Hell, I’d have voted for McCain. But no, more tax cuts! MORE!
It’s not just more tax cuts, it’s more tax cuts WHILE WE ARE DEFICIT SPENDING. And tax cuts that are likely to help the well off a whole lot more than the struggling. Ouch.
Republicans talk the fiscal conservatism game, then spend like drunken sailors. Reagan did it too.
“By the year 2002, we can have a federal government with a balanced budget or we can continue down the present path towards total fiscal catastrophe.”?Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, 1995
It’s funny that there are still people who think that they vote for the office of the POTUS. Especially on this forum of enlightened political rationality. Hands up, everyone whose vote has EVAR counted in a presidential election?
Maybe because the distinction between voting for the electorial college and the actual office is so negligible that it would only complicate matters to always write it out.
I would have too. I think the Republican party would have been shocked at how many Dems might have made this choice.
Yes, because while I disagree with McCain on many things, he has integrity and that gives him credibility. He doesn’t always take the convenient path.
Anyone who wants to run for politics has no point in leading, and anyone who is qualified to lead doesn’t want to.
Look, you enlightened schmoes, why is it that everyone outside of this country, and some people in it, find it absolutely laughable that we think our vote counts? It doesn’t. We’re voting for the lesser of two evils, and the main reason is that we all don’t want the wrong guy getting in. Republicans vote republican because they hate dems, and that’s the same reason Dems for Dems. Green party fuckers vote Green party because they think the Republicans and the Dems are fucking morons. Libertarians are all crazy loons, and nobody likes them but themselves, and that’s why they fight so hard to get a Libertarian elected. Liberals think they’re holier than God, because they hate conservatives and thus hate God, and blah blah blah blah.
See the point? This country is fucked. Your vote doesn’t matter. It will never matter. There are too many stupid people for it to matter, and on top of that, you can probably count yourselves among the stupids for thinking your vote counts. Your candidate will never win. My candidate will never win. A good candidate will never win. The last time a great President was in Office, he was put there because all the corrupt officials thought he was a danger to their political well-being, and they put him in the most useless office on Earth: The Vice-President’s Office. Then the dickhead in charge got assassinated. Care to guess who I’m talking about?
Go on. Try and say that Kennedy was a great President. Try and say that Ford was a man of morals. Try and explain that Nixon was ‘the shit.’ Try and tell me that Eisenhower was there for the people. Try and tell me that anyone except FDR and Teddy actually tried. Go on. Try.
This country has been fucked politically since the civil war, and you’re all kidding yourselves if you think otherwise. Until this country wakes up, we’re all fucked, just like most all of the other governments out there. We just keep taking it up the ass harder, faster, and without a reach-around the more we try and fix things.
I’m curious to know how “hawkish” liberals are going to vote in the next election.
The ideal candidate would be FDR.
Failing that, I propose what I think is a pretty decent solution to the Democrats’ current credibility gap on defense: John Kerry for president, with Wesley Clark as his running mate.
I think I could vote for that ticket. I’d sleep better knowing Gen. Clark is at his undisclosed location running the ruthless Shadow War, while Kerry worries his pretty head over single-payer health care.
I represent “the fucking worried wing of the Democratic Party”, and a Kerry/Clark ticket seems to me to be an electable one.
Yeah, I’m with Daniel here. As much as I don’t like Kerry, and there’s a lot I don’t like (judging from a couple articles found in The New Republic and The New Yorker), I’d like to see a nominee who can more easily counter the Bush-hawk/war on Terrorism/post 9-11 issues. Keep the campaign about domestic issues instead.
If McCain would switch parties and proclaim a moderate stance that embraced the reasonable aspects of both parties’ platforms, he could probably win in 2004.
I think Met_K’s analysis of the state of our system isn’t far off, though. I remember watching the posts of a former California mayor on GEnie when he wanted to run for president as a democrat in 1992. And listening to how the party essentially didn’t even give him a chance to try – he was excluded from debates, excluded from party functions, etc. This guy wasn’t totally mainstream, but he was no Al Sharpton either. (Sharpton’s a flake, but he’s high enough profile, like Jackson, that he couldn’t be excluded.) If you’re not part of the core party machine, if you don’t play the game the way the established party bosses want it played, you can’t even try to run.
Maybe because the distinction between voting for the electorial college and the actual office is so negligible that it would only complicate matters to always write it out.[/quote]
Its not that I am against abbreviating the topic. But when people start talking about “wasting their votes” or “lesser of evils”, then I think the distinction is worth bringing back up. Noone seems to talk much about these two items when referring to voting for any other office and also everyone’s vote actually directly counts for every other office. There has to be a link.
If I remember correctly, every state in the country has passed laws that tie electoral votes directly to the popular vote in one way or another, so for all practical purposes, you do vote for president. You don’t necessarily do it on a national level (most states use an “all or nothing” system, where the state gives all of its electoral votes to the candidate that racks up the most popular votes in the state), but at the state level, your vote absolutely counts.
I like Dean so far. His prospects are likely dimmer than Andrew Dice Clay’s at a Lilith Fair, but hey, if he makes Kerrey sound like less of a Bush-light by virtue of his ornery existence as a spoiler, I’m good with that.
At this point, I give up on fiscal restraint. If we’re going to spend money like Imelda bought shoes, let’s at least blow it on public works and infrastructure rather than blowing up someone else’s. I’ve been up in Silicon Valley for the past few weeks, and for a place that was at the top of a boom a couple years back, very little of that money was spent renovating the place. It’s a stanky hole of inadequate housing and empty office buildings. Whee.
And while we’re at it, f*ck Halliburton and the oil companies, mmmkay? Where are Jack Bauer and Jack Burton when you really need them? Damned fictional characters…
So how the hell does the flyover get it in their heads that it’s a good idea to vote republican? I just don’t get it. The Neocons, as a group, suck for them. On the bright side, I relish the thought of a democratic candidate wielding the mantra “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?” next year. Ironically, I am, thanks to low interest rates, dumb luck and a smidgen of maturity, but I can see where this going and it’s not pleasant.
He flies coach, or at least he did as Governor of Vermont when he flew in the seat behind me on a flight from Philadelphia to Burlington. This was around the time of Columbine, so I gave him my card in case he decided to ban videogames. I worry that he’s too short to be president.
He’s fun to watch in debates because he’s really kind of an arrogant asshole. He has a short temper, and he doesn’t suffer fools. He’s not the most tactful guy, which is sort of refreshing.
Whenever I see John McCain discussing issues, or people questioning his policies, I get the feeling the man is about to explode in some horribly violent rage.
He is. Ang Lee is making a movie about it.
MCCAIN SMASH!
What a campaign slogan…
what about Howard Dean?
No thanks. Every time he gets on the mic, he tries to out-peace Sharpton and Moseley-Braun, hoping he can score points with soccer moms fed up with belligerent white men and their ego-fueled wars. His policy on defense: “We won’t always be the biggest power on the block.”
I keep waiting for Dean to announce that his first act as president will be to sell all our tanks, thus ensuring a peaceful world.
Having lived under his governorship in Vermont, would you vote for him?