I think one important thing to keep in mind when an incumbent is up for reelection is that we live in a representative democracy. The basic ideal of this system of government, and what our founding fathers had in mind when writing the Constitution (read some of the Federalist papers...amazing stuff in those things), is that elected officials should be ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE.

If you are displeased with an elected official's performance in office, you let them know when they are up for reelection, and vote for their opponent.

Please read post #30. :)

Amen brother. Amen. :cool:

Then you have no right to complain.

Holy Crap!! Can you believe that thanks to that post I now realize (for the first time) that posts are numbered! :eek: Wow...I feel a little moronish now :laugh:

Yeah, and after he raises taxes on the middle-class, he'll run for re-election. :rolleyes:

His tax plan is almost identical to Clinton's and it's what we should still have. Unfortunately, Dimson is in office.

I already did :) That's the post that made me want to say what i did. :)
AMber

You, my friend, are absolutely right.

This is how I look at it... Bush has had four years to prove his worth, and what he's proven to me is that he does not deserve another four.
For me, the things he's botched far outweigh anything he's done correctly. And there aren't even that many things in the latter category to begin with!

I strongly feel that John Kerry will whole-heartedly seek to protect this country and its interests from further terrorist attacks.
I strongly feel that he will take steps to strengthen our economy.
I strongly believe that, while he won't be quite as strong on gay rights as I would like, he also won't actively seek to further deny our rights.
I strongly feel that he will work to mend our ties with Foreign countries alienated by the current administration.
And I strongly feel that he will work to stop the erosion in our country's education system.

For those reasons, Kerry has my vote. And the myriad reasons I am disappointed in the current administration, is why Bush will not.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I don't think this is actually any of my business because I'm British but if you wanted a view from the other side of the pond here goes.

George Bush comes across as acting like a playground bully. He acts as he pleases with no thought for any other interest except that of the US and yet he wants us all to help. (Grow a spine Tony Blair)

What was our reward for standing shoulder to shoulder with the US in Afganistan? (Correctly in my view) Tariffs slapped on our steel exports. Way to go Dubya!

I believe Kerry may be more inclusive. If America wants to lead the world it needs to take us along with it not bully us into submission. It depends whether you give a damn what the rest of the world thinks. George Bush doesn't.

Just my two penneth. Don't know if that helped or not.

Gail

Alright then. I'm guessing that this is your first presidential election? Well, lucky you. Thanks to the current administration, we are not simply voting for a candidate for president. We are voting and fighting for the very life of this republic and it's democracy as well-hence my greater good comment. We cannot afford at this time in our history to try to fine tune the mechanisms of our democracy with third parties when the our way of life is at peril. They are a luxury we cannot afford this year. This country is not the country it was four years ago. And that is directly attributable to a third party.
George Bush and his neocon cronies are quite simply the most frightening, divisive and destructive group of people to EVER grace 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We have this one opportunity to retain our democracy and way of life. There is one candidate who can realistically defeat George Bush on November 2. Anyone who is interested in the great good of all of us and realizes that we are all in this together will understand that there is only one way to vote next Tuesday. The neocons will not relinquish their power easily. It must be a clear and concise victory.

"We must hang together, or surely we shall hang separately" -- Benjamin Franklin

yeah, i read your post before, and in mine, I said i was voting for Kerry. Perhaps you should take another gander at my point? :) I see yours. I made a different one. And no, it's not my first election, and i have been studying history for years, and have sufficient brain power, so I don't need to be patronized. :wavey:
AMber

Well folks...
 

guess I am against the "great good of all of us" then...Even though I WILL NOT VOTE FOR BUSH!!!!!!!!

Brian j.

"I always may drown but at least I drown on my own terms."

I think you absolutely have a right to voice your opinion. Your people are just as far into this Iraq debacle as we are. I just read that the Black Watch were deployed to Basra. It just makes me ill. :distress:

I wrote my post knowing that you were voting for Kerry. I am not patronizing you. You asked me a question and I answered it. I merely asked if it was your first presidential election. Nothing was implied further than that.

Drown if you must, my friend.

It must be a clear and concise victory.

I will...
 

so I am content.

Which question did i ask you?

I do appreciate your opinion. One of the attys I was talking to yesterday mentioned she was in London a few months ago and said that Americans in general seem to be looked down upon because of Bush.

Thanks for the input!

Carol

Thanks, Johnny, for stating it so plainly.

And thanks to everyone who gave me their input. I REALLY do appreciate it. Four years ago I would have thought my one little vote is just that, one vote, and doesn't make a difference. Living in FL through that whole fiasco, of course now I know differently. :rolleyes: Now I heard on the radio today that, in a poll of 850 probable voters in NJ, both Kerry and Bush got 46%. So I really do want to make a more informed decision this time.

Diss, I did go to kerry's website and read a good bit of it with interest. It's funny, but I do a LOT of research on the Internet for work, fun, shopping, etc., and I never even thought to look for johnkerry.com. DUH... :shrug:

Carol

You may be foolish in fashion my dear (can you say BIRKENSTOCKS :eek: ) - but you are far from a moron :cool: :xoxo: :)

I learned a valueable political lesson...
 

from the new "South Park" episode tonight:

"Since the beginning of time all elections have been between a turd and a douche. Just get used to it..."

Brian "Turd Sandwich in 2004" j.

Try this one on for size - I mean notwithstanding W's assinine domestic policy of "gay people are ruining our society so let's give a tax break and then borrow more than we can ever pay back: :rolleyes: - this foreign policy of his just insane and he and Cheney gleefully assert it as the truth - to wit and from www. nytimes.com:

October 28, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
White House of Horrors
By MAUREEN DOWD

ick Cheney peaked too soon. We've still got a few days left until Halloween.

It was scary enough when we thought the vice president had created his own reality for spin purposes. But if he actually believes that Iraq is "a remarkable success story,'' it's downright spooky. He's already got his persona for Sunday: he's the mad scientist in the haunted mansion, fiddling with test tubes to force the world to conform to his twisted vision.

After 9/11, Mr. Cheney swirled his big black cape and hunkered down in his undisclosed dungeon, reading books about smallpox and plague and worst-case terrorist scenarios. His ghoulish imagination ran wild, and he dragged the untested president and jittery country into his house of horrors, painting a gory picture of how Iraq could let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers.

He yanked America into war to preclude that chilling bloodbath. But in a spine-tingling switch, the administration's misbegotten invasion of Iraq has let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers. It's also forged the links between Al Qaeda and the Sunni Baathists that Mr. Cheney and his crazy-eyed Igors at the Pentagon had fantasized about to justify their hunger to remake the Middle East.

It's often seen in scary movies: you play God to create something in your own image, and the monster you make ends up coming after you.

Determined to throw a good scare into the Arab world, the vice president ended up scaring up the swarm of jihadist evil spirits he had conjured, like the overreaching sorcerer in "Fantasia." The Pentagon bungled the occupation so badly, it caused the insurgency to grow like the Blob.

Just as Catherine Deneuve had bizarre hallucinations in the horror classic "Repulsion,'' Mr. Cheney and the neocons were in a deranged ideological psychosis, obsessing about imaginary weapons while allowing enemies to spirit the real ones away.

The officials charged with protecting us set off so many false alarms that they ignored all the real ones.

President Bush is like one of the blissfully ignorant teenagers in "Friday the 13th'' movies, spouting slogans like "Freedom is on the march'' while Freddy Krueger is in the closet, ready to claw his skin off.

Mr. Bush ignored his own experts' warnings that Osama bin Laden planned to attack inside the U.S., that an invasion of Iraq could create a toxic partnership between outside terrorists and Baathists and create sympathy for them across the Islamic world, that Donald Rumsfeld was planning a war and occupation without enough troops, that Saddam's aluminum tubes were not for nuclear purposes, that U.S. troops should safeguard 380 tons of sealed explosives that could bring down planes and buildings, and that, after the invasion, Iraq could erupt into civil war.

And, of course, the president ignored Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning: if you break it, you own it.

Their Iraqi puppet, Ayad Allawi, turned on Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush this week, in a scene right out of "Chucky.'' Mr. Allawi accused coalition forces of "major negligence'' for not protecting the unarmed Iraqi National Guard trainees who were slaughtered by insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms. Iraqi recruits are getting killed so fast we can't even pretend that we're going to turn the country over to them.

If you really want to be chilled to the bone this Halloween, listen to what Peter W. Galbraith, a former diplomat who helped advance the case for an Iraq invasion at the request of Paul Wolfowitz, said in a column yesterday in The Boston Globe.

He said he'd told Mr. Wolfowitz about "the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion, the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.'' He told Mr. Wolfowitz that mobs were looting Iraqi labs of live H.I.V. and black fever viruses and making off with barrels of yellowcake.

"Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites,'' he said.

In his column, Mr. Galbraith said weapons looted from the arms site called Al Qaqaa might have wound up in Iran, which could obviously use them to pursue nuclear weapons.

In April 2003 in Baghdad, he said, he told a young U.S. lieutenant stationed across the street that H.I.V. and black fever viruses had just been looted. The soldier had been devastated and said, "I hope I'm not responsible for Armageddon.''

Too bad that never occurred to Dr. Cheneystein.

Ah, but you're forgetting the surplus created by Clinton's economic policies, which could easily be created again and used to lower the deficit. ;) Once governemnt waste is substantially lowered, we will only benefit.

And he's not proposing JUST rolling back tax cuts, methinsk you should bone up on his plans.

But since you aren't going to vote, I could care less. :wavey:

Did you just say anything in politics could be done easily :laugh:

what a sad statement.

We have a great privelage in this country to vote....to me the "I don't like either of em" is just an excuse....I mean you can't find one single thing that you agree with one more than the other on? But just to not vote..."because they don't need my vote" it's sad.

I have not missed one election since I turned 18...I take my right to vote very seriously and it saddens me the apathy of those who don't....

And I don't think you dismiss Kerry's policies by saying they can't be compared to Clinton's; the bones of almost all of his economic plans are based on Clinton's. Again, please go read them, it has nothing to do with conceding to Rethuglicans every once in awhile.

At least I'm voting, no matter if it's for Cobb or Kerry (and I'm voting Kerry). Sorry, but those who are eligible to vote but don't have no right to complain about things because they could have done their duty.

People expect to get candidates that agree with them on every issue. They choose not to vote out of anger and disappointment when that mythical candidate never arrives on his white steed.

:nod: :sad: Yeah - I just don't get that I guess...I mean no, I don't agree with Kerry on every single thing...but on the things I consider important I agree more with KErry than with Bush...:shrug: I dont have to be in love with someone to vote for them...geez....I think it's just a right that people should exercise...

HOwever I am also aware that there are people who DO go vote with absolutely NO knowledge of what they're doing...case in point - I believe it was my grandma who voted for John KEnnedy because ---- he was the cuter candidate :rolleyes:

True...
 

looks seem to matter to some voters, But if that was the case I wouldnt be voting for any males cause I find women cuter/sexier :nod:

My Mom likes to call Kerry "Herman-Munster" cause of his gigantic noggin' & his (indeed) resemblance to the beloved Munsters character, But she has even worse things to say about Bush (She rips him a new hole when his name is brought up in phone conversations)...So I think I know where her vote will be going.

Brian j.

Put Nixon next to a farm hog and she would have voted for the farm hog...the cuter candidate. :laugh:

If you really research a candidate you will never agree with the candidate on EVERYTHING...You have to choose the one who will best lead the country...I used to think that was W, why? Because I used to only listen to WHAT HE SAID...I listened to his fabrications about the economy, I was close-minded about abortion and I listened when he told me about his "Values," I bought into the whole thing....until ONE DAY, I woke up...

Bush says "41 million seniors now have access to lower cost prescriptions." Is Bush so dumb that he doesnt realize that this MMA (medical modernization act) wont even go in to effect until 2006? He's already praising it's outcome, when it hasn't even went into effect yet.

BOTH candidates have misled in their ads, about the other...But Bush's are far more far-fetched. Kerry is more prone to, in his speeches and ads, say things that are true but just leave out some parts...while Bush just makes up stuff period.
During the 2000 presidential campaign Bush promised to increase the maximum size of Pell Grants to $5,100 for first-year students, well it's still only at $4050, at he's had four years! And under his 2005 proposal the maximum would still remain frozen!

President Bush could not even name ONE mistake he's made, other than "some minor appointments to some offices you probably have never heard of." In the debate he denied saying he " You know, I just don't spend that much time on him...I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him" (him being Osama Bin Laden)

Bush claims that his administration is the one who blocked contaminated flu vaccine from entering the USA. The British blocked it, NOT the USA. It was The British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.


Kerry exaggerates sometimes when mentioning the surplus Clinton left us with...He says "5.6 trillion" , but we never actually had that, that was the projected surplus. Kerry's only problem I see is his wording, he should've said PROJECTED..or he should have said "$236 billion" which is what we ACTUALLY reached.

Bush is just either really stupid, or thinks that if he just makes things up us dumb Americans will just believe...He is the biggest exaggerator and misleader among any President I have ever studied in history.
Ralph Nader said it best today in a press conference "George W. Bush is the most impeachable President in History..more impeachable than Nixon...than Clinton."

Chris

Politics in America are like a three-ringed-circus...a total joke...look what's happening now...people voting for the lesser of two evils...a party electing a candidate they don't really fully support but have to because they want their party in the White House and didn't think they could win with someone as far to the left as Dean. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic so yes, I do understand the frustration of people when it comes to politics.

There willl never be a candidate that agrees with people on every issue. Ever. You have two parties so deeply engrained in our American history that have changed and evolved into something they were never meant to be, IMO. There is either the right or the left. I don't agree with everything Republicans have to say (despite popular belief, i'm not even registered as a Republican) but I don't agree with everything that Democrats have to say either. There will never be some candidate that will arrive on his white steed and save us all because there are two parties that will never let it happen. Let's be honest, if you really want to get elected in this country, you have to be running as a Democrat or as a Republican. Very few Independents get elected to office. What is so deplorable about the way things work in our country is that you have people running for office on the Republican and Democratic tickets that perhaps don't believe with all of the ideology their party stands for but run anyway so we miss out on what they really have to offer. No wonder why people in other countries look quizzically at us when it comes time to elect a President. They don't get it. I'd venture to guess most American's don't get it either because honestly, it makes no sense.

However, voting is a right and not a privelage and I wish all people would take time, become educated on the issues that matter to them (i know pretty much everyone on here is incredibly educated which is why we have such good debate) and go out and vote for something.

I'd have to agree with that crazy old bastard about that.

Sure sure politics in America has gone to the rats...whatever


I support John Kerry and what he stands for, fully. This, unlike many people would like you to believe, is not a year when MOST people are electing the lesser of two evils. John Kerry's support is huge. It's not just people with the ABB (anybody but Bush) mindset either....many Republicans have crossed the line to support Kerry... I believe, unlike Bush, that Kerry's values are more with the mainstream of America than Bush's. Bush says Kerry is way away from the mainstream, but in fact he's not.

I will vote for whoever I like, whoever represents me best. If a good Republican runs...I just as likely would vote for him, if I agree with him on the important issues to me. It makes no difference to me. I just happen to agree more with Democrats. I do not think American politics has gone down the drain. I think if we elect John Kerry, the USA will be better for it.

I just got an email from some Bush 527 saying "so much is at stake this year..watch this video.." and went on to talk about "With Kerry's liberal voting record on issues important to national security, we cannot risk not electing George Bush.." We need Kerry

Chris

I wasn't asking you to agree with me, I was making an educated statement based on history and based on politics in general. Of course, i'm from NJ...land of a thousand crooked politicians so what the hell do I know? Studying it, living it, you start to become really disenchanted with how it works. Again, that's my opinion. That was all I was saying. It's all about control and all about power flip flopping between to parties.

I agree, people...Violet included...need to vote for who will serve their needs best. For some that's Kerry, for others that's Bush. We all lead different lives so we're not going to be united on this one. What's of importance to one might not be the main importance of another.

So Violet, without saying vote this way or vote that way, just pick the issues that matter to you most and vote for the candidate that will guide you through the next four years.

Violet I encourage you to take the Presidential Matchmaker Quiz...very useful...based on your answers on the issues they present, they compare them with the answers the candidates gave...and it gives you a percentage, on who you are most compatible with, based on issues.. When you take it, just answer the question based on how you really feel...and in the end I always leave blank the field of which candidate you prefer so it can be un biased..
http://www.presidentmatch.com/Main.jsp2


Chris

Thanks for the link...
 

I went and gave my answers on the issues listed, Here are the results:

Kerry 71%
Bush 25%

Brian j.

ps-So what the hell happened to the other 4%??? Maybe lost in the "Voting Bermuda Rectangle" of Flori-DUH?

Nader/Camejo?
heh, I love Camejo, i voted for him for gov. He has an investment company that we've done some printing for, and they only invest in "green" "socially responsible" stuff.
Amber "I love Camejo" G

I got:

Kerry 90%
Bush 2%

:lol: