True Believers: Inside the Dean Campaign
 

Anyone see it tonight?

All I can say is that, boy, Dean sure is an asshole. :laugh:

And Trippi is a god. :nod:

This is what you got from the show!?

What I got is that once the media decided it was going to knock Dean down, it happened fairly quickly.

I also got a very real sense that there's a lot of people out there who feel the same way I do. Those people might vote for Kerry if they hold their noses.

:laugh:

I know many people who think Kerry is an arrogant, snooty, Yankee, but they are begrudgingly going to vote for him because W is such a malapprop. :laugh:

That's not all I got from the show; it just confirmed what I believed all along. Joe Trippi was the entire campaign, not HoDe. HoDe came off as the spokesman for Trippi, IMO. I was stunned when Dean called Trippi and told him "Kerry's giving MY stump speech." Dean just really rubbed me the wrong way by how he acted towards Trippi.

I thought it was very telling of the media when one of the campaign staffers showed the actual clip of the "I Have A Scream" speech. The Lieberman memo sickened me and my heart really went out to those kids. You could see the hurt in their eyes when they lost Iowa.

The media were lying in wait ever since Dean began his campaign. The ambush over the caucus statements were rather shocking, too. They weren't just doing their job, they were being vicious.

Re: True Believers: Inside the Dean Campaign
 

Wonder how much he sold this to CNN for?:)

And they'll be pleasantly surprised even though he is a Yankee.

Or they'll sit around a bitch about losing and tilt at windmills for the next four years.:)

You ain't going to see me complain about Kerry losing.

I know 'cause he ain't going to.:)

what about arrogant and snooty :laugh: :wavey: ;) :laugh:

OK, then, I shall complain... ;)

I know he's not your choice, but could he really be worse than Bush?

I just don't see it.

And I still don't see how anyone can support a president who's pushing to forever change the constitution, to insure the perpetuation of discrimination.

I've never said that. I merely insist, and will continue to insist, that he is not good enough. So wasn't Gore. We can do better.

Johnny, if we could only knock down this two-party mental prison and get all these people who are holding their noses to vote for Kerry, combine them with the third-party voters who are left of center and all the left-of-center non-voters out there who simply are too disgusted with politics, we might be able to do something good. It ain't gonna happen this year, I realize. But do you think that putting Democrats in the White House who keep trying to out-Republican the Republicans is the answer in the long run?

Band-aids are only going to get us so far. What I see happening with the Democrats is a refusal to deal with the issues.

They would have been forced to by now if not for 9/11. The WTO protests were beginning to shape up as a repeat of the 1960s. Then we saw some signs of life with the anti-war demonstrations, but those died down. The movement is not dead, though. We'll see a resumption of these movements by people who are a lot less patient within a couple years when Iraq has become even messier and jobs have continued to be exported. And that will happen with Bush or Kerry.

There are fundamental issues that the Democrats have refused to address, and when Edwards or Kerry addressed them superficially, it was only to steal Dean's thunder.

Jason and I have had this conversation before, and I'm not saying that the Democratic party is perfect.
They've disappointed me on many occasions, but the idea of four more years of the current Republican/conservative agenda for discrimination and intolerance, scares the hell out of me.

If Kerry is merely a temporary bandage, so be it... but we need to stop the hemorrhaging.
I sincerely believe that it'll only be after Bush is out of office, that we can start fixing what's wrong.

If he gets a second-term, it seems almost hopeless for many of the issues I believe most strongly about. And I don't like living in a world where there's no hope.

Johnny, I certainly appreciate your position. Those are the same issues that trouble me. But I believe this nation is stronger than what another four years of Bushism can do. After all, we've made it through slavery, a civil war, the suffrage movement and the Civil Rights movement, and came out on the correct (not to say right) side of the issues. But there had to be real struggle and pain. Acquiescing to mediocrity does not a great nation make.

So, what I'm saying to you is, it ain't hopeless if Bush wins. That's what the Democrats want you to believe. They're using fear tactics, just like the Republicans do. If they could only focus on the real issues instead...

Interstingly, I think that if Kerry gets in, he will effectuate change. It may not be as much as I want. But, no Pres. could ever do that. So, I am going with the only one of the two wih a chance to win that at least kind of thinks in my direction even if it means I will probably wind up paying over half of what I make to some a$$hole govt. agency at the local, state, and Fed. levels when all is combined :laugh:

I've pretty much avoided all the propaganda from both "sides"... it's Bush's own statements and opinions on this matter, that have me most concerned.
When coupled with the increasingly conservative (and narrow-minded) leanings in this country, it becomes a pretty frightening thing.

So I hope you're correct, that another Bush win isn't the nail in the coffin for gay rights.
But it'll most certainly add another four years (and God knows how long after that), to the already long road. :distress:

I thought when I said Yankee you understood that I meant the full description of Yankee.:)

Just imagine what would have happened if he made it to the GE and Bush did that to him.

:eek: :laugh: :laugh: :wavey: :wavey:

I guess ultimately I can't quarrel with your position. Something that strikes at your core is hard to ignore.

I just think this issue is unfortunately being used to make political hay. On the one hand, you got Bush saying he wants an amendment he knows full well it ain't ever going to pass. There is also some evidence that he doesn't even care about this issue and he's just using it to get the so-called Christian right (christian, my cheek!) to vote for him. On the other hand, the Democrats are taking their typically rubber-spined approach. "Sure, I support civil unions, but marriage is for a man and a woman." What the f***k is that? Slimy politics, plain and simple. I tell you what, if Kerry had the fortitude to stand up and say he will support gay marriage with no strings attached, I might vote for him.

In light of that, if you are looking for a candidate who truly supports your right to marry whomever you want, your candidate is Ralph Nader.

The other guys are just playing politics. And there will never be an amendment. Both the Democrats and the Republicans know it.

ITA agree Carne. W and/or Rove essentially played this marriage issue very smartly IMO. W saw that his outrageous spending was alienating his far, far right core, which primarily is what is termed the religious right. W and Rove also know that people in general cringe when they think of gay people in any fashion much less having sex. So, they marry (sorry :laugh: ) the two issues. Then they point to gay people and say these hedonistic Biblically abhorrable sodomites are responsible for the woes your world. They, not me, are to blame for the failing of American values, etc. Then, they know they can count on just about every church in America saying God will strike us all dead a la Soddom and Gommorah (sp.?) if gay people come out from the closeted and proverbial back of the bus - it is up to you to prevent God's wrath, which I know is coming, etc. They also know the mainstream D's do not want to touch this with a ten foot pole because most of America to use their words "tolerate" :rolleyes: gay people but just do not want to drink from the same water fountain as them. Blah Blah Blah :mad:

Strand, I agree with most of your assessment. Except, I think that more than half of Americans are OK with homosexuality these days. Only a minority views it in religious terms anyway. To be sure, there is a lot of prejudice still. But if push came to shove, most of us would just have to admit that we have relatives, friends, co-workers, what have you, who are gay, and that their being gay really has no bearing on our relationship with them.

Yeah, you're right on. That amendment will never pass and Bush knows it. He's catering to his home base. And Kerry is tiptoeing along the fence.

But I do think that the Christian religion is deeply ingrained in American politics. It will be a long, long time before an openly atheist person is elected President. The closest we ever came to that, ironically, was when the country was in its infancy. The Supreme Court has already gotten around the issue of whether government offices being closed on Sunday endorsed a national religion.