Nader polling at 6 percent

[CarneVaca]

Nader is polling at 6 percent, which is interesting to me. I thought he would never even get 1 percent. But it's early and he just announced. Still, I think what this shows is that Kerry cannot win over a lot of the independents and the Dean supporters. That does not bode well for the Democrats' prospects.

www.commondreams.org/head...304-11.htm

One quarter of registered voters are neither Democrat nor Republican. If only we could get organized...

[darklinensuit]

Wow.

- Jake

[darklinensuit]

AP Poll: Bush, Kerry Are Tied in Race
36 minutes ago Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!


By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - John Kerry (news - web sites) and President Bush (news - web sites) are starting the general election campaign tied, according to an Associated Press poll, while independent Ralph Nader (news - web sites) is drawing enough support to make Democrats squirm.



The Republican incumbent had 46 percent support, Democrat Kerry had 45 percent and Nader, the 2000 Green Party candidate who entered the race last month, was at 6 percent in the survey conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.


Bush and the four-term Massachusetts senator, who emerged as the nominee Tuesday after a string of primary race wins over several rivals, have run close or Kerry has been ahead in most recent polls that did not include Nader.


Since Nader entered the race Feb. 22, campaign strategists and political analysts have been trying to assess the impact of another presidential bid by the consumer activist who is blamed by some Democrats for Al Gore (news - web sites)'s loss in 2000.


In the last presidential election, Nader was on the ballot in 43 states and Washington, D.C., garnering only 2.7 percent of the vote. But in Florida and New Hampshire, Bush won such narrow victories that had Gore received the bulk of Nader's votes in those states, he would have won the general election.


Exit polls from 2000 show that about half of Nader's voters would have backed Gore in a two-way race, far more than would have supported Bush. Nader dismisses the spoiler label.


While Nader's support in the AP-Ipsos poll was 6 percent, his backing in polls in 2000 fluctuated in the single digits — often at about 4 percent, but sometimes higher. This year, Nader is unlikely to get the Green Party's nomination and he faces a stiff challenge in getting his name on the ballot in the 50 states.


Kenneth Freeman, an 86-year-old retiree from New Smyrna Beach, Fla., who leans Democratic, was unhappy with Nader's presidential bid.


"Ralph Nader is fouling it all up," Freeman said. "He's taking votes away from the Democrats. I think he's on an ego trip."


Bush's job approval in the AP-Ipsos poll was 48 percent, with 49 percent disapproving — essentially the same as last month when 47 percent approved of his job performance.


His approval rating, which soared close to 90 percent after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and remained high for months, has dipped to the lowest levels of his presidency in recent weeks.


Six in 10 said the country is on the wrong track, up from last month, while slightly more than one-third of those surveyed — 35 percent — said the country is headed in the right direction.


"We're 240-something days from Election Day. We've got a long way to go and expect it to be a close race throughout, no matter what the factors are," said Terry Holt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign.


The poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday as Kerry captured nine of 10 Super Tuesday elections and claimed the nomination. Nightly results suggested that Kerry did not get a bounce from winning the nomination.


"For all those who want to bring change to America, we need to remain united behind the Democratic nominee," said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.


Kerry, who had solid backing from 28 percent of the voters, was strong among minorities, low-income people, singles, older voters and Catholics.


Bush, who had solid backing from 37 percent, did well among whites, men, Protestants, homeowners and suburban dwellers.





"I'm worried about the Democrats taking control," said Stephanie Rahaniotis, a Republican from Lynbrook, N.Y. She said after the Sept. 11 attacks she feels safer with Bush in charge and thinks Democrats will "divert our attention from the military."

In the poll, Nader was most likely to get the backing of young adults, and independents.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 771 registered voters was taken March 1-3 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.


- Jake

[strandinthewind]

EEK - but, I take solace in that fact that polls are essentially meaningless this early in that a lot could happen between now and then :cool:

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by CarneVaca
Nader is polling at 6 percent, which is interesting to me. I thought he would never even get 1 percent. But it's early and he just announced. Still, I think what this shows is that Kerry cannot win over a lot of the independents and the Dean supporters. That does not bode well for the Democrats' prospects.

www.commondreams.org/head...304-11.htm

One quarter of registered voters are neither Democrat nor Republican. If only we could get organized...

If you look closely at that poll you'll see that the votes that Nader is getting are being taken from the Republican side. It certainly doesn't bode well for Bush. I think people are going to be very surprised by the margin that Bush will lose by this fall.:)

[Merf]

Yeah, it's still very early. 8 months till Election Day.

I think Nader's numbers will drop off by then when his supporters realize that they could quite possibly be handing Dubya another 4 years in office.

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by Merf
Yeah, it's still very early. 8 months till Election Day.

I think Nader's numbers will drop off by then when his supporters realize that they could quite possibly be handing Dubya another 4 years in office.

Merf, that point is going to be made over and over. Just like Gore at the last minute realized Nader was gaining enormous popularity and proceeded to vilify the man. Gore ain't half the man Nader is.

A lot of Democrats and liberal independents will heed the call. They will vote for Kerry out of fear.

But I guess I have more faith in this country. I don't think four more years of Dubya would destroy us. If anything, it might at last reinvigorate the liberal wing to stand up and put an end to this dangerous slide to the right. If Kerry is elected, the slide to the right will slow down, but it will continue. Just as it did in the Clinton years. Mark my words.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by CarneVaca


A lot of Democrats and liberal independents will heed the call. They will vote for Kerry out of fear.

But I guess I have more faith in this country. I don't think four more years of Dubya would destroy us. If anything, it might at last reinvigorate the liberal wing to stand up and put an end to this dangerous slide to the right. If Kerry is elected, the slide to the right will slow down, but it will continue. Just as it did in the Clinton years. Mark my words.

Respectfully, bull****. Kerry is a liberal. They'll say he's not but he is. I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how good things turn out.
One other thing about Nader polling at 6%. The poll is assumptive of Nader getting on the ballot in all 50 states. We know that's not going to happen. Realistically, he will get 1-2% of the vote.

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
Respectfully, bull****. Kerry is a liberal. They'll say he's not but he is. I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how good things turn out.
One other thing about Nader polling at 6%. The poll is assumptive of Nader getting on the ballot in all 50 states. We know that's not going to happen. Realistically, he will get 1-2% of the vote.


Then how do you explain Kerry voting with Bush 70% of the time?

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer
Then how do you explain Kerry voting with Bush 70% of the time?

Link? BTW, Bush doesn't "vote." He either signs it into law or he vetos it. Also, Bush has never vetoed anything they have put in front of him. Nice try.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by CarneVaca
But I guess I have more faith in this country. I don't think four more years of Dubya would destroy us. If anything, it might at last reinvigorate the liberal wing to stand up and put an end to this dangerous slide to the right.If he is re-elected, then I hope you're right.

I'm not as confident, since it seems that continued discrimination against homosexuals is pretty much an assurance, if Bush has another 4 years in office.

Just to use an example that hits closest to home for me.

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer
Then how do you explain Kerry voting with Bush 70% of the time?

Because like pretty much all politicans, both of them are bought and paid for by the same people IMO. When did I get so cynical :laugh:

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
Link? BTW, Bush doesn't "vote." He either signs it into law or he vetos it. Also, Bush has never vetoed anything they have put in front of him. Nice try.




Why would Bush veto anything put in front of him? Republicans control both Houses of Congress and they cave into him. No need to. :laugh: :laugh:

One look at Kerry's record will tell you that he votes for Bush's agenda quite frequently. Perhaps there is an explanation that you can share with us. I mean, it can't be that Kerry caters to the same people Bush does, can it?

Nah.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer

One look at Kerry's record will tell you that he votes for Bush's agenda quite frequently.
Nah.

Perhaps you could provide a link for your statement? If you're curious about Kerry's voting record, you might want to start here: www.johnkerry.com.

[gldstwmn]

http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/05/news/economy/jobs/index.htm

Payrolls disappoint again

Gain of 21,000 falls far short of Wall Street forecasts; unemployment rate steady at 5.6 percent.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - U.S. payrolls grew in February at a far slower pace than the prior month, the government said Friday, in a report that disappointed Wall Street expectations for the fourth month in a row.

The persistent weakness in the labor market means the Federal Reserve will probably hold interest rates at the lowest level in more than 40 years for longer than expected.


But that weakness has also led to the slowest pace of wage growth for workers in 18 years, the longest average unemployment duration in 20 years and could step up the pressure on President Bush as he runs for re-election.

Payrolls outside the farm sector grew by just 21,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported, compared with a downwardly revised gain of 97,000 in January. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.6 percent.

Economists, on average, had expected 125,000 new jobs and unemployment at 5.6 percent, according to Briefing.com.

"This is a terrible number," said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo. "The economic recovery is almost three years old, and the economy should be producing 200,000 to 300,000 jobs per month."

<snip>

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer
[B:

One look at Kerry's record will tell you that he votes for Bush's agenda quite frequently.
[/B]

Really? Not according to his voting record:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040315&s=corn

What's Right With Kerry

"There is, as evidence, his nineteen-year Senate record, during which he has voted consistently in favor of abortion rights and environmental policies, opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, led the effort against drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, pushed for higher fuel economy standards, advocated boosting the minimum wage and pressed for global warming remedies. But what distinguishes Kerry's career are key moments when he displayed guts and took tough actions that few colleagues would imitate. One rap on Kerry is that he is overly cautious and conventional. He's no firebrand on the stump, nor does he come across as the most passionate and exciting force for change. But his history in Washington includes episodes in which he demonstrated a willingness to confront hard issues, to challenge power, to pursue values rather than political advantage, to take risks for the public interest.

Kerry arrived in the Senate in 1985. This Vietnam War hero turned antiwar leader had been lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. But he entered the body more as the prosecutor he had been in the late 1970s after graduating from Boston College law school. In early 1986 Kerry's office was contacted by a Vietnam vet who alleged that the support network for the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras (who were fighting against the socialist Sandinistas in power) was linked to drug traffickers. Kerry doubted that the Reagan Administration, obsessed with supporting the contras, would investigate such charges. He pushed for a Senate inquiry and a year later, as chairman of a Foreign Relations subcommittee, obtained approval to conduct a probe.

It was not an easy ride. Reagan Justice Department officials sought to discredit and stymie his investigation. Republicans dismissed it. One anti-Kerry effort used falsified affidavits to make it seem his staff had bribed witnesses. The Democratic staff of the Senate Iran/contra committee--which showed little interest in the contra drug connection--often refused to cooperate. "They were fighting us tooth and nail," recalls Jack Blum, one of Kerry's investigators. "We had the White House and the CIA against us on one side and our colleagues in the Senate on the other. But Kerry told us, 'Keep going.' He didn't let this stuff faze him."

Kerry's inquiry widened to look at Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, Honduras and Panama. In 1989 he released a report that slammed the Reagan Administration for neglecting or undermining anti-drug efforts in order to pursue other foreign policy objectives. It noted that the government in the 1970s and '80s had "turned a blind eye" to the corruption and drug dealing of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had done various favors for Washington (including assisting the contras). The report concluded that "individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." And, it added, US government agencies--meaning the CIA and the State Department--had known this.

This was a rather explosive finding, but the Kerry report did not provoke much uproar in the media, and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill did little to support Kerry and keep the matter alive. His critics derided him as a conspiracy buff. Yet a decade later the CIA inspector general released a pair of reports that acknowledged that the agency had worked with suspected drug smugglers to support the contras. Kerry had been right.

<snip>

nvestigations were not the only notable moments in Kerry's Senate career. On September 10, 1996, as he was in a tight re-election contest against William Weld, the popular Republican governor of Massachusetts, Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny federal benefits to same-sex couples and permit states to not recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states. He was one of only fourteen senators to oppose the measure. Several leading Senate liberals--including Paul Wellstone, Tom Harkin and Pat Leahy--had voted for it. But on the floor of the Senate that day, Kerry, who noted that he did not support same-sex marriage, said, "I am going to vote against this bill...because I believe that this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political." He refused to pretend that the bill was not a wedge-issue trap devised by conservative Republicans. The legislation, he charged, was "meant to divide Americans," and he argued fiercely that it was unconstitutional. "If this were truly a defense of marriage act," he said, "it would expand the learning experience for would-be husbands and wives. It would provide for counseling for all troubled marriages, not just for those who can afford it. It would provide treatment on demand for those with alcohol and substance abuse.... It would guarantee daycare for every family that struggles and needs it."

The following year, a re-elected Kerry was in another lonely position as one of only five original sponsors of the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, to provide for full public financing of Congressional elections. The measure would remove practically all special-interest money from House and Senate campaigns. (Kerry's colleagues were Wellstone, Leahy, John Glenn and Joe Biden--all Democrats.) "Kerry was totally into it," says Ellen Miller, former executive director of Public Campaign, a reform group pressing for the legislation. "He believes in this stuff."

In introducing the legislation, Kerry said on the Senate floor, "Special interest money is moving and dictating and governing the agenda of American politics.... If we want to regain the respect and confidence of the American people, and if we want to reconnect to them and reconnect them to our democracy, we have to get the special interest money out of politics." He was also a backer of the better-known McCain-Feingold legislation, a more modest and (some might say) problematic approach to campaign reform. But over the years he's pointed to the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act as the real reform. "It is a tough position in Congress to be for dramatic change in financing elections," says Miller. "It's gutsy to go out and say, 'Let's provide a financially leveled playing field so there is more competition for incumbents.' Kerry and Wellstone were the leaders and took a giant step. It was remarkable."

After two decades in the Senate, Kerry has a long record that can be picked apart by competitors within his own party as well as in the GOP. And though he has been re-elected three times, he has not developed the best political skills. He has not shed a manner too easily criticized as aloof or patrician. He has had brushes with smarmy campaign financing. But there have been times he has shown courage, devotion to justice and commitment to honesty, open government and principle-over-politics. There are few senators of whom that can be said. A full assessment of the man ought to take these portions of his public service into account."

Abortion rights? Environmentalist? Voted against ALL of Bush's tax cuts? Against drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? Alternative energy and higher fuel standards? Wants to raise the minimum wage? Wants to remedy global warming? Investigated the CIA? Voted against gay hate legislation? Sponsored a bill for clean elections?
Sound like Bush to you?
Kerry has cast over 6500 votes in 19 years in the senate. When you cast that many votes in that length of time, it's easy for people to pick apart the little things without looking at the bigger picture. Politics is all about compromise. Did he vote for things I dont' like? Sure. Did he compromise to get something good done for us in return? I believe so. This man has dedicated his entire life to public service. He'll make a damn fine president.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/nation/7840039.htm
Kerry's voting record goes along party line

"He votes with his party even though his critiques have sometimes gone against the grain of the party," said Elaine Kamarck, a public-policy professor at Harvard University who was an adviser to Al Gore in the 2000 campaign.

<snip>
This is the difficulty in any vote: You can vote 'no, but' and there are a whole lot of qualifiers, or you can vote 'Yes, but,' and there a lot of qualifiers sometimes," he said. "The way people read the votes, they don't see any of the qualifiers."

Darrell West, a political-science professor at Brown University, describes Kerry as falling "at the pragmatic end of liberalism."

"He's somebody who has carved out his own path and occasionally questioned doctrinaire positions, so although he is a liberal, he won't be quite as easy to pigeonhole as Republicans are claiming," West said.

[gldstwmn]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127/

John Kerry's Defense Defense
Setting his voting record straight.

Before George W. Bush's political operatives started pounding on John Kerry for voting against certain weapons systems during his years in the Senate, they should have taken a look at this quotation:

After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office.

The speaker was President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992.

They should also have looked up some testimony by Dick Cheney, the first President Bush's secretary of defense (and now vice president), three days later, boasting of similar slashings before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend.

Cheney proceeded to lay into the then-Democratically controlled Congress for refusing to cut more weapons systems.

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.

The Republican operatives might also have noticed Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say noting of "major reductions" in fighter wings and strategic bombers.

Granted, these reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution and the Cold War's demise. But that's just the point: Proposed cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular weapons system doesn't necessarily indicate indifference toward national defense.

Looking at the weapons that the RNC says Kerry voted to cut, a good case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2 bomber and President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile-defense program) should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn't really vote to cut them.

The claim about these votes was made in the Republican National Committee "Research Briefing" of Feb. 22. The report lists 13 weapons systems that Kerry voted to cut—the ones cited above, as well as Patriot air-defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and AH64 Apache helicopters, among others.

It is instructive, however, to look at the footnotes. Almost all of them cite Kerry's vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on Oct. 15, 1990. Do a Google search, and you will learn that S. 3189 was the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273 was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons systems specifically.

On a couple of the weapons, the RNC report cites H.R. 5803 and H.R. 2126. Look those up. They turn out to be votes on the House-Senate conference committee reports for the defense appropriations bills in October 1990 (the same year as S. 3189) and September 1995.

In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty.

Another bit of dishonesty is RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie's claim, at a news conference today, that in 1995, Kerry voted to cut $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget. John Pike, who runs the invaluable globalsecurity.org Web site, told me what that cut was about: The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues.

An examination of Kerry's real voting record during his 20 years in the Senate indicates that he did vote to restrict or cut certain weapons systems. From 1989-92, he supported amendments to halt production of the B-2 stealth bomber. (In 1992, George H.W. Bush halted it himself.) It is true that the B-2 came in handy during the recent war in Iraq—but for reasons having nothing to do with its original rationale.

The B-2 came into being as an airplane that would drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union. The program was very controversial at the time. It was extremely expensive. Its stealth technology had serious technical bugs. More to the point, a grand debate was raging in defense circles at the time over whether, in an age of intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range cruise missiles, the United States needed any new bomber that would fly into the Soviet Union's heavily defended airspace. The debate was not just between hawks and doves; advocates and critics could be found among both.

In the latest war, B-2s—modified to carry conventional munitions—were among the planes that dropped smart bombs on Iraq. But that was like hopping in the Lincoln stretch limo to drop Grandma off at church. As for the other stealth plane used in both Iraq wars—the F-117, which was designed for non-nuclear missions—there is no indication that Kerry ever opposed it.

The RNC doesn't mention it, but Kerry also supported amendments to limit (but not kill) funding for President Reagan's fanciful (and eventually much-altered) "Star Wars" missile-defense system. Kerry sponsored amendments to ban tests of anti-satellite weapons, as long as the Soviet Union also refrained from testing. In retrospect, trying to limit the vulnerability of satellites was a very good idea since many of our smart bombs are guided to their targets by signals from satellites.

Kerry also voted for amendments to restrict the deployment of the MX missile (Reagan changed its deployment plan several times, and Bush finally stopped the program altogether) and to ban the production of nerve-gas weapons.

At the same time, in 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In 1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996, he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In 1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile. (Interestingly, the F-18 and Trident II are among the weapons systems that the RNC claims Kerry opposed.)

Are there votes in Kerry's 20-year record as a senator that might look embarrassing in retrospect? Probably. But these are not the ones.

[gldstwmn]

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040301-085725-5267r.htm

Kerry's 'liberal quotient'

On a scale that ranges from 0 to 100, Mr. Kerry compiled a composite liberal score for 2003 of 96.5, the highest in the Senate. He eclipsed proud liberals like Paul Sarbanes (94.7) of Maryland, Barbara Boxer (91.2) of California, Tom Harkin (89.3) of Iowa and the Senate's liberal lion, Edward Kennedy (88.3), his Massachusetts colleague. It was the fourth time in his 20-year Senate career that Mr. Kerry compiled a composite voting record that was unsurpassed in its liberalism by any of the other 99 members of the Senate.

[gldstwmn]

http://www.primarymonitor.com/news/stories2003/120903_dems_environmental_2003.shtml

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman have the best environmental records of the major candidates running for president in 2004, the League of Conservation Voters declared yesterday.

The worst? That, according to the League, is a no-brainer: "President George W. Bush has been the greatest foe of the environment to occupy the Oval Office in modern history," the group wrote a new report released yesterday profiling the presidential candidates' environmental records.

The League of Conservation Voters is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that calls itself "the political voice" of the environment and conservation community. The group describes itself as nonpartisan.

[strandinthewind]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy

If I hear this spin one more time :laugh:

Again, anyone making over $200,000 a year deserves nothing, nada, ziltch from the feds. You are a de facto second class citizen and if you even think about tax relief (even though you pay like 90% of the taxes) you should burn in hell. Moreover, you have no right to express any opinion contrary to the Democratic Party's appropriate class warfare tactics - dying poor and burning in hell is the penalty here as well.

Perhaps the tax code should say that :rolleyes:

[Sarah]

Have some articles, guys. :laugh:

[strandinthewind]

Kerry's Shifts: Nuanced Ideas or Flip-Flops?
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Published: March 6, 2004


OSTON, March 5 — When Senator John Kerry was speaking to Jewish leaders a few days ago, he said Israel's construction of a barrier between it and Palestinian territories was a legitimate act of self-defense. But in October, he told an Arab-American group that it was "provocative and counterproductive" and a "barrier to peace."

On Feb. 5, Mr. Kerry reacted to Massachusetts' highest court's decision legalizing same-sex marriages by saying, "I personally believe the court is dead wrong." But when asked on Feb. 24 why he believed the decision was not correct, he shot back, "I didn't say it wasn't."

Throughout his campaign, Mr. Kerry has shown a knack for espousing both sides of divisive issues. Earlier in the race he struggled to square his vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq with his loud criticism of the war and his eventual vote against $87 billion for military operations and reconstruction.

Now with the general-election campaign under way, President Bush and Republicans are already attacking Mr. Kerry for precisely this characteristic. In California this week, the president said Mr. Kerry had "been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue." And on Friday the Republican National Committee e-mailed to reporters an Internet boxing game called "Kerry vs. Kerry" designed, the committee said, to highlight the senator's "multiple positions on multiple issues."

The e-mail included a list of Mr. Kerry's stances on 30 issues, including many of the examples that were researched in preparation for this article.

In fact, this trait, perhaps a natural one for a diplomat's son, seems to have been ingrained in Mr. Kerry's personality as far back as when he volunteered for duty in Vietnam after expressing doubts about the war as a college student — and then returned home and helped lead the opposition to the war.

Some aides and close associates say Mr. Kerry's fluidity is the mark of an intellectual who grasps the subtleties of issues, inhabits their nuances and revels in the deliberative process. They call him a free-thinker who defies stereotypes. Others close to him say his often-public agonizing — over whether to opt out of the system of spending caps and matching money in this campaign, or whether to run against Al Gore in 2000 — can be exasperating.

And some Democratic strategists worry that Mr. Kerry is still an unfamiliar figure to many voters, and that these early attacks show just how vulnerable he is to being defined by the Republicans as indecisive or politically expedient.

"If Kerry fails to define himself as someone who's been consistent on values, on foreign policy, on domestic issues, then the Bush team will have succeeded in putting him in a corner," said Donna Brazile, who ran Mr. Gore's campaign in 2000. "They want to get to his integrity and his character, and they will use his voting record and previous statements to undermine that he can be trusted."

Other Democrats suggest that the areas in which Mr. Kerry has showed indecisiveness or tried to split the difference are the same ones in which most Americans are conflicted.

"Clearly he is trying to walk a very fine line on extremely divisive social issues like gay marriage and the Patriot Act," said Ron Klain, another Gore adviser in 2000. "These are issues where the political terrain is changing very rapidly, and he is trying to stay in the middle. And I think he's walking the tightrope on those issues, and doing a pretty good job of navigating it so far."

Sometimes, Mr. Kerry's stances seem to be well-thought political strategy. At no time was this more evident than the day when he spoke against opponents of gun control in an Iowa barn, then strode out to his car, unwrapped an old shotgun, and went off to shoot pheasant. The message was that hunters could be for gun control.

Other times he may tailor his stands to an audience or even run away from past positions. When Gen. Wesley K. Clark pointed to a 1992 remark by Mr. Kerry calling affirmative action "an inherently limited and divisive program," the senator denied he had ever said that.

Sometimes Mr. Kerry seems to embody contradictions. When he lost for Congress in 1972, went to law school and became a prosecutor, he stunned some of his colleagues in the antiwar movement who thought he shared their anti-authority sentiment, sharpened by Vietnam and Watergate.

"A lot of liberal Democrats in Massachusetts thought, What is this about?" said Ron Rosenblith, who met Mr. Kerry in the antiwar movement and has worked for him over the years as an aide, campaign manager and consultant. "They didn't see it as consistent."

Of course, it is just some of these aspects of Mr. Kerry — hunter, prosecutor, deficit hawk, war veteran — which now give him an answer to suggestions that he is nothing more than a "Massachusetts liberal" in the mold of Michael S. Dukakis, whom he served as lieutenant governor.

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"He doesn't fit into any neat pigeon holes," said Mr. Kerry's younger brother, Cameron, his closest adviser. "He's complex. So what?"

Those who have known him a long time say Mr. Kerry is a creature of the gray areas in politics and policy, asking endless questions about all the angles, playing the devil's advocate until his aides are exhausted, arguing as if with himself until the last possible minute.

"There's indoor John and outdoor John," said Jonathan Winer, a Washington lawyer and former State Department official who worked for Mr. Kerry from 1983 to 1994.

"Indoor John is thoughtful, works all this through, is nuanced, and so deeply into the process that you can get impatient," Mr. Winer said. "Outdoor John is a man of action. There'd be a point where, Boom! and go. Once it happened, the dialogue was over, and you wouldn't always know which way he was going to go."

Mr. Kerry's explanations for a number of the recent stances Republicans are branding as flip-flops have a common thread. He voted for the Iraq resolution but criticizes the war because, he says, the president "broke his promises" to exhaust the diplomatic process and use force only as a last resort. He voted for the education legislation known as the No Child Left Behind law but lambastes President Bush now because, Mr. Kerry says, he withheld promised additional money for education.

And on Friday, he said he had criticized the Israeli wall before the Arab-American group in October because its path was then expected to deviate widely from Israel's border into West Bank villages — though he conceded he had not made the distinction clear at the time.

Mr. Kerry also voted for the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, which he has since all but repudiated, telling Democratic audiences that the best thing Congress put into that law was a sunset clause that will make it expire next year, unless Congress renews it. He has likened the law's use against Americans to the repression of Afghans by the Taliban.

But he also says the law was necessary when it was passed, as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks. And as recently as last week, he went further, telling a group of newspaper editors and reporters, "Of course I support it," before adding that his objections were mainly to the way Attorney General John Ashcroft had been "abusing" it.

People who have worked closely with him in the Senate say that Mr. Kerry tends to split differences. A longtime friend and aide put it this way: "On some major issues there are yes-but votes and no-but votes. He sees a lot of them as yes-but."

A "yes-but" can also be revisited. Mr. Kerry's critics have cited his position on the death penalty as evidence that even his core convictions can be bent to his political ambition. He was a longtime opponent of capital punishment but came out in favor of an exception for terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Rosenblith said Mr. Kerry had been thinking about the issue for years. He recalled that Mr. Kerry had terrorists on his mind when the subject arose in his re-election campaign against Gov. William F. Weld in 1996. "Even in '96, he thought that was a close call," Mr. Rosenblith said, remembering an elaborate discussion of the issue. He said Mr. Kerry decided against a death penalty for terrorists at that time because he thought it would keep other countries from extraditing terrorism suspects to the United States.

Indeed, Mr. Kerry said in a debate that Mr. Weld's support for the death penalty "would amount to a terrorist-protection policy."

What changed Mr. Kerry's mind, Mr. Rosenblith said, was that after Sept. 11, 2001, "other countries are far less likely to say, `No, we're not going to turn over this person to you.' "

"The world looks at terrorism very differently," Mr. Rosenblith said.

Mr. Winer, the former aide, who worked with Mr. Kerry on terrorism and many other issues, described Mr. Kerry's complexity as right for the times.

"Between the moral clarity, black and white, good and evil of George Bush that distorts and gets reality wrong," he said, "and someone who quotes a French philosopher, André Gide, saying, `Don't try to understand me too much,' I'd let Americans decide which in the end is closer to what they need in a president, in a complex world where if you get it really wrong there are enormous consequences."

[GypsySorcerer]

Why The Corporate
Media Killed Dean's Campaign
The Scream
By David Podvin
MakeThemAccountable.com
2-11-4


On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, "We're going to break up the giant media enterprises." This pronouncement went far beyond the governor's previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.

It was an extraordinarily noble and dangerous thing to do: when he advocated a truly free press, Dr. Dean was provoking the corrupt media conglomerates that control what most Americans see and hear and read, and thereby control what most Americans think.

The media giants quickly responded by crushing his high-flying campaign with the greatest of ease. This time, they didn't even have to invent a scandal in order to achieve the desired result; merely by chanting the word "unelectable" at maximum volume, the mainstream media maneuvered Democratic voters into switching their support to someone who poses no threat to the status quo.



John Kerry is a member in good standing of the feeble Daschle/Biden/Feinstein wing of the Democratic Party, a group of politicians whose disagreements with the mercantile elite tend to be merely rhetorical. Any doubts about Kerry's level of commitment to his stated progressive beliefs were conclusively answered in 1994 when he proclaimed himself "delighted" with the Republican takeover of Congress. The media oligarchy knows that a general election race between Kerry and George W. Bush will insure a continuation of its monopoly, regardless of who wins.

The news cartel had always been hostile to Dean; independent surveys revealed that he had received the most negative coverage of any candidate except Dennis Kucinich (the only other contender who strongly favors mandatory media divestment). But after his statement on Hardball, reporting about Dean abruptly came to an end and was replaced by supposition. The existing conjecture in political circles about his ability to win was transformed into a thunderous media mantra that drowned out all other issues

By mid-December, the news divisions of the four major television networks were reporting as fact that Dean was unelectable. The print media echoed the theme; on December 17, the Washington Post printed a front-page story that posited Dean could not win the presidency. The Post quickly followed up with an onslaught of articles and editorials reasserting that claim. Before the month was over, Dean's lack of electability had been highlighted in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and every other major paper in the United States.

As 2004 began, Time and Newsweek simultaneously ran cover stories emphasizing that Dean was unelectable. In the weeks before the Iowa caucus, the ongoing topic of discussion on the political panel shows was that Dean was unelectable. National talk radio shows repeatedly stressed that Dean was unelectable. The corporate Internet declared that Dean was unelectable. And the mainstream media continued with the storyline that Dean was unelectable right up until Iowans attended their caucuses. Iowa Democrats could not watch a television or listen to a radio or read a newspaper or go online without learning that Howard Dean was unelectable.

It was the classic Big Lie. Through the power of repetition, the corporate media ñ which has been wrong about who would win the popular vote in two of the last three presidential elections ñ inculcated the public with the message that Dean could not win. Pollster John Zogby wrote, "Howard Dean was the man of the year, but that was 2003. In 2004, electability has become the issue and John Kerry has benefited."

The unexamined factor is how electability became "the issue". It had never before been the dominant consideration in Democratic primaries, because voters had focused on policy rather than crystal ball gazing. Electability was this campaign's version of "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet": it was a media contrivance that was used to manipulate voters.

On January 19, Democratic caucus goers in Iowa ñ who were the initial intended audience for this propaganda disguised as reportage ñ overwhelmingly repudiated Dean, telling pollsters they believed he was unelectable. Later that evening, Dean yelled encouragement to his supporters at a pep rally, an incident that provided the pretext for the coup de gr,ce.

During the week leading up to the New Hampshire primary, the media obsessed about Dean's "bizarre" rally incident, adding "un-presidential" and "emotionally unstable" to its descriptions of the governor. The unified message was that Dean had self-destructed. When he finished a distant second in New Hampshire, journalists and pundits hailed the defeat as confirmation of their premise that Dean had always been unelectable.

Yet there had been no tangible basis for that assertion. At the beginning of 2004, a poll conducted by Time magazine showed that Dean trailed Bush by only six points. That was a smaller deficit than Gore faced shortly before the general election in 2000, and he wound up getting the most popular votes. Undaunted by this evidence to the contrary, reporters adhered to the motif that Dean had absolutely no chance.

Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times is one of the many deceitful corporate scribes who obediently supplemented the "Dean is unelectable" message with its companion lie, "Dean is emotionally unstable", although she was a little slow on the uptake. In a report she authored the night of the pep rally, Gold wrote, "We will not give up!" (Dean) declared, his gravelly voice barely audible over the din of applause inside the '70s-style disco hall. "We will not quit, now or ever! We want our country back!"

But twenty-four hours later, when it had become clear that the official corporate media version of events was to be Dean had gone berserk, Gold omitted all reference to the noise over which the Democrat had been shouting: "Dean leapt onto the stage, tore off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His face beet-red, he punched his fists in the air and spoke in a near-guttoral (sic) roar. The frenetic response to his poor showing struck many as inappropriate."

Gold's colleague at the Times, Ronald Brownstein, joined the chorus of supposedly objective journalists who expressed relief after witnessing Dean's apparent demise. Brownstein has written that it is "reassuring" to see Democrats abandon Dean. And to whom is it reassuring? It is reassuring to Brownstein's employers at the Tribune Company, which recently reported record earnings as a result of media deregulation implemented by Bush.

Howard Fineman, the author of the Newsweek attack on Dean, has now written an analysis of why Dean fell so far, so fast. One of the reasons Fineman cites is that Dean has been too "defiant". And whom has the former governor of Vermont been defying? When Dean advocated breaking up the media giants, he was defying Fineman's employers at the Washington Post Company, which recently reported record earnings as a result of media deregulation implemented by Bush.

Those Democrats who have been hoodwinked into believing Dean self-destructed by yelling at a pep rally should recall how the major media handled Bush's drunk-driving arrest that a small Maine newspaper revealed right before the 2000 election. It was an incident that on the surface seemed as though it should have been politically fatal ñ the candidate who had based his campaign on the vow that "I will restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office" was proven to have lied about drunkenly driving off a road.

Demonstrably, it is never what a politician does that creates a scandal; it is always whether the television networks and major metropolitan newspapers respond to the incident with saturation coverage. When a presidential candidate who was committed to deregulating the corporate media got caught lying about breaking the law, the importance of the event was minimized. When a presidential candidate who was committed to breaking up the corporate media got caught shouting at a pep rally, the importance of the event was maximized.

The scream that had the greatest impact on the Democratic presidential campaign was not Dean's gonzo yell in Iowa, but the deafening roar of deceit that emanated from Corporate America's media subsidiaries. The downfall of the Democratic frontrunner was not self-induced; it was self-defense. Dean had threatened to mess with General Electric, Viacom, Disney, the New York Times Company, the Washington Post Company, et al., so they messed with him first.

Such corporate vigilance is inconsistent with the principles of American democracy, but welcome to the real world. In a dictatorship, the tiny minority of well-armed people maintains absolute power by intimidating the vast majority of unarmed people. In a democracy that is populated by citizens who get their information from a few greedy companies, the tiny minority of well-informed people maintains absolute power by manipulating the vast majority of misinformed people. When you control what people think, there is no need to point a gun at them.

In recent years, corporations have dramatically increased their power at the expense of the average citizen (and with the apathetic complicity of the average citizen). Big Business has evolved from merely being a vital part of society into being master of both the political system and the means of communication. As a result, the boundaries of the national debate are now defined by the interests of the Fortune 500, and the malefactors of great wealth have become increasingly brazen. Americans used to laugh at banana republics, where the ruling elites are so shamelessly debauched that judges go on duck hunting trips with the politicians whose cases they are scheduled to review, but it doesn't seem quite so funny anymore.

After the last presidential election, the corporate functionaries on the Supreme Court overrode the will of the people by empowering the man who had lost. It was an awkward procedure, so the process has been refined. In 2004, the mainstream media is rapidly disqualifying all the candidates who fail to honor the business agenda, thus eliminating the need for another controversial judicial intervention.

Howard Dean's campaign now lies in ruins because he chose to confront the multinational conglomerates that run this country. If Dean is so resilient that he fights his way back into contention, the Fourth Estate will be ready to batter him again. In the United States of America, people who pose a threat to the reigning corporate establishment are destroyed. Or, as the Soviets used to put it, emotionally unstable individuals who deviate from the party line are guilty of engaging in "self-destruction".

-----------
Kerry is better than Bush on social issues, but the differences between them otherwise are minimal IMO. I don't like or hate either one of them. I don't think either are presidential material. I am voting third party and will await the day when McCain or Giuliani runs.

[gldstwmn]

McCain and Giuliani are out stumping for Bush. McCain ran in 2000 and Karl Rove did a push poll leading people to believe that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. It led to his eventual demise in the race. On a brighter note, he and Kerry have worked together for a long time on veterans issues. Howard Dean did himself in and he only won one primary, his home state of Vermont. Kerry's liberal voting record speaks for itself.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/06/pf/buffett_letter/index.htm?cnn=yes

Buffett speaks

Berkshire chairman's annual letter attacks CEOs, funds, Bush tax policies, and the trade deficit.

Buffett, who has been a vocal critic of a number of Bush administration tax policies, used the letter to voice his opposition again.


"Tax breaks for corporations (and their investors, particularly large ones) were a major part of the Administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives," he wrote. "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning."

Nevertheless, Berkshire's own tax bill has risen dramatically. In 2002, Buffett noted, the company paid $1.75 billion in federal taxes. This year, it expects to pay $3.3 billion, a sum Buffett estimates to equal 2.5 percent of total taxes to be paid by all U.S. corporations.

[GypsySorcerer]

McCain and Giuliani are just rallying behind their Party. I don't buy into the idea of them, McCain especially, thinking Bush is fantastic. I do not think Howard Dean did himself in, to be honest.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/stories/0402/040209cnn.shtml (http://http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/stories/0402/040209cnn.shtml)

How can you explain Dean's quick demise? People were afraid of Howard Dean. Wow..... I sound like a liberal now. :laugh: :laugh:

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer
McCain and Giuliani are just rallying behind their Party. I don't buy into the idea of them, McCain especially, thinking Bush is fantastic. I do not think Howard Dean did himself in, to be honest.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/stories/0402/040209cnn.shtml (http://http://www.abcactionnews.com/entertainment/stories/0402/040209cnn.shtml)

How can you explain Dean's quick demise? People were afraid of Howard Dean. Wow..... I sound like a liberal now. :laugh: :laugh:

I wasn't afraid of Howard Dean at all. Being a Democrat, I've heard all the scuttlebutt from his supporters about the media doing Howard Dean in. Thanks for the link but I've already read it. Howard Dean blew $40 million on a mismanaged campaign and then when he unexpectedly lost in Iowa, flipped out on national television. Even with no sound, it wasn't pretty. He should have been well aware that the eyes of this country were upon him as he gave his speech. His loss wasn't that big a deal, but he sure made it one. Not the hallmark of a great leader. As far as him being a left winger, HoDe is as centrist as it gets. Just look at how he governed Vermont. He also had no foreign policy experience and in the debates it showed. This country needs a strong foreign policy more than ever right now. It's simple really. He lost because people didn't vote for him.

[GypsySorcerer]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
I wasn't afraid of Howard Dean at all. Being a Democrat, I've heard all the scuttlebutt from his supporters about the media doing Howard Dean in. Thanks for the link but I've already read it. Howard Dean blew $40 million on a mismanaged campaign and then when he unexpectedly lost in Iowa, flipped out on national television. Even with no sound, it wasn't pretty. He should have been well aware that the eyes of this country were upon him as he gave his speech. His loss wasn't that big a deal, but he sure made it one. Not the hallmark of a great leader. As far as him being a left winger, HoDe is as centrist as it gets. Just look at how he governed Vermont. He also had no foreign policy experience and in the debates it showed. This country needs a strong foreign policy more than ever right now. It's simple really. He lost because people didn't vote for him.


Howard Dean is a centrist? :eek:

I guess it just goes to show that centrist is a subjective term. To me McCain and Lieberman are centrists.

To each his own, I guess! :wavey:

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by GypsySorcerer
Howard Dean is a centrist? :eek:

I guess it just goes to show that centrist is a subjective term. To me McCain and Lieberman are centrists.



To me, Lieberman and McCain are Conservatives.:)

[CarneVaca]

Howard Dean did himself in by being honest and targeting certain sacred cows that the mainstream Democrats and the crooked Republicans won't dare touch. That includes the media conglomerates.

The media destroyed Dean, plain and simple.

It's nothing new. Go back to the 2000 Nader campaign, the WTO demonstrations and the anti-Iraq war movements. The media ignored these until it was no longer possible to do so, and when it started paying attention, it was only to shed negative light on them. With Dean, the media started paying attention earlier but quickly reached the conclusion he had to be knocked out.

The mainstream media and the Republicans are good friends, regardless of the constant accusations of a "liberal media."

One still barely tapped way to fight back: the Internet. It will conquer all sooner or later. And he/she who figures out how to do it will rule.