Voting for GW Bush - Name recognition only?

Great Debates
1

Politicians are normally pretty bad, but this guy takes the cake. A “C” student who doesn’t know who the leader of Canada is, not to mention the fact that he’s a former cokehead. Where is the Republican drug user vote coming from anyway? Most of the general (read:idiot) public are so anti-drug that I really thought he wouldn’t stand a chance.

His Republican opponent is a decorated veteran, a former POW. Poor guy was in the Hanoi Hilton while 'ol GW was snorting lines and drinking Jim Beam straight from the bottle with his richy bitch friends!
Traditionally in American politics, the military man is a shoe-in, right? So what’s going on? I’m pretty sure it’s not about the actual issues, since they have gotten little, if no, coverage whatsoever. Besides, nobody really seems to care about them, anyway, unless someone is proposing something radically different. The stodgy Dems & Reps aren’t about that, so nobody gives a rat’s ass.

So why GW? Is it just because of who his daddy is? Nothing about him really stands out. I mean Clinton was a Rhodes scholar, wasn’t he? GW probably would have gone to community college if he was born to a normal family.

“Honey we’re recovering Christians.”
–Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo

2

Never underestimate the power of money in American politics. Money buys media attention, and hence name-recognition. It’s the American way.

3

The decorated veteran whom you reference is the one who overturned the will of the majority in DC who wanted to legalize medical marijuana. He is also the one who punished (sic) the tobacco executives’ fraud by levying a tax on America’s poorest citizens. He is a liar who promises not to lie. He advocates elimination of special interest money even as his own pockets are bulging with it. His vision of reform (sic) is built on meaningless slogans and empty ideas.

Of course, Bush is no better.

4

Wow, good rant neut! You are dead-on.

Bush is nothing more than a “brand name” being foisted on the American public by the powers-that-be within the Republican party. That may have been enough to get him through the primaries, but I have faith that the American people can see through the facade come general election time.

I am really looking forward to seeing Bush in a debate on the issues with Al Gore. I don’t think Bush’s handlers can feed him enough canned responses to make him look good. (I noticed last night that Gore shrewdly challenged Bush to weekly debates for the remainder of the campaign season. No way he’ll accept that challenge, but at least it highlights the fact that Bush has no working knowledge of the issues.)

I crossed over to vote for McCain in the primaries, not to throw a monkey wrench into the Republican works, but because I would feel better about having a choice between McCain and Gore in the fall. I may not agree with McCain on the issues, nbut at least he is his own man, and at least he has some working knowledge of what the issues ARE.

5

Nice to stick to accusations that have even one person to back them up. As far as I can tell, the media has been unable to find even one person who claims they did coke with GW.

If they could prove this, it would never go away on the media.

He also had a key role in costing this country billions of dollars in the S&L scandal. I am sure you have heard of the Keating 5.

Then you have Al Gore. Is there any politican besides Clinton (who is also rumored to be a coke head) that lies more than Al? I guess if you don’t mind a president that has been bought by Communist Chinese money, then this guy is for you.
Don’t think I’m a big fan of GW. I don’t think it is smart to allow any one family the power the Bush family has exerted in America for the last 20 years. VP. President. Governor of Florida. Govenor of Texas. And now a possible 2nd presidency in the family.

GW is more of a moronic puppet than anything else. The question is who is behind each candidate, because none of these guys have what it takes to do it by themselves.

6

That’s nice, spoke-. I had the same sort of Faith in the American People back in 1980. Spent the next twelve years picking up the morning paper and feeling my gorge rise.

On the subject of Bush’s name recognition, I’ve heard two responses from the American people that I find particularly loathsome…the first is “We owe it to his Daddy to vote for him! It’s our penance for letting Clinton win in 1992!” The second, and even worse, is that a large number of Bush supporters think that it’s actually the Old Man running again. The percentage with this delusion was set at over 40% back before the New Hampshire primary; I certainly hope it’s lower now, but I’ve seen quotes in the papers from citizens of California and South Carolina that show it’s still out there.

McCain was no prize, but at least he challenged the power brokers of his party, something Republicans are not noted for attempting. It was also fun to watch him lay into Robertson and Falwell. Unfortunately, it finished him on the campaign trail, as the GOP cannot afford to lose the Bigot Vote.

Interesting theory about Bill Clinton being a cocaine user, Freedom. Where exactly did you see it?

7

Let me say again :

It is RUMOURED that Clinton does coke.

With that disclaimer, I feel free to fire away :slight_smile:

Well first, I found this cartoon:

http://www.bikershome.com/~nix/current/slick_w.gif

Which doesn’t really confirm anything, except that there are rumors out there.

Then there is the circumstantial stuff like this:

That set the background and feeds the rumor mill. All said and done, who the hell knows? I was just trying to point out that there is as much credible info about Clinton being a coke head as there was about the Shrub.

I was going off memory at first, but all I did to get those links was punch Clinton cocaine into a search engine. Give it a try.

(the search engine, not coke :slight_smile: )

8

That cartoon was supposed to be like this:

http://www.bikershome.com/~nix/current/slick_w.gif

Snort another line, Willy!

I didn’t realize that the text was not part of the gif.
http://www.bikershome.com/~nix/current/coke.html
All in all, I think the rumors a person tends to dismiss or hold on to is a function of what they already believe.

If you hate the Shrub, then it makes perfect sense that he was a rich, boozing, coaine snorting fool. If you hate our First Scoundrel, then the same rumors seem to be a continuation of the behavior you already hate him for.

I think all these guys suck.

(the only question is do they snort)

9

From an article at Slate magazine:

10

First, this sounds like spin to me. They did not find him blameless, only “the least blameworthy” of 5 senators who helped cost the American public billions of dollars.

Second, notice McCain did not give away the campaign donations until after he got caught.

Check out a couple more quotes from that Slate article:

Somehow McCain just doesn’t sound all that squeaky clean to me.

11

Responding to the basic premise of the Original Post (not the inflammatory ‘debate’ about the ‘merits’ of the two candidates for the Republican nomination), I note that, here in Ohio, the Democrats nominated Ted Celeste to run against incumbent Senator Mike DeWine in the fall. Mind you, Mr. Celeste hasn’t held a single political office to date (that I am aware). But he is the brother of former Governor Richard Celeste, who was quite popular in Ohio for a number of years. There were four people running for the nomination; none was particularly well known politically. I think many Dems here simply pulled the lever of the name they recognized: Celeste.

12

It’s really about picking the lesser of the two evils, isn’t it? I’m not voting anyway. They’re all corrupt; what’s the difference? I didn’t mean my post as any kind of endorsement for McCain.

They’re all hypocrites. Gore and Bradley admit to using marijuana, while Bush won’t completely deny using illegal drugs and McCain saw his wife’s substance abuse problem
addressed with compassion, not punishment (even when she was stealing percocet from CHARITY. Wonder what would happen if I tried that?) However, they all still seem to think prohibition and punishment is the best policy for the rest of us.

Name recognition (or possibly ignorance) also helps explain how we had someone who was actually INDICTED for fraud re-elected as insurance commissioner here in Louisiana last year. What a sad, sad world.

“Honey we’re recovering Christians.”
–Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo

13

Let me clarify that last statement. He hadn’t been indicted at sometime in the past. He was actually indicted just a couple weeks before the election for fraud he committed while insurance commissioner.

“Honey we’re recovering Christians.”
–Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo

14

Nope, not McCain. I believe it was Lauch Faircloth, the republican from NC who spearheaded that. McCain was responsible for trying (not sure if he was successful) to overturn local laws in Arlington/Alexandria limiting the number of flights in and out of Washington Nat’l (Reagan) Airport as it is a hub for an AZ based airline.

As for Bush’s popularity, McCain is fairly conservative but typically does not make the symbolic concessions to the religious right that Bush does. The religious types + people aching for a high income bracket tax cut a la Reagan are a large support base.

I think most people consider the cocaine allegations either old hat or unsubstantiated.

15

Mojo

Thanks for your correction. I’ll take your word for it. It is hard to track these days which tyranny came from whom.

16

Neutron – let me try to convince you that you should, indeed, vote.

Let’s assume that they are all corrupt, as you say. OK, granted, no human bean is perfect, and certainly no politician. They live their lives based on compromise, and that leads all too easily to being wishy-washy and two-faced. Their careers are based on receiving enormous amounts of money for campaigns, and the presence of large amounts of money means that there will be some abuse. They have large staffs, and I’d be surprised to find 80% honesty.

Frankly, if we’re talking about $100,000 in dubious campaign contributions, that’s peanuts. That’s not even half a percent margin of error. Accountants would view that as immaterial, inconsequential, it disappears in the rounding.

The mistake you make is to assume that, because they’re all corrupt, they’re all EQUALLY corrupt. Tis not so.

Anecdote: Our city recently had a very close mayoral race, between a well-meaning idiot whose heart was in the right place but who hasn’t a brain cell in his body; and a greedy SOB out for personal glory and giving city contracts to his friends. It was hard to support either one: if I had my druthers, they’d both be in institutions (one in a facility to teach the mentally feeble a useful trade, the other in jail.) But throwing up one’s hands and saying, no, I won’t vote (as a protest), was in fact supporting the greedy SOB. He had a well organized campaign. He was defeated only by enough people saying, we’d rather have an idiot than a crook.

So with this race. They may all be corrupt, but they’re not equally corrupt. Vote for the one you think would do the better job. We’re not going to be privileged to vote for a Lincoln or a Jefferson or a Washington, we’re stuck with what we’re stuck with.

But if you (and others like you) fail to vote, you’re giving up a precious privilege and you’re probably allowing the side with the most money (and thus the most well-oiled machine, in all likelihood) win.

I’ve been in countries where people don’t have the right to vote (or where their votes have no meaning in the face of a military dictatorship.) Voting is the way of standing up for your rights, momentary though the pride may be, and dismal though the candidate choices may be. If there’s no one to vote FOR, I guarantee you that you’ll find one of them worth voting AGAINST. Lesser of two evils, fine, but it’s still worthy to vote for the lesser evil.

[/two cents]

17

From the only real source for news:

Bush ‘Refuses To Dignify’ Mass-Murder Allegations: ‘That’s Not What This Election Is About,’ He Says

Dr. J

“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera

18

The more interesting problems with the Shrub, which put him well behind the other buffoons in my estimation, are the financial dealings with UT and oil moneys documented in February’s Harper’s magazine. Worried about Gore accepting PRC money ? How about the Shrub getting fertilized by Arab $$ ? So the evil fer’ner influence charges cancel out. But Gore never did embezzle…

Based on those reports - well researched and documented, BTW - Shrub’s questionable financial dealings far surpass anything of Gore’s and McCain’s put together.

19

Well, the thing is, the person with the most money and they slickest campaign is always going to win. If 5% of the population is intelligent, knows what’s going on, and knows who’s going to do a good job, that leaves 95% of the people to vote for the best ad campaign. NEVER overestimate the intelligence of people. They’re way dumber than you think.

If an honest, qualified canidate did present himself upon the national scene, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Without big money, nobody would even know he existed! Think the media is going to get the word out about him? Fat chance! They’re controlled by the same big money!

Does power corrupt? Maybe, but I think most of those out for power are corrupt in the first place.

“Honey we’re recovering Christians.”
–Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo

20

<cough> Nader <cough>

“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera