore. The sniping was muted and petty and listless, as if the people complaining knew their words were falling on deaf ears. But this year, we migh all go deaf from the vigorous screeching, but at least until then we are hearing things that need to be said. For every Big Lie there is a Big Truth; people might believe one or the other but at least they believe in something.
If I don’t want to listen anymore, I can turn off the computer, the TV, the radio. I am in control. When no one is talking, I can only tune in to silence. To hell with silence.
No, no, she’s from the island Lesbos.
Don’t you think to some extent the name-calling liberates the bastards to do whatever they want? After all, say theoretically that a politician ran amok knowing that first, he would have the blind fealty of his party, and, second, that they could simply return any criticism with equally harsh criticism and create the illusion that the fair and accurate criticisms of their opponents was so much negativity and that both sides were to blame and blah blah blah, basically deflecting all criticism and getting of scot free.
Well, what if it WASN’T theoretical.
Take a hard long look at Bush. If it wasn’t for the relentless negative campaigning by both sides, people would realize that the criticisms are NOT just negative campaigning, but real and important concerns, and that he has to fucking go.
That’s your problem! This election is actually, as I said in another thread, about par for the nastiness course. What ardent Democrat didn’t say that Nixon was the Antichrist and Reagan the incarnation of evil? What hardcore Republican didn’t call Clinton Hillary’s sock puppet and Carter History’s greatest monster? (Oops! Mixing up real life an The Simpsons again!)
What is different is that there are so many more news and talk outlets that it’s harder to hide from it. Twenty or thirty years ago talk radio was mostly local, full of bland interviews with politicians and football coaches (“The boys are going to give it 110% this Sunday…”), Swap Shop (“Sue in Sioux Falls has a mattress and box spring she will trade for a dozen quarts of canned peaches”), and ads for Gold Bond Powder (okay, some things haven’t changed). Cable TV had only CNN, which was just news. The internet, for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist. Now an interested person cannot escape the constant onslaught of blah-blah-blah.
Candidates didn’t go much deeper into the issues in their speeches than they do now. Speeches were kept simple for the one time the listeners, hearing him at a campaign rally, heard him. A politician could use the same speech over and over because each time the audience was new and few reporters spoke of how the candidate “kept to his talking points” because few reporters followed a candidate from whistlestop to whistlestop. Now we hear the same damned soundbites every night because each campaign appearance is available nationally and they have lost their freshness.
Zev, listen to Jonathon. For you this ellection is on autopilot: you’ve made your choice and there is nothing else for you to do for a week. Watch a baseball game but be ready to change channels when the ads come on. Have a beer. Eat a cheesebur–I mean, a hot dog. 
But understand that this is a fairly standard campaign. You simply know too much about it.
Hear Hear Zev!
My complaint is where is the debate or civil conversation? If you disagree with me then tell me why, don’t call me the anti christ, stoopid or I don’t have a clue. I used to enjoy a lively debate. Now it’s personal attacks, so I don’t say anything. That’s unfortunate.
As a Yankees fan, I can tell you that that does NOT help! 
I’m not so certain about that. While I’m too young to remember Nixon’s runs, I certainly remember the campaigns from 1988 and onward quite well. While there were a few nuts out there (there always are a few nuts) who spewed this vitriol (Clinton murdered Ron Brown, remember?) for the most part it wasn’t this bad; even in 2000 when we had as close a race as we can have.
I don’t know, Julie. I’m of the opinion that people can care and be passionate (and evn mad) about the issues without resorting to vitriol, name calling, demonizing, etc. There’s a huge difference between “George Bush’s plan for Social Security will jeopardize the program in the future” and “George Bush is out to steal your Social Security!” There’s a world of difference between “There are serious questions about John Kerry’s military records and his actions in Viet Nam” and “Kerry’s a liar, traitor and war criminal.” I would like to hope that we can go back to the former in each case; but I don’t see that happening. I think we’ve come to the point where name-calling and demonizing are not only acceptable but expected. Whatever happened to common civility?
Of course it’s a good thing when people are truly deprived of their vote that people should raise a stink. But we’re not even at Election Day yet and I feel we’re well past the point where the villagers would simply let the wolves have the boy.
Not every malfunction in a voting machine is a Republican ploy to steal the election. Not every misprinted ballot is some Democratic scheme to get Kerry additional votes. There are no allowances anymore for honest mistakes. “If it’s not perfect, it’s not legitimate,” seems to be the theme. But guess what? With 200 million votes or so, there will never be a perfect election. Simply by dint of the raw numbers there are going to be screw ups somewhere along the way. But whereas in the past these used to be dismissed as simply normal, human errors, nowadays, they are “proof” that someone is rigging the election.
In any event, thank you everyone for giving me the chance to vent a bit. Right before I composed this post, I was listening to Air America and a particularly vile individual (I won’t give him the benefit of mentioning his name) was really setting me off with his comments/conspiracy theories/etc., and I just needed to vent a bit. Aside from the fact that the Red Sox are in the Series, I’m feeling a bit better now. Thank you everyone.
Zev Steinhardt
I thought she was Lebanese!
Back to the rant- it WLL get better. Bush will be the last neocon candidtate and Karl Rove has managed his last smear campaign.
Can’t we all just get a Huey Long?
Zev took the words right out of my mouth. I’ve been feeling this way for the past month or so.
If I don’t get a decent reason to vote FOR somebody by friday, I’m voting Libertarian for president.
No.
This is not a matter of “Bush’s fault”. This is a matter of problems being endemic to the way campaigns are run today by their very nature. Even if Bush loses, 2008 is going to be as nasty, if not nastier.
It is a matter of demagougery. As CK pointed out earlier, demagougery unfortunately works, so there’s reasons for politicians to keep pushing it. Even worse, demagougery is necessary in the system we have set up. Presidential candidates are expected to deal with hundreds of little issues because we have pushed the mommy state so far. With so many issues clamoring for attention, and so little time to be able to devote to any issue, we force all issues to be resolved in thirty-second sound bites, which leaves no room for discussion, only for extremes.
In addition, we continue to push morality and politics together, which is incredibly stupid. Social spending isn’t a matter of morality. Everyone wants the same outcome- a lack of poverty, hunger, and unemployment- we just differ on what we think are the most effective ways to use limited government resources to acheive those results. But starting with the Left in the '60’s and picked up by the Right in the '80’s, we’ve infused everything in politics with morality. Against increased Medicare spending? Then you obviously take joy in watching the elderly suffer. you evil conservative bastard. In favor of increased Medicare spending? Then you obviously hate the working class who have to pay taxes, you fucking limousine liberal.
Even if we have this vaunted “moderate” party, it won’t change things- there’s too much incentive to keep soundbites short and deadly, and there’s too much demand to bolster our self-esteem by demonizing those who oppose us. (Look at the recent GD about why we demonize our opponents, where one poster swaggers in and insults Bush supporters; when pressed, he admits that he does it because it makes him feel better about himself. People will always do that, whether they be extremists railing about the evils of their opponents, or moderates railing about the evils of extremists.)
There are only two ways to deal with this. First, castigate those on your side who do this. I have been vocal in my disgust for Limbaugh; nearly every liberal poster I respect has likewise stated their disgust with Michael Moore. Second, ignore those who want to bait you. They scream and rail because they desperately want to feel good about themselves, that they have found the evil in the world and oppose it, and therefore that makes them good. Do not reward them by opposing them, because you just encourage them to continue to justify themselves through vitriol.
Do Not Feed The Trolls.
And there are a fuckload of trolls out there this year.