Which Democrat do you favor?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

This obviously doesn't apply to Conservatives or non-Democrats I guess, but on a whole, at this early stage in the game, who does the I-Mockery board like...?

Explain your choice, if you'd like.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I voted for Dean. Believe it or not, I tend to be more of a libertarian-like Green, and all in all, the platform of a Howard Dean actually has more appeal to me than a presumably more "Leftist" candidate like Kucinich, or (I guess), Al Sharpton.

Dean supports capital punishment, which I oppose very much. But all-in-all, he has a fairly strong platform.

I have some tough decisions to make between now and 2004. :/

[Ronnie Raygun]

I pick Al.

He's the most honest one of the bunch and I think he says what he really thinks.

My second choice would be Dean.

[GAsux]

I'm going with Sen. McCain. Ok, just kidding.

I don't hate John Kerry. He will have a touch and dirty campaign ahead though which will be difficult to fight.

Is it just me or does it seem like a bit of a weak bunch? I dunno, maybe I'm just being a pessimist.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Well, being a Green, cynical Liberal, I tend to agree with you, GA.

However, I saw Dean speak, I've looked over his platform a bit, and he isn't weak. He articulates his points well, and furthermore, he is firm and has confidence when he speaks.

Edwards and Lieberman are out immediately in my book. Kucinich isn't viable, and Sharpton is a shady character. Kerry strikes bad chords with me, isn't good enough to be a real oppositional candidate to Bush.

Thus, I've come to Dean. I dunno, I may still support the Green Party, depending on who they run (which has been a stagnent process).

[Ronnie Raygun]

I think it looks real bad for the crats.

[GAsux]

Kev,
Sorry for being a bit vague there. I didn't so much mean "weak" in terms of their positions, but rather weak, at least at this point, in terms of public support. Especially the kind of backing and support it will require to beat Dubya at this point.

[Miss Modular]

I voted for Dean.

I was okay with Kerry until he decided to vote for going into Iraq, and then deciding to speak out against it.

I'm a Green, but if Dean becomes a front-runner, I'd consider voting for him.

[ranxer]

i would vote for kucinich but sharpton seems more electable to me

but i don't think i can vote for either of the corporate parties anymore.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Sharpton may be more electable than Kucinich, but Ronnie is on to something. The Democratic hierarchy doesn't want Sharpton there, for good reasons, too.

Good to see you back Ranxer. :)

[GAsux]

Yeah can you blame them for not being to thrilled about the idea of Big Al leading the ticket?

Also, is it just me or does the campaign season seem to be starting particularly early this year?

[ItalianStereotype]

i would vote for kucinich but sharpton seems more electable to me

funny. most of the hardcore libs that I know hate sharpton and wish eternal damnation upon his hateful soul.

and why the hell is Ronnie making good points in this thread?

[Protoclown]

THEY ALL SUCK :(

[VinceZeb]

If this is what the democrats are going to throw up against bush, you might as well pack up and go for 08. If I were a Democrat, the only guy I would even consider voting for was Joe. The rest are deplorable. God forbid we ever get a Green party member type as a president. I'd rather everyone in the U.S. not be poor and miserable.

[mburbank]

If this is all you can 'throw up' 'against' all the threads on this board, and judging by your general output in the last few days, I think I can conclude that the great hydrogen dirigible that is you has run out of hot, light gas.

Are you all out of ideas, or has the recent lack of violent imagery on fox news caused your writing boner to loose rigidity? I'd hate to think you were turning into a 'pussy' or a 'woman'. Aside from a few lackluster comments about ejaculating on peoples faces, you've hardly shown any spark lately at all.

[Zhukov]

Wouldn't you be tired? Wouldn't you be sad?

Wouldn't you just feel depressed , to have everyhting you believe in, everything you hold dear to your heart, violently smashed and proved false by all to bear witness?

Wouldn't you lose all hope after you are forced into a submission of "not caring". How terrible it would be to betray ones' inner feelings, simply to stop the hateful truth crashing on ones' poorly though out defenses.

Personaly, I would kill myself. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, nowhatimean?)



PS: Remember, God does not like suicude! :)

[VinceZeb]

Max, what can I say? I'm busy and I'm getting bored.

Zhukov, what the fuck are you talking about?

[mburbank]

You seriously don't know what he's talking about?

If by bored you mean "Out of Steam", so be it. There's bound to be another repellent, lying patsy coming through the door any moment. True, they may not paint themselves into the corners of Submarines as beautifully as you do, but once a bar is set, you often need to be patient.



Next?

[ranxer]

i've been offline for a while.. i havnt heard much about why the dems are repelled by sharpton, i liked everything i heard him say so he's got my support... and not really cause he's 'electable' like i said before.. thats a spooky slip on my part, 'electable' is a slippery slope that i'd like to stay off of but oh well.

kucinich has the strongest ideas but he switches into a yelling wrestlemania tone that makes me think more about medications than his message.

from what i've read or heard(rumored or otherwise) so far the other candidates are sold out to big money similar to gore or worse. if the dems do go with dean, ill try to investigate and verify before i go smearing him. if they end up with lieberman i'm not investigating i'm just going to smear :)

[VinceZeb]

Now, my hooked nose Christ killing friend, I never said I would leave, I just said at this time this board is boring the fuck out of me and I am doing other things that are way more important that this board.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

If this is what the democrats are going to throw up against bush, you might as well pack up and go for 08. If I were a Democrat, the only guy I would even consider voting for was Joe. The rest are deplorable. God forbid we ever get a Green party member type as a president. I'd rather everyone in the U.S. not be poor and miserable.

Yeah, I for one am glad that everyone is really wealthy, and that everyone in the U.S. is happy with the economic situation of the country. :rolleyes

Of course you, as a stupid conservative, would vote for Lieberman. I wonder what he'd think of your fetish for naked women and pornography, eh? For someone who touts libertarianism, Lieberman seems like a pretty naive selection.

The Democrats are in a sorry state, but no sorrier than the fool in the White House.

Don't even try to pretend like you know what you're talking about here, Vince. You are a stupid person, and to make matters worse, you don't realize it.

[VinceZeb]

Kevin, let's go over something real quick: Calling someone "stupid" doesn't mean they are stupid. If I called a dog a cat, it doesn't make a cat.


Now, I'd vote for Joe because he is the least deplorable. The person I would want to see be the canidate would be Al Sharpton. He has done more to expose democrats for being lying, elitist, slave owner type pricks then Rush Limbaugh ever dreamed over.

I hope to God that Al gets it. Then you liberals would be exposed for who you really are. You talk and whine and cry and bitch about civil rights and blacks (ESPECIALLY during election time) all the time, and now you would have a chance to vote a black man into the presidency. A black guy that is liked (unfortuantly) in many circles. But no, you all would make so many excuses not to vote for him it wouldn't be funny. You wan't to know who the first black president is going to be? The first woman president is going to be? Quote me on this: If Condi Rice wants to run in '08, she would win. If the Hildabeast ran in '08 against her, Condi would make Clinton her bitch.

And kevin, I don't believe I gave you permission to take your lips off of my cock head. So get back down there and do something you are good at for a change.

[Carnivore]

Kevin, let's go over something real quick: Calling someone "stupid" doesn't mean they are stupid. If I called a dog a cat, it doesn't make a cat.

And saying you're smart doesn't make you smart. Your unsubstantiated opinions and asinine commentary make you stupid.

[VinceZeb]

*checks his PocketPC*

Hmmm.... let's see here.... doesn't look like I cared for Carnivore's opinon today, yesterday, or any day for that matter. I figured that was right.

[Bennett]

fuck, vince actually made me chuckle with that one

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Kevin, let's go over something real quick: Calling someone "stupid" doesn't mean they are stupid. If I called a dog a cat, it doesn't make a cat.

Why do you insist on giving Max more material? You're charging him for this stuff, right??

Now, I'd vote for Joe because he is the least deplorable. The person I would want to see be the canidate would be Al Sharpton. He has done more to expose democrats for being lying, elitist, slave owner type pricks then Rush Limbaugh ever dreamed over.

No doubt Democrats, like MOST in high positions of elected office, can be hypocrites. Certainly Al Sharpton is one to talk (as is El Windbag, for that matter).

I hope to God that Al gets it. Then you liberals would be exposed for who you really are. You talk and whine and cry and bitch about civil rights and blacks (ESPECIALLY during election time) all the time, and now you would have a chance to vote a black man into the presidency.

Right, we have an addiction to black folk. If Colin Powell, Alan Keyes, or Walt Williams ran for President, we'd all just HAVE to vote for them! :rolleyes

Republicans exploit race just as much as anybody.

A black guy that is liked (unfortuantly) in many circles. But no, you all would make so many excuses not to vote for him it wouldn't be funny. You wan't to know who the first black president is going to be? The first woman president is going to be? Quote me on this: If Condi Rice wants to run in '08, she would win. If the Hildabeast ran in '08 against her, Condi would make Clinton her bitch.

Why would "Condi" win, Vince? Would you vote for her? Furthermore, what vast experience does she have to run??? Two terms as sec. of the interior? Aren't there more qualified candidates? What would compel YOU to vote for her, and more importantly, what would compel the Republican Party to support her? Could it be that running a BLACK WOMAN would be a dream for a Party that's trying to exploit the black vote, which traditionally swings Democrat...? Don't Republicans focus on "people" rather than "groups"....?

Come on....speak monkey, speak.....stick your foot in your mouth, but first, pull it out of your ass, ok?

And kevin, I don't believe I gave you permission to take your lips off of my cock head. So get back down there and do something you are good at for a change.

All of these homoerotic tensions, Vince. So much trapped lust and desire. I'm sorry Vince, I don't know that we could ever be a couple. I'd be too worried that you'd take pictures and post them on your porno website for all the world to see. I wouldn't want to tarnish your good Christian reputation. :(

[VinceZeb]

Kevin. Your. Lips. My. Dick. PRONTO.

[The_voice_of_reason]

Fuck, its the first presiential election i will get to vote in and i have no one to vote for >: I pray every night the dubya will lose, but going of the people i know i don't see that happening. we can only hope he does a repeat of what his father did.

[VinceZeb]

Maybe by that time you will read books and realize that you should be voting for someone who wants less government control. Because voting for any of those bozos insures that there will be more, moreso then what the current administration is making now.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Vince. Might. Be. Surprised. To. Know. That. Not. All. Of. The. Best. Political. And. Economic. Thinkers. Throughout. History. Have. Shared. His. Narrow. Perspective. On. Reality. But. That's. OK. Because. All. Of. These. "Books". That. Vince. Talks. About. Probably. Aren't. What. He. Has. Read. But. Rather. What. His. Homoerotic. Fantasies. Like. Neil. Boortz. And. Rush. Limbaugh. Have. Read.

It's. Like. The. Old. Saying. Goes. "If. You're. Below. Thirty. And. Are. A. Conservative. You. Have. No. Heart. But. If. You're. Below. Thirty. And. Retarded. You're. Probably. Vince. Zeb. Or. Something. Like. That.

Any. Response. To. My. Above. Points. Vince. Or. Just. More. Porno. And. Fantasy.?.?.?.?.

[The_voice_of_reason]

It's. Like. The. Old. Saying. Goes. "If. You're. Below. Thirty. And. Are. A. Conservative. You. Have. No. Heart. But. If. You're. Below. Thirty. And. Retarded. You're. Probably. Vince. Zeb. Or. Something. Like. That.

Since i had to dump my previous signature in favor of the current inferior one i would like to ask permission to use this.

[VinceZeb]

Kevin, I challenge you to show me where my views are "retarded". Now, you can't use emotional arguments when it comes to reality. I want the FACTS that my views are wrong or "retared" as you put it.


Put up or shut up, baby. Now, for the last time, get those lips back on the tip of my love rocket.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Go for it.

EDIT: Above response intended for the Voice of Reason, Not the Voice of Neil Boortz.

By definition:

re·tard1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-t?d)
v. re·tard·ed, re·tard·ing, re·tards
v. tr.
To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede.

v. intr.
To be delayed.

n.
A slowing down or hindering of progress; a delay.
Music. A slackening of tempo.
---

I would say your posts generally classify as an impediment to this board, wouldn't you agree?

[Protoclown]

So. More porno and fantasty it is, then.

[VinceZeb]

There is no fantasy or porno to my statement. I want him to prove something. Let's see him do so.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

There is no fantasy or porno to my statement. I want him to prove something. Let's see him do so.

Scroll up, clambake.

[Protoclown]

There is no fantasy or porno to my statement.

Put up or shut up, baby. Now, for the last time, get those lips back on the tip of my love rocket.

There is no fantasy or porno to my statement.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

It seems that Vince ruins every good thread by talking about his penis and what he can do with it. Are we having some inadequacy issues, Vince???

If that isn't "retarding" to a thread, I don't know what else is.

[mburbank]

My goodness, Vinth, but it was easy to wind you back up into full Vinth mode! All I had to do was imply you were failing to be a huge prick and you come roaring back full strength! Oh, well, easy is as easy does.

"If I called a dog a cat, it doesn't make a cat."
-Vinth.

If you call a dog a cat, it makes you stupid. That's how we know you're stupid, because the bulk of what you say boils down to calling a dog a cat. Generally followed by "Oh, yeah, like a Dog ISN'T a cat. Wlk up to a hundred people and ask them if a Dog is a Dog or a cat nd mostly the studiers of animals who are agreeable to myself will tell you what I'm write about in saying a Dog is a cat. Now here's a cloth for the wipping of my gallons oand gallons of sperm from my huge dick that I put on your face by the cumming from me onto you which I write about often but is not becuase of the gayness of me just that I can't think of anything except by the terms of victory and to me victiry mean to come on another person which is only stupid if you think a Dog is a Dog when any man wth a dick who comes on people knows a dog is a cat at hand bar none. Simple as that. Grrrrrr. Woof! Woof! Meow!"

[AChimp]

:lol

http://members.shaw.ca/achimp/first.gif

[VinceZeb]

You forgot to put "In Summer School" underneath that medal.

[mburbank]

You forgot to put 'Canadian from Canada' at the end of your sentence.

[Protoclown]

:lol @ Burbank x 2

[AChimp]

Yes, Vinth. I took two summer courses to get a head start on next year.

In summer school, and proud of it. :)

[KevinTheOmnivore]

So anyway, back to the topic at hand.....

http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/PresFR1Q3.asp

The Center for Responsive Politics has put together the data on the largest contributors thus far to ALL of the candidates for President.

It also has a chart outlining which donors have already given to 3 or more of the running candidates.

Interestingly enough, the top contributor thus far to the Dean campaign has been AOL Time-Warner. Anybody know his feelings on the recent FCC ruling....?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Published on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 by Arianna Huffington

Democrats: Profiles In Spinelessness
by Arianna Huffington

"I a little bit disagree with Chairman Roberts on that."

That was Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, kinda, sorta, uh, not really taking exception to Committee chairman Pat Roberts' assertion that we've turned the corner when it comes to keeping the peace in postwar Iraq.

But it could just as easily serve as the motto for the whole Democratic Party: "Vote for us -- we kinda, sorta disagree." The Party leaders are so timid, spineless, and lacking in confidence that to compare them to jellyfish would be an insult to invertebrates.

Call them the pusillanimous opposition.

These dithering poltroons are so paralyzed by the fear of doing or saying something that could be turned against them in GOP attack ads they've rendered themselves utterly impotent when it comes to mounting any kind of challenge to President Bush on the two most important issues of the day: tax cuts and Iraq.

Exhibit A comes from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle who, when asked on Meet the Press why the Democrats didn't offer a bold, full-throated alternative to the Bush tax cut plan, including the repeal of the 2001 cuts and a guaranteed balanced budget, timorously explained: "Well, we -- you got to take it one step at a time."

You do -- why? Is this an AA meeting? Bush doesn't take it one step at a time. He's comfortable leading by leaps and bounds. And he's taking us along with him -- straight over a cliff. We're facing a trillion dollars of new debt, incurred by a president with the worst economic record since Herbert Hoover, and the best the leader of the opposition party can muster is a meaningless cliche? Quick, get that man a dose of political Viagra! At least get the blood flowing?somewhere.

Daschle's trumpet issued an equally uncertain call when it came to the war on Iraq. First, he helped draft the Senate's resolution on the use of force. Then, after sticking his finger in the political wind and catching a zephyr of anti-war sentiment, he blasted the president for failing "so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war." When that comment, made the day before the war started, unleashed a torrent of criticism from ever-vigilant Republican attack dogs, Daschle, instead of simply attacking back, hemmed, hawed, and executed another political pirouette, claiming that he "probably would have avoided making the statement" if he'd known we were on the brink of war.

But a quick check of the record reveals this to be an utterly disingenuous dodge: word of the impending invasion was all over the media when Daschle opened fire on Bush. Maybe the Senator's TV -- and his staff -- was on the fritz that day.

It is precisely this kind of craven vacillation that has made possible the triumph of the fanatics in the White House. Democrats are wringing their hands over the "tactical genius" of Karl Rove, and the "brilliant political stagecraft" of his TV experts who always present the president in the best light. Such is the Democrats' fragility that the mere smoke and mirrors of posing the president in profile at Mount Rushmore or asking the people standing behind him during a recent speech on the economy to take off their ties so they would look more like average Joes have them quaking in their boots.

But the DNC's Terry McAuliffe needs to stop worrying about the GOP using footage of Bush's Top Gun landing on the Abraham Lincoln in campaign ads and start worrying about finding a presidential candidate who isn't afraid to take audacious and decisive stands on the party's core issues. If they can't compete on style, they should at least give it a shot on substance.

After all, the problem isn't that Democrats are on the wrong side of the issues. It's that they are afraid to make an issue of being on the right side -- not to mention smack dab in the middle of the American mainstream.

For example, only one out of four Americans believe the latest round of tax cuts will significantly reduce their taxes, and just 29 percent think the cuts are the best way to help stimulate the economy. Yet Democrats seem congenitally incapable of challenging a president whose entire domestic agenda consists of more and more tax cuts for the wealthy.

The numbers also favor the Democrats on the foreign policy front. According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 57 percent of Americans are opposed to investing the time and money needed to rebuild Iraq. But the Democrats sit idly by, their thumbs otherwise engaged, while the administration's Iraqi tar baby grows stickier by the day.

And on and on it goes: On protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, greater access to affordable health care, gun control and abortion, the majority of the American people are with the Democrats.

Which makes their inability to offer an alternative to the White House juggernaut all the more nauseating. And disgraceful. And tragic.

If this sorry state of affairs is going to change, the Democrats are going to have to jettison their reliance on the consultants who botched the 2002 midterm elections by advising Party leaders to avoid taking on the president on tax cuts and Iraq and, instead, offer an unambiguous alternative to Bush's well-crafted image as a straight-shooting man of conviction. It's time for the Democrats to give up their broken play-it-safe politics and risk offending a few vocal members of a radical minority.

They seem to have forgotten the old sports adage that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Well, here's a scoreboard update for Messrs. Daschle and McAuliffe, and the rest of the party leadership: you're down by three touchdowns and the electoral clock is starting to run down. It's time to stop taking things "one step at a time" and start throwing deep.

Copyright © 1998-2002 Christabella, Inc.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Your Vegan Holistic President
Sure an odd, spiritual guy like Dennis Kucinich doesn't have a chance in hell. But it sure is nice to dream

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, June 13, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

And then the new 2004 president had the gall, the unutterable nerve, to actually set up an official Department of Peace to promote, you know, nonviolence and human rights. That big jerk.

And then he repealed the snide and vicious USA Patriot Act, and promoted legit environmental causes and sustainability and actually tightened EPA restrictions and strengthened the Clean Air Act, gasp oh my God what the hell is he thinking.

And then it was revealed that, oh dear God what anti-American blasphemy, he eats no meat or dairy, and prefers organic and kosher foods and actually cares about issues of personal holistic health and therefore isn't a smirking well-funded crony of the toxic beef industry or big agribiz, and hence the bloated lobbyists from those groups are no longer swimming in favoritism and payola and what the hell is the world coming to.

And furthermore, he isn't particularly vehemently religious, not in the normal sense anyway, not Christian or strictly Catholic or Baptist or whatever Bush claims to be, Born-Again Failed-CEO Warmonger, I believe.

And in fact he's actually a rather unique amalgam, a loosely observant Roman Catholic who observes kashruth due to the influence of his longtime Jewish girlfriend, and yet who also supports alternative beliefs, has practicing Muslims on his staff, supports spiritual exploration, knows Shirley Maclaine personally, gives his own personal money to alternative spirituality research. What the hell? This cannot be.


And that damn hippie liberal, he actually wants to legalize medical marijuana, and he supports the rights of the poor and the working class, and more protections for the oceans, and universal health care and a reduction in military spending, and actually wants to change the world's opinion of the U.S. as this despised unipolar rogue into a more cooperative powerhouse role-model peacemaker. Oh dear. That does it. We're gonna be invaded by China any day now, for certain.

Let us imagine, just for a moment, just because it's entirely implausible and because it feels so utterly odd, that such a leadership, such an open and distinctive viewpoint, actually ran this nation.

Let us imagine the horror. Imagine the savage blow to the all-American mega-machismo, to the hardcore GOP hawks and the freerepublic.com psychopatriots and the Christian Bible gropers and the stunned CEOs, the insult to the giant angry fist of self-righteousness America now represents were someone like, say, Dennis Kucinich, the humble long-shot progressive Democratic congressman candidate from Ohio -- the one who represents all those viewpoints listed above -- to actually became president.

Is it really all that radical? Is it really all that extreme to try and imagine a truly connected national leadership that promotes international cooperation and spiritual openness and the sacredness of the environment and a genuinely holistic worldview, one who actually attempts to connect with and listen to its populace?

Why does this seem so far off, so utterly impossible? Have we gone so far down the road of BushCo-style isolationism and dread and knives-out bile that we can't even entertain a serious alternative, the notion that we actually could, as a country, stand for something as radical as peace?


Are we so deeply and repressively beaten down with war and terror and fake Orange Alerts and the idea that we absolutely positively must, no matter what, have a cold and corporatized iron-fisted leadership hell-bent on expanding American empire at all costs, that we can't even conceive of a sincere and pacifistic alternative?

Apparently, we are. That far gone. That far removed from what this nation actually stands for, stood for. At least for the moment. The tyranny of fear is in control. We are so absolutely goddamn certain we are facing a brutal and heartless world that wishes us perpetual violent ill that we simply must have an equally heartless and guns-drawn pseudo-fascist leadership to match it.

This is, quite simply, utter bull. We have chosen our own path. We have actively elected to become the strong-arm rogue superpower. We have created our own warmongering circumstance far, far more than it has been imposed on us.

Get this. According to his Web site, Dennis Kucinich's proposed Cabinet-level peace appointee would seek to not merely make nonviolence an organizing principle of society but actually strive to make war archaic, to "endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights ... and develop new structures in nonviolent dispute resolution." Man. What a heretic.

Is Kucinich the ideal candidate? I have no idea. He is merely one of the most interesting, indeed a longshot and probably flawed and it's true that he just recently flip-flopped on abortion rights, and is maybe just a bit overly pro-labor, and who knows what else, and he could be trouble for the Demos in terms of shaking up the unified message the party so desperately needs right now.

But let's just use him as our example. Let's use his unique candidacy as a mirror to reflect how far we have careened down the path of indignation and megalomania and the idea that we, as a nation, are somehow locked into this warmongering, hateful mode, this hostile role as schoolyard bully of the world.

How shockingly naive it seems, how utterly childish to think we could have a president who actually promotes peace and empowers the U.N. and works toward interconnectedness, and in this day and age. Don't you know the world is at our throat? Don't you know it's all eye-for-an-eye and dog-eat-dog and only the strong survive and kill 'em all before they come and eat our innocent babies?

Yeah right. How very sad. No one seems to remember. No one truly recalls the overwhelming sentiment just after 9/11, a stunned and saddened nation rethinking its core values, a deeply historic opportunity for a radical reshaping of America's world position and policy, our intentions, our national agenda.

We could've chosen a Kucinich-style path. We could've easily chosen peace and cooperation and humanity and communication. BushCo chose the exact opposite.

And now, here we are. Globally disrespected, almost universally feared and loathed and resented, our economy hammered, the vicious GOP war machine cranking on all cylinders, openly lying about the justifications for war, huge numbers of misguided citizens truly believing 9/11 is a valid excuse to annihilate Iraq and slaughter thousands, maybe Syria and North Korea and Libya and Lebanon and who knows who else, next.

And Kucinich's Department of Peace? Ha. What a joke. What a sad, far-fetched, disheartening, impossible joke.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. He also writes the Morning Fix, a deeply skewed thrice-weekly e-mail column and newsletter. Subscribe at sfgate.com/newsletters.

[mburbank]

I liked both those articles a lot.

Arianna Huffington. Whoda thunk it? Must have been all that time in bed with Al Franken.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

This silly policy with the Federal Matching Funds is precisely why no Democrat has a shot against Bush to begin with. Kerry may be the only option now, since he is debating whether to take it. However, this then poses a platform flaw. How can a Democrat, who probably supported the McCain-Feingold legislation, and thus probably VOTED for the "bi-partisan" legislation, ethically NOT accept the matching funds....?

Oh, and this is great:

He plans his first fund-raiser Tuesday in Washington, a $2,000-per-person reception at the Washington Hilton where donors will get hamburgers, hot dogs and nachos.

I guess you're paying for the company. :/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58895-2003Jun14?language=printer

Bush Set to Start 2004 Fund-Raising

By SHARON THEIMER
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 14, 2003; 12:28 PM


WASHINGTON - President Bush begins raising money in earnest this week for his 2004 re-election effort with a two-week, cross-country sprint expected to take in millions of dollars.

First lady Laura Bush and the president's 2004 running mate, Vice President Dick Cheney, also will hit the fund-raising circuit.

In all, the president is expected to raise $200 million or more for his primary campaign over the next several months, at least twice the record $100 million he collected for the 2000 primaries.

The Republican will be helped by a doubling of the individual contribution limit to $2,000 in the new campaign finance law, effective with the 2003-04 election cycle.

Helping Bush are fund-raising volunteers, including the "Pioneers" who played a key role in 2000 by raising at least $100,000 each. A new class of fund-raisers, known as the "Rangers," will collect at least $200,000 each for Bush's campaign.

Bush entered the race last month. He immediately began raising money on his campaign Web site and through the mail.

He plans his first fund-raiser Tuesday in Washington, a $2,000-per-person reception at the Washington Hilton where donors will get hamburgers, hot dogs and nachos.

Bush will follow it up with a series of $2,000-per-person events across the country, including Friday in Greensboro, Ga.; June 23 in New York; June 27 in suburban San Francisco and Los Angeles; and June 30 in Miami and Tampa, Fla.

The two California events alone are expected to take in about $6 million. That would be only about $1 million less than the top two first-quarter Democratic fund-raisers, Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and John Kerry of Massachusetts, took in for their campaigns from January through March, the most recent figures available.

Cheney will headline campaign events this month, including fund-raisers June 23 in Richmond, Va., and the Boston area and June 30 in Ohio and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Laura Bush is to attend Bush-Cheney fund-raisers Friday in Chattanooga, Tenn., and June 25 in Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

Bush campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish declined to release early fund-raising figures. The president and the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls will report contribution totals to the Federal Election Commission in mid-July.

Bush started his 2000 fund-raising effort in March 1999, holding nearly 30 events and raising $37 million by July 1999.

As he did in that race, Bush is skipping taxpayer-financed public funding for his primary campaign, along with the spending limits that accompany it. That means his primary campaign can spend as much as Bush can collect.

Nearly all the Democratic hopefuls have committed to taking public financing for the primaries. Kerry plans to decide this fall whether to accept it or not.


© 2003 The Associated Press

[VinceZeb]

Mark Morford has to be the most yellow-bellied... whats the word I am looking for.... pussy, thats it. The most yellow-bellied pussy in existance.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Thanks for the filler, clambake.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer

Former Aide Takes Aim at War on Terror

By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2003; Page A01

Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox.

"Things were dicey," said Rand Beers, recalling the stack of classified reports about plots to shoot, bomb, burn and poison Americans. He stared at the color-coded threats for five minutes. Then he called his wife: I'm quitting.

Beers's resignation surprised Washington, but what he did next was even more astounding. Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss. All of which points to a question: What does this intelligence insider know?

"The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure," said Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. "As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out."

No single issue has defined the Bush presidency more than fighting terrorism. And no issue has both animated and intimidated Democrats. Into this tricky intersection of terrorism, policy and politics steps Beers, a lifelong bureaucrat, unassuming and tight-lipped until now. He is an unlikely insurgent. He served on the NSC under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the current Bush. The oath of office hangs on the wall by his bed; he tears up when he watches "The West Wing." Yet Beers decided that he wanted out, and he is offering a rare glimpse in.

"Counterterrorism is like a team sport. The game is deadly. There has to be offense and defense," Beers said. "The Bush administration is primarily offense, and not into teamwork."

In a series of interviews, Beers, 60, critiqued Bush's war on terrorism. He is a man in transition, alternately reluctant about and empowered by his criticism of the government. After 35 years of issuing measured statements from inside intelligence circles, he speaks more like a public servant than a public figure. Much of what he knows is classified and cannot be discussed. Nevertheless, Beers will say that the administration is "underestimating the enemy." It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said. "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded."

The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy."

"I continue to be puzzled by it," said Beers, who did not oppose the war but thought it should have been fought with a broader coalition. "Why was it such a policy priority?" The official rationale was the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said, "although the evidence was pretty qualified, if you listened carefully."

He thinks the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned. Rather than destroying al Qaeda terrorists, the fighting only dispersed them. The flow of aid has been slow and the U.S. military presence is too small, he said. "Terrorists move around the country with ease. We don't even know what's going on. Osama bin Laden could be almost anywhere in Afghanistan," he said.

As for the Saudis, he said, the administration has not pushed them hard enough to address their own problem with terrorism. Even last September, he said, "attacks in Saudi Arabia sounded like they were going to happen imminently."

Within U.S. borders, homeland security is suffering from "policy constipation. Nothing gets done," Beers said. "Fixing an agency management problem doesn't make headlines or produce voter support. So if you're looking at things from a political perspective, it's easier to go to war."

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, he said, needs further reorganization. The Homeland Security Department is underfunded. There has been little, if any, follow-through on cybersecurity, port security, infrastructure protection and immigration management. Authorities don't know where the sleeper cells are, he said. Vulnerable segments of the economy, such as the chemical industry, "cry out for protection."

"We are asking our firemen, policemen, Customs and Coast Guard to do far more with far less than we ever ask of our military," he said. Abroad, the CIA has done a good job in targeting the al Qaeda leadership. But domestically, the antiterrorism effort is one of talk, not action: "a rhetorical policy. What else can you say -- 'We don't care about 3,000 people dying in New York City and Washington?' "

When asked about Beers, Sean McCormack, an NSC spokesman, said, "At the time he submitted his resignation, he said he had decided to leave government. We thanked him for his three decades of government service." McCormack declined to comment further.

However it was viewed inside the administration, onlookers saw it as a rare Washington event. "I can't think of a single example in the last 30 years of a person who has done something so extreme," said Paul C. Light, a scholar with the Brookings Institution. "He's not just declaring that he's a Democrat. He's declaring that he's a Kerry Democrat, and the way he wants to make a difference in the world is to get his former boss out of office."

Although Beers has worked in three Republican administrations, he is a registered Democrat. He wanted to leave the NSC quietly, so when he resigned, he said it was for "personal reasons." His friends called, worried: "Are you sick?"

When Beers joined the White House counterterrorism team last August, the unit had suffered several abrupt departures. People had warned him the job was impossible, but Beers was upbeat. On Reagan's NSC staff, he had replaced Oliver North as director for counterterrorism and counternarcotics, known as the "office of drugs and thugs."

"Randy's your model government worker," said Wendy Chamberlin, a U.S. Agency for International Development administrator for Iraq, who worked with Beers on counterterrorism on the NSC of the first Bush administration. "He works for the common good of the American people. He's fair, balanced, honest. No one ever gets hurt feelings hearing the truth from Randy."

The first thing Beers noticed when he walked into his new office was the pile of intelligence reports. The "threat stuff," as Beers calls it, was 10 times thicker than it had been before the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.

He was in a job that would grind down anyone. Every day, 500 to 1,000 pieces of threat information crossed his desk. The typical mix included suspicious surveillance at a U.S. embassy; surveillance of a nuclear power plant or a bridge; a person caught by airport security with a weapon, or an airplane flying too close to the CIA; a tanker truck, which might contain a bomb, crossing the border and heading for a city; an intercepted phone call between suspected terrorists. Most of the top-secret reports -- pumped into his office from the White House Situation Room -- didn't pan out. Often they came from a disgruntled employee or a spouse.

When the chemical agent ricin surfaced in the London subway, "we were worried it might manifest here," he said. The challenge was: "Who do we alert? How do you tell them to organize?"

Every time the government raises an alarm, it costs time and money. "There's less filtering now because people don't want to make the mistake of not warning," he said. Before Sept. 11, 2001, the office met three times a week to discuss intelligence. Now, twice a day, at 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., it holds "threat matrix meetings," tracking the threats on CIA spreadsheets.

It was Beers's task to evaluate the warnings and to act on them. "It's a monstrous responsibility," said William Wechsler, director for transnational threats on Clinton's NSC staff. "You sit around every day, thinking about how people want to kill thousands of Americans."

Steven Simon, director for counterterrorism in the Clinton White House, said, "When we read a piece of intelligence, we'd apply the old how-straight-does-your-hair-stand-up-on-your-head test."

The government's first counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who left his White House job in February after more than 10 years, said officials judged the human intelligence based on two factors: Would the source have access to the information? How reliable was his previous reporting? They scored access to information, 12345; previous reporting, abcd. "A score of D5, you don't believe. A1 -- you do," Clarke said. "It's like a jolt of espresso, and you feel like -- whoop -- it pumps you up, and wakes you up."

It's easier to raise the threat level -- from code yellow to code orange, for example -- than to lower it, Beers said: "It's easier to see the increase in intelligence suggesting something's going to happen. What do you say when we're coming back down? Does nothing happening mean it's not going to happen? It's still out there."

After spending all day wrestling with global jihad, Beers would go home to his Adams Morgan townhouse. "You knew not to get the phone in the middle of the night, because it was for Dad," said his son Benjamin, 28. When the Situation Room called, Beers would switch to a black, secure phone that scrambled the signal, after fishing the key out of his sock drawer. There were times he would throw on sweats over his pajamas and drive downtown.

"The first day, I came in fresh and eager," he said. "On the last day, I came home tired and burned out. And it only took seven months."

Part of that stemmed from his frustration with the culture of the White House. He was loath to discuss it. His wife, Bonnie, a school administrator, was not: "It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."

In the end, Beers was arriving at work each day with knots in his stomach. He did not want to abandon his colleagues at such a critical, dangerous time. When he finally decided to quit, he drove to a friend's house in Arlington. Clarke, his old counterterrorism pal, took one look at the haggard man on his stoop and opened a bottle of Russian River Pinot Noir. Then he opened another bottle. Clarke toasted Beers, saying: You can still fight the fight.

Shortly after that, Beers joined the Kerry campaign. He had briefly considered a think tank or an academic job but realized that he "never felt so strongly about something in my life" than he did about changing current U.S. policies. Of the Democratic candidates, Kerry offered the greatest expertise in foreign affairs and security issues, he decided. Like Beers, Kerry had served in Vietnam. As a civil servant, Beers liked Kerry's emphasis on national service.

On a recent hot night, at 10 o'clock, Beers sat by an open bedroom window, wearing a T-shirt, his bare feet propped on a table.

Beers was on a three-hour conference call, the weekly Monday night foreign policy briefing for the campaign. The black, secure phone by his bedside was gone. Instead, there was a red, white and blue bumper sticker: "John Kerry -- President." The buzz of helicopters blew through the window. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it seemed, there were more helicopters circling the city.

"And we need to return to that kind of diplomatic effort . . . ," Beers was saying, over the droning sound. His war goes on.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=3776&sectionID=41

Kucinich, Sharpton and the Greens

by Ted Glick;
June 16, 2003

I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, to receive an email this past week announcing a rally in Baltimore on June 26th at which Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich will be the featured speakers. It’s a good move by Nader, leading by example for those who haven’t yet grasped the importance of Greens, other independents and genuinely progressive Democrats working together wherever possible. And it’s a good move by Kucinich, countering the regressive, anti-Nader, anti-Green attitudes of some Democrats, including relatively progressive ones who really should know better.



I wonder about the longer-term implications of this development. And I wonder where Al Sharpton and the movement he represents fit in the thinking of Kucinich and Nader.



I keep hearing about Greens and independents supporting Kucinich, re-registering as Democrats so they can vote for him in the Democratic primary. I assume, although I have not heard of it, that something similar is happening with some African American independents.



I won’t be doing this myself, but I have no problem with those who are doing so. I believe it would be a good thing if Kucinich and Sharpton get strong vote totals during the early Democratic primaries, as the only two of the nine candidates who have been consistent in their progressive politics over a period of years. Strong vote totals will be a shot in the arm for the peace and justice movement and bring political pressure to bear on the other Democrats to take better positions on the issues.



However, by mid-March of next year, when close to ¾ of the state caucuses and primaries will have been held, it is extremely likely that Kucinich and Sharpton will be out of the running as far as having any chance of winning the Democratic Presidential nomination. What will they do then?



One thing they could do is join together, perhaps with Howard Dean, to form a progressive bloc going into the Democratic Convention. But so what? What could they force the dominant players in the party to do? A better platform? The progressive movement has been there, done that. In 1988 a strong Rainbow Coalition/Jesse Jackson campaign rolled into Atlanta and parlayed its delegate muscle into just such a thing. But it meant nothing after Michael Dukakis was nominated and then ignored much of the platform, articulating only those issues—“centrist” issues—he and his handlers felt would appeal to the electoral mainstream. It was not until the last two weeks of that general election campaign that Dukakis began to use Jackson-like, populist language, attracting growing support from voters as a result, but it was too little, too late.



Contrast this with Al Gore in 2000. Pushed from the left by a Ralph Nader Green Party candidacy that was registering at 7-8% in national polls, Gore used the occasion of his nominating speech at the Democratic Convention to attack oil companies and other corporate targets, wiping out a ten percentage point lead Bush had prior to that convention. And he continued to use enough of that language throughout the campaign that he ended up winning the popular vote and the election, being denied it by five Supreme Court justices.



So what’s the point?



One point is that those who are calling for the Green Party to join the “Democratic Party family,” as Jesse Jackson, Sr. has just done in a Chicago Sun-Times column, should seriously re-think their positions. Depending upon who the Green Party nominates for President and how that campaign is run, a Green Party candidacy may be one aspect of a strategy for a Bush/Cheney electoral defeat. Can we really trust the DLC-dominated Democratic Party not to blow it again, take such moderate and mealy-mouthed, Republican-like positions that they will de-energize millions of voters they need to win?



Another point is that those who are supporting Kucinich and Sharpton need to think beyond mid-March, or the Democratic Party convention in late July. What if Kucinich and Sharpton fall into line—as is likely—and support Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman or whomever wins the nomination? What if the Green Party runs a politically superior campaign—as is likely—and does so taking into consideration the dangers of a second Bush administration by focusing the campaign in the non-battleground, safe states where the winner, Bush or the Democrat, is pretty much already known? Shouldn’t Greens and independents connected to the Kucinich and Sharpton campaigns talk up this option within those campaigns leading up to March, or July?



“Tactical flexibility” has to be the watchword for our electoral approach over the next 17 months. We should not underestimate the challenges, and the dangers, facing us. It is not just the Bushites we need to worry about. We need to counter those who would strip the progressive movement of its badly-needed independent political thrust by calling for the Greens to essentially dissolve into the Democratic Party. But the Greens need to resist tactical approaches—like an all-out campaign, including in the battleground states—that will alienate many of our allies.



The June 26 Kucinich/Nader joint speaking appearance cannot be a one-shot event. The political maturity which underlies it needs to be continued, in all its complexities, throughout the crucial political period in which we now find ourselves.



Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network (www.ippn.org) and author of “Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society.” He can be reached at futurehopeTG@aol.com or P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

At least Max will (maybe) read these things. ;) :/

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8087

Rising Values

Rhoades Alderson worked on Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign. He is now an executive with Trion Communications in Providence, R.I.

Things are not nearly as bad for Democrats as they seem to think.

It is true that if the 2002 mid-term elections were held again tomorrow the result would likely be the same. But it is also true that Democrats have made two immensely important realizations since November: they have a big problem; and the problem is that they don't have a clear message. As Adam Clymer recently noted in his broad analysis of the party in The New York Times, "If there is one thing all kinds of Democrats agree on, it is that they need a better message."

It isn't as bad as it sounds. An important point seems to have gotten lost, especially in the context of petty squabbling among the party wings. A message problem doesn't mean you don't stand for anything. It means you don't know how to say what you stand for. The difference is huge. In terms of a comeback, it is the difference between months and years. There are, in fact, big, fundamental, unshakable ideals in which all Democrats, from John Breaux to Al Sharpton -- and no Republicans -- believe. It's just that they are unprocessed and conceptually unconnected to policy ideas.

A closer look at four of these universal Democratic values reveals the power waiting to be unleashed by effective messaging. They are mainstream American values, as old as the republic. If Democrats can argue on these terms they will win a lot more arguments.

Democrats Believe Government Makes A Society More Free

Democrats believe that society requires a consensually sanctioned central authority strong enough to defend the public good against private interests that seek to undermine it. Government and its laws restrict a few freedoms in order to ensure all the others. The idea is central to the American Constitution and articulated in Federalist #10: "Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice."

Does John Breaux believe this? For sure. Does Al Sharpton? Yep. Karl Rove? No. Republicans believe that government makes society less free. Republican group-think guru Grover Norquist famously illustrated this view, saying his goal for government is "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." The cluster of organizations he helps coordinate is informally called the Leave Us Alone Coalition.

Democrats Believe That Governmental Oversight Of The Economy Increases Prosperity

This is really just the previous value applied to economics. Members of both parties believe that a market-based economic system is the natural outgrowth of human social behavior and creates real wealth more effectively than any other system ever tried. Democrats believe that such an economy is most efficient when a publicly legitimate central authority exists to ensure a fair and competitive environment.

Would Joe Lieberman agree? Yes. Dennis Kucinich? Yes. Tom DeLay? No. The Republican view is captured in the North Carolina Party Platform, Article II Section 2, "Government regulation and taxation reduce and redistribute income rather than create it."

Democrats Believe The Government Must Ensure All Citizens A Fair Opportunity For Economic Viability

Democrats think that if you're born here or become a citizen you deserve a fair shot at economic viability, which requires more than sheer will. It requires adequate health, housing and education. Democrats offer different solutions, but they all believe that citizens who are unable to access those standards by other means must be able to turn to the institutions that represent the manifestation of the people: local, state and federal governments.

Let's check more litmus tests. Zell Miller? Yep. Barbara Mikulski? Check. Mitch McConnell? No way. In the Republican philosophical view, government support to individuals corrupts them by making them dependents, robbing them of their will to get ahead.

Democrats Believe In Democracy, Debate And Deliberation

Democrats believe that means are as important as ends. A fair process that allows for the expression of opposed viewpoints adds legitimacy to the final decision and prevents the kind of resentment that foments revolt and dangerous instability. A fair process also allows for the possibility of being persuaded by an opposing viewpoint. It accounts for the humbling fact that absolute "rightness" does not grace our earthly existence.

Bob Rubin? Yea. Rosa DeLauro? Yea. Dick Cheney? Big nay. Every national Republican leader since Nixon has justified a deliberate bypass of the democratic process either through an assurance of greater morality or a cynical belief in the law of the jungle. Nixon had Watergate, Reagan and Bush 41 had Iran-Contra. Bush 43 has, well, take your pick.

It has been a long time since the party has been forced to justify its existence -- so long that its values have migrated from the mind to the gut. They have always been available to the heart, but became lost to the tongue.

The presidential primary offers a great opportunity for candidates to articulate these kinds of "higher purpose" beliefs and to explain how they guide and inform their platforms. If the candidates can take this crude oil and turn it into gasoline, they will not only give themselves the best chance to win; they will give a majority of Americans the chance to vote Democrat again.

Published: Jun 13 2003

[VinceZeb]

Thanks for the filler, clambake.

You know, that's the same exact thing your momma said last night after I got done pounding her pussy raw.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Thanks for the filler, clambake.

You know, that's the same exact thing your momma said last night after I got done pounding her pussy raw.

:sleep

[Carnivore]

You personify overcompensation, Vinth.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.bobharris.com/kucinichdean.html

Kucinich vs. Dean.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://moveon.org/pac/primary/release.html

Dean won the MoveOn online poll, ran away with it.

EDIT: However, nobody got the mandate, so MoveOn won't be endorsing anybody yet.

(I HATE the MoveOn PAC)

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20030630/pl_usatoday/5284324

Nader considering another try at White House in 2004

Mon Jun 30, 8:19 AM ET

Tom Squitieri
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- Ralph Nader (news - web sites), still blamed by many Democrats for draining critical votes from Al Gore (news - web sites) in the 2000 race for the presidency, says he is seriously considering running in 2004.


His decision has the potential to vex Democrats who worry that he would divert some of their supporters and delight Republicans who think the same thing.


Nader says he has moved closer to a repeat run as the Green Party nominee after concluding that Democrats have no one who can defeat President Bush (news - web sites).


''It is quite clear that the Democrats are incapable of defending our country against the Bush marauders,'' Nader, 69, says. ''They have been unwilling to go all out to stop the destructive tax cuts for the wealthy. They have been soft on corporate crime. They have gone along in almost every issue except judicial appointments. They have cowered, surrendered or divided themselves.


''So what are you to replace Bush with? They won't go after him the way I could,'' says the longtime consumer activist, who won fame as author of an auto expos챕 titled Unsafe at Any Speed in 1965 and founded an advocacy network under the Public Interest Research Group umbrella.


Nader has not taken any formal steps such as creating a campaign committee or registering with the Federal Election Commission (news - web sites). However, he is doing what he did in 2000: He has told Green Party officials he is interested in running and is encouraging ''Draft Nader'' movements.


Nader acknowledges he could harm the Democrats' chances of winning the White House. But he also maintains that if he runs, and Democrats do not attack him, he will motivate thousands of people to go to the polls and cast votes for him, then mark the ballot for Democratic House and Senate candidates. He says that's what he did in 2000 for successful Senate candidates Maria Cantwell in Washington and Debbie Stabenow in Michigan.


Nader says his candidacy could boost the vote for Democratic candidates by up to 4%, but he doesn't say how he came up with that number. ''It is a question of how badly they want to win,'' he says. ''They know my phone number.''


In 2000, Nader got 2,878,157 votes. That was 2.73% of the votes cast, a distant third place. But he tallied 97,488 votes in Florida and 22,188 in New Hampshire, many of which Democrats said would have gone to Gore to help him carry those states and win the election.


Nader says he is ''carefully watching the situation'' and will decide early next year. The Green Party will pick its nominee next summer at its convention in Milwaukee.


Nader says he would campaign on a strong liberal message that ''is now easier to make'' because of higher unemployment and wider economic pain, ''the more outrageous giveaways'' to the wealthy and corporations and ''the tax cut that forgot 11 million kids.'' But he may not have as easy a time getting the Green nomination in 2004 as he did in 2000. Some party activists say he has become too divisive. Some Greens remain irked that he refuses to join their party; he is an independent.


Ben Manski, national co-chairman of the Green Party, says Nader probably has the most support and momentum, followed closely by former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and David Cobb, a party activist from Texas. Manski says Nader ''is still the favored candidate, but that is not to say it is a done deal.''
###

[VinceZeb]

I can see Nader's slogan now:

"If you have to be poor and miserable, let's make EVERYONE poor and miserable!"

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I'll say this to you once, and hopefully you will absorb it.

I don't know that I'll be supporting Ralph Nader in 2004, nor do I know that I'll be supporting a Green Party candidate at all. But I do know one thing. Ralph Nader has selflessly worked for the betterment of the environment, clean elections, and consumer safety for the past several DECADES. He has done more for this country and her citizens as a private crusader than the likes of George W. Bush could EVER hope to do. The entire Bush family's story is a story of privilege and entitlement. Nothing is without personal gain or motivation. So, before you dismiss the politics of Ralph Nader again, I suggest you educate yourself, okay? Good boy.

[VinceZeb]

Oh, well, in that case, we should elect Nader president! I mean, he has helped out the bunnies and the trees so much, so that must equate to an ability to be president! Those damn Bushes never had to work a day in their lives and someone just dropped a bunch of money in their pockets! W just sits in his office everyday, yukking it up with his oil barron buddies, while putting his boot on the neck of the black man!

Yep, that's the way it goes... in Kevin's world.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Oh, well, in that case, we should elect Nader president! I mean, he has helped out the bunnies and the trees so much, so that must equate to an ability to be president! Those damn Bushes never had to work a day in their lives and someone just dropped a bunch of money in their pockets!

Well, leaving Prescott's connections to the Third Reich aside, what about their millions? Tell me what George W. Bush has done with his life, tell me his success stories, please!

W just sits in his office everyday, yukking it up with his oil barron buddies, while putting his boot on the neck of the black man!

Vincelation: "I have no argument, I can't compete, and I'm concerned about the size of my genitals."

Yep, that's the way it goes... in Kevin's world.

Well, in my world, the majority of Americans didn't vote for W, but I digress....

Vince, tell me something Bush has done with his life. Either for the betterment of mankind, or if nothing else, the betterment of himself? Is he a self made man, clambake?

[ScruU2wice]

thanx alot guys now i realize how fucked our country really is

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Then please do us both a favor and go away. Don't make me click on a useless response again.

[ScruU2wice]

never

[slain]

teh ralphinader :)

[VinceZeb]

W fought off addiction and found his belief in God. It helps him guide our country. He protects our country everday with and has to deal with more information about the threats against our country than any of us will ever know about.

But Kevin, don't worry. You can still vote for the Communist party. Your vote won't count, but still, you can humor yourself.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

W fought off addiction and found his belief in God. It helps him guide our country.

How so? How does this make him qualified? Millions of Americans deal with addiction every day, and many find salvation the very same way he did. How does this make him a qualified leader???

He protects our country everday with and has to deal with more information about the threats against our country than any of us will ever know about.

This is why when he went to Iraq, and wanted to talk to the guy in charge of finding WMD, he had no clue who that guy was. Even if he did have all of these supposed responsibilitiesthat you claim, he has a staff around him of conservative relics and super heroes to delegate tasks to.

None of this answers my question. What has this man done with his life??? Is he a self made man?? Is he successful?? Is he really reflective of any of the so-called Republican values he espouses...?

But Kevin, don't worry. I'm still really worried about my pee-pee, and I can't think of any good argument. I still find that refering to Communists and stuff helps bail me out of tough spots though. Hey, it worked for Joe!

LOL, THAT'S MY VINCE!!

[VinceZeb]

What has he acomplished, kevin? He is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES! How much more did you want him to do, kevin?

What the hell have you done, Kevin? Answer that question.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

What has he acomplished, kevin? He is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FUCKING STATES! How much more did you want him to do, kevin?

Karl Rove had more to do with this than W.

What the hell have you done, Kevin? Answer that question.

Weren't we comparing the rich boy to the self-made man, Ralph Nader...? No argument? Huh? Typical.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Thanks for shutting your mouth, Vince.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39588-2003Jul24?language=printer

Lieberman Tops Democrat Presidential Poll

The Associated Press
Thursday, July 24, 2003; 10:18 AM


Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman had the most support from Democratic voters in a national poll released Thursday, followed closely by Dick Gephardt. But if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York were in the running, she'd outpace all Democrats.

Recent polls have projected Clinton as the winner if she joined the field. That was also true in this survey: she had 48 percent to 11 percent for Lieberman, with others in single digits.

Lieberman, a Connecticut senator, was at 21 percent and Gephardt, a Missouri representative, was at 16 percent - just within the error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points in the Quinnipiac University poll.

Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, was at 13 percent and Dean, a former governor of Vermont was at 10 percent. Other candidates in the nine-member field were at 6 percent or lower. More than a fifth, 21 percent, were undecided.

In several recent national polls, Lieberman, Kerry and Gephardt were grouped close together at the top. Lieberman led early national polls, at least partially because of his higher name recognition.

When President Bush is matched head-to-head against top Democrats in the poll, he leads by margins ranging from 7 points over Clinton to 16 points over Dean. Bush's lead against Kerry, Gephardt and Lieberman was about 10 points.

The poll of 1,055 registered voters was taken July 17-22, including 372 Democrats. The error margin for the overall sample was plus or minus 3 percentage points.


© 2003 The Associated Press


http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0724-09.htm

Published on Thursday, July 24, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Green Party Taking the Plunge for 2004
by Norman Solomon

For the 2004 presidential race, the Green dye is cast.

"The Green Party emerged from a national meeting ... increasingly certain that it will run a presidential candidate in next year's election, all but settling a debate within the group over how it should approach the 2004 contest," the Washington Post reported on July 21. The Green Party promptly put out a news release declaring that Greens "affirmed the party's intention to run candidates for president and vice president of the United States in 2004."

That release quoted a national party co-chair. "This meeting produced a clear mandate for a strong Green Party presidential ticket in 2004," he said, adding that "we chose the path of growth and establishing ourselves as the true opposition party." But other voices, less public, are more equivocal.

Days later, national party co-chair Anita Rios told me that she's "ambivalent" about the prospect of a Green presidential race next year. Another co-chair, Jo Chamberlain, mentioned "mixed feelings about it." Theoretically, delegates to the national convention next June could pull the party out of the '04 presidential race. But the chances of that happening are very slim. The momentum is clear.

Few present-day Green Party leaders seem willing to urge that Greens forego the blandishments of a presidential campaign. The increased attention -- including media coverage -- for the party is too compelling to pass up.

In recent years, the Greens have overcome one of the first big hurdles of a fledgling political party: News outlets no longer ignore them. In 2000, the Green presidential ticket, headed by Ralph Nader, had a significant impact on the campaign. Although excluded from the debates and many news forums, candidate Nader did gain some appreciable media exposure nationwide.

Green leaders are apt to offer rationales along the lines that "political parties run candidates" and Greens must continue to gain momentum at the ballot box. But by failing to make strategic decisions about which electoral battles to fight -- and which not to -- the Greens are set to damage the party's long-term prospects.

The Green Party is now hampered by rigidity that prevents it from acknowledging a grim reality: The presidency of George W. Bush has turned out to be so terrible in so many ways that even a typically craven corporate Democrat would be a significant improvement in some important respects.

Fueled by idealistic fervor for its social-change program (which I basically share), the Green Party has become an odd sort of counterpoint to the liberals who have allowed pro-corporate centrists to dominate the Democratic Party for a dozen years now. Those liberal Democrats routinely sacrifice principles and idealism in the name of electoral strategy. The Greens are now largely doing the reverse -- proceeding toward the 2004 presidential race without any semblance of a viable electoral strategy, all in the name of principled idealism.

Local Green Party activism has bettered many communities. While able to win some municipal or county races in enclaves around the country -- and sometimes implementing valuable reforms -- the Greens stumble when they field candidates for statewide offices or Congress.

When putting up candidates in those higher-level campaigns, the Greens usually accomplish little other than on occasion making it easier for the Republican candidate to win. That's because the U.S. electoral system, unfortunately, unlike in Europe, is a non-parliamentary winner-take-all setup. To their credit, Green activists are working for reforms like "instant runoff voting" that would make the system more democratic and representative.

In discussions about races for the highest offices, sobering reality checks can be distasteful to many Greens, who correctly point out that a democratic process requires a wide range of voices and choices during election campaigns. But that truth does not change another one: A smart movement selects its battles and cares about its impacts.

A small party that is unwilling to pick and choose its battles -- and unable to consider the effects of its campaigns on the country as a whole -- will find itself glued to the periphery of American politics.

In contrast, more effective progressives seeking fundamental change are inclined to keep exploring -- and learning from -- the differences between principle and self-marginalization. They bypass insular rhetoric and tactics that drive gratuitous wedges between potential allies -- especially when a united front is needed to topple an extreme far-right regime in Washington.

Norman Solomon is co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." For an excerpt and other information, click here.

###

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0724-08.htm

Published on Thursday, July 24, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

Open Letter to Nader Voters and the Greens
by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

When we marched against the WTO and the corporate trade regime in Seattle in 1999, we marched together.

When we stood together against the war with Iraq, half-a-million strong in New York City, and 15 million strong throughout the world, we stood together.

When we fought the badly-named "Patriot Act," we fought it together -- and I was the only one running who voted against it.

When we tried to stop this war from starting, we fought it together -- and I was able to pull together 126 of my colleagues to vote no to war last fall, working with my friend and ally Barbara Lee, as Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

We stand together in opposition to the death penalty; in support of living wages; in support of boosting alternative energy rather than wars for oil; in support of medicinal marijuana; in opposition to corporate hog farming; in support of organic farming; in opposition to nukes in space; in opposition to Star Wars; in support of cutting the military budget by 15% and applying those funds to public education.

We stand together for national health insurance, Canadian style. We stand together on public financing of campaigns, on same day voter registration, on instant runoff voting. We stand together on civil rights, and equal rights, and human rights. We stand together on voting reforms for ex-felons. We stand together on ending the trade and travel embargoes on Cuba. We stand together in opposition to the current war on drugs, which is all too often a war on the urban poor.

We stand together in demanding that publicly-owned clean water is a human right. We stand together in demanding that the developing world's debt be forgiven, as if it were still the Jubilee Year; and that we act seriously to build a world in which arms sales decline, hunger declines, poverty declines, and human rights increase.

We stand together on rejoining the rest of the world, and signing the Kyoto Treaty, the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Land Mines Ban Treaty, and all the rest of the treaties and agreements and working relationships that the current Administration has so cavalierly tossed aside.

We stand together in opposition to excessive CEO salaries; in opposition to offshore tax havens for corporations; in support of real pension reforms, real SEC enforcement, real crackdowns on corporate scofflaws. And we stand together in opposition to sweetheart deals for corporate friends of this Administration, whether it's Enron wrecking California for profit, the drug companies ripping off seniors and HIV patients and poor people for profit, or Halliburton ripping off Iraqi oil revenues for profit.

I am a Democrat, but I understand that Greens and Nader voters are not just liberal Democrats. Still, I note that in Europe, even when political parties disagree on issues, they are often able to work together with each other in coalition. I'd like to raise that possibility again today. And I note that Ralph Nader has suggested that my candidacy is worth supporting.

We all know we will do better if we work together. Perhaps we can find common ground on issues and principles. I would like to open up that possibility. And I would like to ask that you give serious consideration to my candidacy for President. Because a better world is still possible.

Rep. Kucinich is a presidential candidate and co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

###

[mburbank]

Vinth forgot what the argument was. Or maybe he thinks you ARE Ralph Nader. Or maybe he didn't understand what you were saying.

I want Kerry to make more clear why he voted to authorize the Iraq war and how he feels about that vote now. I have followed his career for years, since he was a lone voice in the wilderness on many elements of Iran/Conta YEARS before it became a major story. I think he is disciplined, driven and intelligent. I am VERY frustrated by that vote, I was majorly disapointed by it. It prevents me from supporting him, and I'd like to support him.

[ranxer]

Those liberal Democrats routinely sacrifice principles and idealism in the name of electoral strategy. The Greens are now largely doing the reverse -- proceeding toward the 2004 presidential race without any semblance of a viable electoral strategy, all in the name of principled idealism.

yeehaaw idealism is the only way to go! (for me)

i still cant decide if i'm going to campaign against bush.. or For the Greens yet..

If the Democrats run Lieberman i think ill be campaigning for the greens.. if they run kucinich, kerry or dean ill be campaigning against bush..(kid gloves for the dems in that scenario ;) of course, i'm distributing kucinich material at the moment.

and yes, i know my efforts make a huge difference =)

/goes off grumbling

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030725-112224-8791r.htm

'Dead men walking' urged to quit '04 race

By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Strategists for the Democratic front-runners for president are suggesting that the weakest rivals should consider dropping out of the race to help the top contenders build support in the primaries.
None of the leading candidates for the nomination so far has been willing to openly call on any other hopefuls to abandon their bids. But the campaign of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts appears to be sending just that message in the hopes of substantially narrowing the field of nine candidates well before the end of the year.
"Party leaders know these underperforming candidates are dead men walking. They can't raise money, gain traction or develop compelling messages," a key Kerry campaign strategist said in an interview.
The senior strategist did not mention names, but he implied that it might be better if those at the back of the pack acknowledged what the polls are showing: Their candidacies are not gaining support, the 2004 election year is fast approaching, and Democrats will have a better chance of beating President Bush if the party can coalesce around a candidate sooner rather than later.
"It doesn't matter if they don't drop out [now]. Everywhere they go, it's like watching 'The Sixth Sense' when the little kid says, 'I see dead people.' The sands are shifting beneath their feet, and the [election] clock is ticking," said the strategist, referring to the 1999 movie starring Bruce Willis.
An official of another front-running campaign for the Democratic nomination, who spoke on the condition that he and his candidate not be identified, said the party would be helped "if we headed into next year with a smaller number of candidates, and I think we will."
At present, Mr. Kerry and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean appear to be leading the pack nationally, with Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut behind them.
Party advisers also said this week that the field must be significantly decreased and that probably would happen sometime after Labor Day.
There is a growing feeling in the party's leadership that several contenders will abandon their races before the end of the year, said one party adviser, who has worked with the Democratic National Committee and with House and Senate Democratic leaders on election strategy. Those candidates have not been able to break out of single digits in most polls for next year's state primaries.
At least five contenders were stuck in the low single digits in polls for the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary: Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois and the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York. Among them, only Mrs. Moseley Braun has said she will reassess her candidacy in September.
"Everyone talks about Graham [dropping out] because he is not anywhere in terms of money, endorsements. He's clearly in the tier of trailing candidates," the DNC adviser said.
Mr. Edwards has not been able to get his campaign off the ground, and there is wide agreement among party strategists that he will not be among those standing when the primaries begin in January. He draws 6 percent or less in national polls and 5 percent or less in New Hampshire.
The Edwards campaign insisted this week that "he's in this for the duration."
"It's going to take time, particularly with one who does not have high name recognition," Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said. "I think it's too early to suggest that some candidates should get out of the race."
Meanwhile, Mr. Gephardt's significant lead in Iowa has vanished, and he is a distant third in New Hampshire. "Gephardt is teetering on the verge of dropping down to the bottom tier," a party official said.
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said she, too, has heard a lot of talk in party circles about urging some candidates to pull out to build early support for the strongest front-runner.
"At some point, we are going to have to winnow down the field, but it is too early to coalesce around a candidate. In the fall, that's when you will see the candidates begin to thin out," she said.
"I understand [the front-runners´] frustration, but this is why we have a primary system. Let's see what happens after Labor Day and then determine whether the bottom tier should pack their bags and go home."
Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, agreed. "I think the shakeout is coming after the third-quarter September fund-raising filing," when the candidates will report how much campaign money they have raised.
"The next filing is going to be critical. At that point, if you haven't raised a lot of money, it is going to be very hard to stay competitive," Mr. Rosenberg said.

###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

DLC= Determined to Lose Core Democrats.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=615&u=/nm/20030728/pl_nm/politics_democrats_dc_1&printer=1

Moderate Democrats Warn Party on 2004 Prospects
Mon Jul 28, 4:52 PM ET

By David Morgan

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A group of centrist Democrats who helped elect Bill Clinton (news - web sites) to the White House warned on Monday that the Democratic Party will lose the 2004 presidential election unless it can win over suburban voters who feel the party has become too liberal.



In language critical of left-leaning positions, the Democratic Leadership Council urged party leaders to avoid policies that voters may associate with big government and special-interest groups, including labor unions.


"The Democratic Party is at risk of being taken over from the far left," U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, the group's chairman, told reporters at a two-day DLC convention here.


"If we want to govern, we have to offer the American people more than just nostalgia and more than just criticism."


The council released the results of a survey by former Clinton pollster Mark Penn that showed President Bush (news - web sites) as vulnerable on domestic issues including the economy, health care, the federal deficit and education.


But the poll of 1,225 "likely 2004 voters" conducted June 20 to July 1 also said Democrats faced a huge challenge attracting voters from suburban families -- clear majorities of whom were seen to criticize the party as too liberal, beholden to special interests and out of touch with mainstream America.


"The poll is very clear for those who think that if the Democratic Party just lurched to the left and showed a higher flash of anger, that they would somehow win the next election," Penn said. "This poll puts a laugh to that theory."


The DLC has tried for years to push the party away from the liberal agendas of past nominees such as George McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Michael Dukakis in 1988.


In 2000, it criticized former Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites)'s unsuccessful campaign for being too populist and abandoning some of the pro-business themes that helped elect Clinton.


In May, the group trained its sights on former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, criticizing the White House hopeful for his anti-war rhetoric and other positions it castigated as self-interested liberalism.


"Democrats are only going to win in 2004 if we make very clear to the American people that we're tough on national security, that we're tough on economic growth and that we have a better alternative for the country," said DLC President Bruce Reed, the former Clinton domestic policy advisor.

[mburbank]

Couldn't a Democratic candidate be "Tough on national Security" by, say, "Not being a fucking moron on national Security."

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/30/politics/campaigns/30DEAN.html?pagewanted=print&position=

July 30, 2003

Defying Labels Left or Right, Dean's '04 Run Makes Gains
By JODI WILGOREN with DAVID ROSENBAUM


TTUMWA, Iowa, July 25 — During a special live broadcast of the Vermont Public Radio program "Switchboard" before an audience of Iowa Democrats here, the host played two audio clips of his guest, Howard Dean.

The first, from Dr. Dean's 1999 State of the State address, delivered when he was governor of Vermont, was a staid, nonpartisan call to view all Vermont as one community. In the second, which came from the official kickoff of Dr. Dean's presidential campaign last month, you could practically hear fists flying as he shouted over and over, "You have the power!" and "We're going to take our country back!"

Back home, said the radio host, folks have been wondering, "What has gotten into Howard Dean?"

Vermonters are not the only ones pondering that question. After more than a year of nonstop visits to Iowa and New Hampshire on a threadbare budget, supported mainly by volunteers who had connected over the Internet, Dr. Dean, who began as an antiwar gadfly, has in the past month burst from his obscurity to rank among the top contenders in a crowded field of Democrats for the party's presidential nomination.

Thanks to his stunning surge as the top fund-raiser among the potential Democratic candidates in the second quarter, Dr. Dean now has a campaign budget to match those of more-established candidates like Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

The $7.6 million Dr. Dean raised in the quarter — mostly in small contributions from 59,000 people — has led to increased attention, greater scrutiny and dogged determination from his rivals to halt his momentum.

With his early and intense opposition to the American-led attack on Iraq, his call for universal health insurance and his signing a bill that created civil unions for gay couples in Vermont, Dr. Dean, 54, is seen as the most liberal of the major Democratic candidates. Many of the people donning his "Give 'em hell, Howard" buttons hail from the left wing of the party and beyond.

But in Vermont, whose political center of gravity lands left of the nation's, one of the secrets to Dr. Dean's success was keeping the most liberal politicians in check.

Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests.

After winning the first of his five elections for governor by more than 50 points, he barely got a majority in 2000, in part because of third-party challenges from the left that, in the 2002 election absent Dr. Dean, helped hand the governor's chair to a Republican.

A Pragmatic Politician

In the green, hilly quiet of Vermont, Dr. Dean, a stockbroker's son who grew up on Park Avenue in Manhattan and in Sag Harbor, N.Y., is viewed not as an idealistic maverick, but as a shrewd politician who always kept one ambitious eye on the next step. Even the civil unions bill, sure to cost him among conservatives nationally, was considered a cop-out by some gays and liberals at home who say he did only what was demanded by state courts and signed the bill "in the closet," without a public ceremony.

"In the Vermont political spectrum, he was a moderate or a centrist," said Eric L. Davis, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in Vermont. "In the spectrum of Vermont, he was not someone who was a strong supporter of left or progressive causes."

The difference may be as much a matter of style as substance. In fact, much of Dr. Dean's presidential platform, particularly his plan for universal health insurance, is a outgrowth of his accomplishments in Vermont. He remains a fiscal conservative, he believes gun control should be left to the states and he favors the death penalty for some crimes.

But in building an insurgent campaign as a Washington outsider, Dr. Dean has gained fluency in the populist language of political revolution, constantly repeating the fact that half his contributors have never before donated to a candidate.

"The way to beat George Bush is not to be like him," he told a rally of 600 people overlooking the harbor in Portsmouth, N.H., on July 22. "The way to beat George Bush is to give the 50 percent of Americans who don't vote a reason to vote again."

Many of Dr. Dean's issue papers do run counter to the centrist positions of the Democratic Leadership Council that have dominated the national party since Bill Clinton's emergence in 1992. [On Monday, in fact, in a critique clearly aimed at Dr. Dean, the group warned that the party was in danger of embracing "far left" policies that would ensure its defeat next year.]

Dr. Dean vows to repeal Mr. Bush's tax cuts to pay for health care and other social programs; he insists that all abortion decisions be left to women and their doctors, and advocates alternative energy sources like wind ("I can see Karl Rove chortling about that Birkenstock governor," he says at every stop, referring to Mr. Bush's senior adviser).

And while he sees marriage as a religious issue, Dr. Dean said during the radio show here at the Hotel Ottumwa that all states should find a way to ensure that gay couples have the same rights as straight ones, something that sent several people away shaking their heads.

"I don't think it's their prerogative not to treat Americans equally," Dr. Dean said of the states, adding later that he remained unsure how, as president, he might force individual states to adopt plans for providing benefits. "This is not a country that was built on discriminating against other people."

But over all, Dr. Dean's presidential pitch is more pragmatic than ideological. He is less George McGovern than John McCain, less Eugene McCarthy than Jimmy Carter (his first job in politics was stuffing envelopes for President Carter in the 1980 presidential campaign, and he has adopted President Carter's habit of staying in voters' homes rather than hotels).

Many who met him over four days in New Hampshire and Iowa said they were inspired not by a checklist of issues but by his straight talk — a phrase the campaign is reluctant to use, since it was practically trademarked by Senator McCain in 2000. Several voters said they loved Dr. Dean's willingness to say "I don't know," as he did, for instance, when asked whether pictures of Saddam Hussein's dead sons should be released to the news media.

"Whether you're right or wrong, if you're honest, it won't matter," said Lee Cassenn, a former chairman of the Keokuk County Democrats who turned up on Thursday to meet Dr. Dean at the Copper Lantern restaurant in Sigourney, Iowa.

Between stops at a hospital in Concord, N.H., and an orchard in Canterbury, N.H., last Wednesday, Dr. Dean said that he was selling his character. Voters "give you wide latitude on the issues if they like the way you make decisions," he explained.

"I have no right to be where I am if you look at this race on paper," he added the next morning on the plane to Iowa. "The reason I am where I am is because I say what I think."

But as Dr. Dean has transformed himself to a valid contender in the race, examinations of what he says and thinks have intensified.

Among the most carefully scrutinized are his evolving critiques of the Iraq war. With other Democrats now criticizing the administration for overstating intelligence concerns about Iraq and uranium, Dr. Dean has been claiming that he was the only major Democratic candidate who had been unconvinced by President Bush's evidence on weapons of mass destruction. But earlier this spring, he said repeatedly that he did believe Iraq had such weapons and just did not think an American-led invasion was the right solution.

"Governor Dean is simply reinventing his own position and that of others, and that's the rankest kind of politics," said Jim Jordan, campaign manager for Senator Kerry, Dr. Dean's leading rival in New Hampshire. "He was an unemployed doctor with no responsibilities, and it was easy to sit there and take political potshots from the outside."

Leaving a Mark in Vermont

Like George W. Bush before him, Dr. Dean often points to his experience as a state's chief executive as qualification for the job. When Mary Hartley, 49, an unemployed woman drowning in $91,000 in student loans, expressed skepticism about false promises after Dr. Dean's recent talk at Taso's restaurant in Oskalossa, Iowa, he urged her, "Go see what I did in Vermont."

With about 600,000 residents, 97 percent of them white, Vermont is hardly a typical state; its largest city, Burlington, has fewer than 40,000 people. The poverty rate is below the national average, but so are wages and per-capita income.

The Democrats who dominate the State Senate sometimes advocate things that have been abandoned as lost causes in Washington, like higher income taxes and government-run health care, while the Republicans who hold a narrow majority in the State House of Representatives rarely espouse the social conservatism that dominates the party elsewhere.

Dr. Dean graduated from Yale University in 1971 — five years after Mr. Kerry, three years after Mr. Bush, and one year after Garry Trudeau, whose "Doonesbury" comic strip has featured the Dean campaign for weeks — and attended Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York before moving to Burlington, where he ran an internal-medicine practice with his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg.

He first dipped his toes in political water in a 1978 campaign to build a bike trail around Lake Champlain. He spent four years in the Vermont Legislature and five as lieutenant governor, both part-time jobs, before being elevated to the top job in in 1991, when Gov. Richard Snelling, a Republican, died of a heart attack.

He inherited a state budget deficit of about 11 percent, the highest income taxes in the country and the lowest bond rating in New England.

To the dismay of liberals in the Legislature who wanted to expand social and environmental programs, Dr. Dean and his chief economic adviser, Harlan Sylvester, a conservative stockbroker and investment banker, stuck with the Snelling budget-cutting plan. Helped by a booming economy, the state's finances improved sharply. Dr. Dean lowered income tax rates by 30 percent and put away millions in a rainy day fund. Vermont's bond rating became the highest in the Northeast.

In his last term, Dr. Dean won a change in law so that Vermont taxes were not automatically lowered by Mr. Bush's cut in federal income taxes, and Vermont had a comfortable surplus this spring when most other states faced crippling budget shortfalls. On the stump, he blames the federal deficit for the weak economy and derides Mr. Bush for running "a borrow-and-spend credit-card presidency." Mr. Bush's tax cuts, he say, are a gift to "the president's friends like Ken Lay," referring to the former chief executive of Enron.

Standing Up for His Beliefs

Other than the state's finances, the area where Dr. Dean most made his mark as governor was health care.

When he entered office, Dr. Dean was determined to provide health insurance to everyone in the state in one fell swoop. Despite support from liberal lawmakers, his plan failed, along with a similar initiative by the Clinton administration.

So Dr. Dean changed tactics and managed to accomplish much of his goal incrementally. Vermont now offers the nation's most generous health benefits to children, low-income adults and elderly residents of modest means. Almost all children in the state have full medical insurance, and more than a third of Vermont residents on Medicare get state help in paying for prescription drugs.

Under the program, teenage girls can often get counseling about sex and contraception without their parents' knowledge.

Dr. Dean promised that as president he would spend half of the money he would save by repealing Mr. Bush's recent tax cuts to provide free insurance to people under 25 and those who earn less than 185 percent of the poverty rate, and to let everybody else buy into a national plan for 7.5 percent of their gross income.

"My plan is not reform — if you want to totally change the health-care system, I'm not your guy," Dr. Dean told supporters in Lebanon, N.H. "I'm not interested in having a big argument about what the best system is. I'm interested in getting everybody covered."

Dr. Dean earned the National Rifle Association's highest rating in its ranking of governors by signing two bills that protected gun ranges from commercial development and shifted responsibility for background checks to the federal government from county sheriffs. He says he would enforce federal laws banning assault weapons and requiring background checks, but would leave the rest to the states.

But the two most controversial bills Dr. Dean signed were forced on him by State Supreme Court decisions declaring the state's school financing system unconstitutional and demanding the same legal benefits for gay couples as for married heterosexuals.

In both instances, Dr. Dean mostly stayed in the background and left the heavy lifting to the Legislature. He insisted only that income taxes not be raised; the Legislature then turned to property taxes in wealthier communities to subsidize schools in poorer areas. And he pressed the state not to sanction gay marriages, although he allowed civil unions.

Although Dr. Dean flirted briefly with the idea of running for president in 2000, he says it was the civil union battle that finally convinced him to do so. "I realized you could win by standing up for what you believe in," he said.

A Real National Contender?

The question now is whether Dr. Dean can capitalize on the current momentum to convert what began as a long-shot bid to raise concerns about President Bush into a serious national campaign. The fund-raising windfall has prompted the campaign to speed plans to hire workers in eight states, including the union strongholds of Michigan and Wisconsin.

But Dr. Dean's lack of national experience has already tripped him up, most notably when he flubbed a series of detailed questions about military deployment on "Meet the Press" in June. Aides say they will prepare better next time.

His surge also creates the risk that he could peak too soon. "He's got the hot hand, no doubt about it," said Charlie Cook, the legendary handicapper who edits the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "At the same time, to be the hot candidate and to have momentum in July, six months before the first people vote, I'm sure they would much rather be in this position four months from now."

Just as critically, his prominence could raise expectations for his performance in the neighboring state of New Hampshire. At his current pace, some analysts say, even a second-place showing in New Hampshire would be damaging.

On the other hand, while many insurgent campaigns like Dr. Dean's rely on results in Iowa and New Hampshire to attract money and attention, Dr. Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said the early fund-raising success gave him a safety net.

Regardless of the results in those first two states, Dr. Dean will probably still have money in the bank and staff on the ground to compete elsewhere.

But his prominence also makes him a tempting target for the rivals he threatens, particularly Mr. Kerry, whose campaign also expects to do well in New Hampshire.

"These campaigns are in some respects like musical chairs — when the music stops, there's only going to be two candidates sitting," said Chris Lehane, Mr. Kerry's campaign spokesman. "We know we occupy one of those chairs. More and more, it looks like Dean is going to occupy the other."

The only major Democratic contender who doesn't have another job, Dr. Dean has been on the road since February 2002. He has logged 34 days in Iowa and 27 in New Hampshire so far this year.

Dr. Dean typically speaks without notes except for the names of people he wants to thank. Instead of a formal speech, he juggles about 20 distinct paragraphs, each with their signature phrases — the most effective is the disgusted, sardonic "we can do better than that" that often punctuates his indictment of the president's performance.

This keeps him fresher, but despite all that time on the road, it sometimes leads to inelegant stumbling.

"He needs to do more polishing — he's not as brilliant as Clinton — but at least he's real," Sheilah Rechtschafter, a painter and teacher who lives in Garrison, N.Y., said to a friend after hearing Dr. Dean in Portsmouth, where she was visiting.

Dr. Dean travels with just one longtime aide, and his wife has no plans to join him on the campaign trail. His staff recently convinced him to wear newer suits and lose the colorful "Save the Children" ties, but he is hanging on to his odd belt, with its large buckle and silver-rimmed holes, that once belonged to his brother, Charlie, who was killed in Laos in 1974 while traveling with a friend.

Lately, a campaign that was built almost organically by disenfranchised voters who connected online has turned to more mainstream sources. Dr. Dean now spends much of his down time dialing Democratic governors and New Hampshire state legislators.

He also has had conventional fundraisers in Provincetown, Mass., and on Cape Cod. On the West Coast, his supporters include Rob Reiner, Martin Sheen, Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Nora Ephron and Larry David.

But with that kind of backing, it is not surprising to hear the question that a man posed to Dr. Dean at a house party for 200 on the muggy sea coast of New Hampshire: Isn't he too liberal to get elected?

"If being a liberal means a balanced budget, I'm a liberal," Dr. Dean said, delighted at the opening. "If being a liberal means adding jobs instead of subtracting them, then, please, call me a liberal."

"I don't care what label you put on me," he finished, "as long as you call me Mr. President!"

[sspadowsky]

Dean certainly is an interesting candidate. From what I have heard and read so far, he's as calculating as any successful politician, and he's got a damn creepy grin. At any rate, what I know of his policies appeals to me more than any of the other Dems so far. Kerry and Edwards are too big on the national security end, and I know that Edwards favors the patently unconstitutional PATRIOT Act.

Unrelated: I notice that article was written in Ottumwa, IA. I've been to Ottumwa, and I didn't think they had a damn radio station, or anything else beyond electricity and running water.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

John Kerry is such a tool.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/08/04/national/04dems.jpg

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/6473340.htm

Posted on Wed, Aug. 06, 2003

Dean Says He Misspoke on Social Security
NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Wednesday that he misspoke when he told the AFL-CIO he never favored raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits to age 70.

Dean acknowledged that he had called for such an increase when the country was faced with a deficit in 1995, but said he no longer thinks it is necessary. He said former President Clinton set an example of balancing the budget without raising the retirement age.

"Clinton proved that if you run a decent economy and have a budget surplus and some jobs, then you don't need to raise the age to extend the life of Social Security," Dean said in a telephone interview after The Associated Press questioned conflicting statements he has made on the issue.

The current retirement age for receiving full program benefits is 65 years and two months. The retirement age will gradually rise to 67 over the next two decades.

Dean's false statement came Tuesday night during an appearance at the AFL-CIO's Democratic presidential candidate forum.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who favors taking it back to age 65, criticized Dean for saying he'd raise to 68 or 70. Dean responded, "I have never favored a Social Security retirement age of 70 nor do I favor one of 68."

But that contradicted a 1995 article in which Dean said he wanted to raise it to age 70 to help balance the budget. It also contradicted a television appearance in June in which Dean said he would consider raising the age to 68.

According to the 1995 Newhouse News Service article, Dean said the way to balance the budget is for Congress to move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Social Security, Medicare and veterans pensions, and then have the states cut almost everything else. At the time, Dean was Vermont's governor and chairman of the National Governors Association.

During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" in June, Dean said an increase to age 70 is no longer necessary, but he would entertain an increase to 68.

He said the way to balance the budget now is to repeal President Bush's tax cuts and restrict spending. He said to balance Social Security, he would consider raising the retirement age to 68 and letting more salary above $87,000 fall under the payroll tax.

On Wednesday, Dean said since his appearance on "Meet the Press," he has consulted with experts and concluded that no increase in the retirement age would be necessary. A better solution, he said, would be to raise the salary limit.

"I'm willing to take it off entirely if we need to," he said.

Dean has made misstatements before on the presidential campaign trail.

He apologized to rival John Edwards in March after saying that the North Carolina senator avoided talking about his support of the Iraq war before a largely anti-war audience in California. Dean said he did not hear Edwards when he pledged support for disarming Iraq by force and was booed and jeered by many in the crowd.

In June, he angered Bob Graham's presidential campaign by saying the Florida senator was "not one of the top-tier candidates" seeking the party's nomination. The next day he said he regretted the remark.
###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/6473340.htm

Posted on Wed, Aug. 06, 2003

Dean Says He Misspoke on Social Security
NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Wednesday that he misspoke when he told the AFL-CIO he never favored raising the retirement age for Social Security benefits to age 70.

Dean acknowledged that he had called for such an increase when the country was faced with a deficit in 1995, but said he no longer thinks it is necessary. He said former President Clinton set an example of balancing the budget without raising the retirement age.

"Clinton proved that if you run a decent economy and have a budget surplus and some jobs, then you don't need to raise the age to extend the life of Social Security," Dean said in a telephone interview after The Associated Press questioned conflicting statements he has made on the issue.

The current retirement age for receiving full program benefits is 65 years and two months. The retirement age will gradually rise to 67 over the next two decades.

Dean's false statement came Tuesday night during an appearance at the AFL-CIO's Democratic presidential candidate forum.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who favors taking it back to age 65, criticized Dean for saying he'd raise to 68 or 70. Dean responded, "I have never favored a Social Security retirement age of 70 nor do I favor one of 68."

But that contradicted a 1995 article in which Dean said he wanted to raise it to age 70 to help balance the budget. It also contradicted a television appearance in June in which Dean said he would consider raising the age to 68.

According to the 1995 Newhouse News Service article, Dean said the way to balance the budget is for Congress to move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Social Security, Medicare and veterans pensions, and then have the states cut almost everything else. At the time, Dean was Vermont's governor and chairman of the National Governors Association.

During an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" in June, Dean said an increase to age 70 is no longer necessary, but he would entertain an increase to 68.

He said the way to balance the budget now is to repeal President Bush's tax cuts and restrict spending. He said to balance Social Security, he would consider raising the retirement age to 68 and letting more salary above $87,000 fall under the payroll tax.

On Wednesday, Dean said since his appearance on "Meet the Press," he has consulted with experts and concluded that no increase in the retirement age would be necessary. A better solution, he said, would be to raise the salary limit.

"I'm willing to take it off entirely if we need to," he said.

Dean has made misstatements before on the presidential campaign trail.

He apologized to rival John Edwards in March after saying that the North Carolina senator avoided talking about his support of the Iraq war before a largely anti-war audience in California. Dean said he did not hear Edwards when he pledged support for disarming Iraq by force and was booed and jeered by many in the crowd.

In June, he angered Bob Graham's presidential campaign by saying the Florida senator was "not one of the top-tier candidates" seeking the party's nomination. The next day he said he regretted the remark.
###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0808-11.htm

Published in the September, 2003 issue of The Progressive

Ganging Up on Dean
by Ruth Conniff

Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean is getting the treatment. The acerbic physician and former governor of Vermont has raised more money and gained more popularity than expected. As a result, the pundits who examine political candidates' viability have turned their gaze on him. In June, Tim Russert and a clique of Washington pundits and reporters who follow Russert's lead pronounced Dean unfit. According to a flurry of news stories and columns, Dean's appearance on Meet the Press with Russert on June 22 was an embarrassment for the candidate and a disaster for his campaign.

People who saw the show or read the transcript might well ask: What was the big deal?

The New York Times and The Washington Post pulled out the following "embarrassing" details: Russert quizzed Dean on the exact number of U.S. military personnel on active duty. Dean said there were between one and two million. The correct number is, in fact, right in the middle-1.4 million. Russert asked Dean how many troops are currently stationed in Iraq (a constantly fluctuating number). Dean said it was "in the neighborhood of 135,000 troops." The number is really 146,000, the Times pointed out.

How would President Bush do on a similar pop quiz? My guess is our current commander in chief couldn't answer those questions. But Russert made a big deal of Dean's failure to produce the precise figures from memory.

"For me to have to know right now, participating in the Democratic Party [primary], how many troops are actively on duty in the United States military-when that is actually a number that's composed both of people on duty today and people who are in the National Guard . . . it's silly," Dean said. "That's like asking me who the ambassador to Rwanda is."

"Oh, no, no, no. Not at all," Russert replied. "Not if you want to be commander in chief."

Russert planted a seed that grew into a tree, casting a big shadow of doubt on Dean as the Post, the Times, and the Sunday morning pundits asked, "Is Dean Presidential material?"

The New York Times called the show a "debacle."

Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Post, summed up a host of other bad reviews: New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets called Dean's interview "perhaps the worst performance by a presidential candidate in the history of television." The Dallas Morning News quoted unnamed Democrats comparing Dean to Republican landslide victims George McGovern and Walter Mondale. ABCNews.com said "the politico-media establishment continues to look at him as an anti-war pipsqueak . . . decidedly not ready for prime time."

What's really going on here?

Certainly Tim Russert has a reputation for being a tough interviewer, and for not letting anyone off the hook.

But as comedian and media gadfly Bob Sommerby pointed out on his website The Daily Howler (www.dailyhowler.com), Russert's treatment of another governor who was running for President was completely different. In his first interview with candidate George W. Bush in 1999, Russert actually supplied some numbers:

Russert: "In your speech, you said that arms reductions are not our most pressing challenge. Right now, we have 7,200 nuclear weapons; the Russians have 6,000. What to you is an acceptable level?"

Bush: "That's going to depend upon the generals helping me make that decision, Tim. That's going to depend upon the people whose judgment I will rely upon to make sure that we have a peaceful world."

But if it was OK for Bush to fob off detailed policy discussions on a future team of advisers, for Dean the rules were different.

Before his combative interview with Dean, Russert went to Bush Administration officials at the Treasury Department to ask for budget data to attack Dean's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts. Predictably, the Administration generated figures that showed a reversal of Bush tax policy would be a disaster for middle class Americans.

Parroting the Bush line, Russert challenged Dean: "Can you honestly go across the country and say, "I'm going to raise your taxes 4,000 percent [for married couples with two children] or 107 percent [for married retirees] and be elected?"

Dean stuck to his guns. "Were those figures from the Treasury Department, did you say, or CBO [the Congressional Budget Office]?" he asked. "I don't believe them."

Russert persisted: "But in the middle of an economic downturn, Howard Dean wants to raise taxes on the average of $1,200 per family."

Dean was vindicated the next day. In a short piece on June 23, The Washington Post noted the release of the Treasury Department report, calling it "a highly selective analysis of the cost to families of rolling back scheduled tax cuts" and quoting a Brookings Institution economist who poked holes in the figures. "The research was prepared at the request of Meet the Press," the Post noted, adding: "The analysis does not include single people or lower income couples, two groups that benefit little from Bush's cuts."

Is Tim Russert a stalking horse for the Bush Administration? Or does he just have it in for Howard Dean?

Peter Hart of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting sees a subtler dynamic. The problem for Dean, according to Hart, is something like the problem Al Gore faced in the last election. Reporters just don't like him much. Indeed, Dean had a reputation in Vermont for being impatient and sometimes downright rude. Newsweek recently ran a piece that described Dean getting annoyed and sarcastic with members of the national press corps.

"He doesn't seem to like journalists, and the feeling is mutual," Hart says. That leads the press to jump on unflattering stories, even if they're not quite accurate. A public stumble that might be overlooked in another candidate could become the dreaded Jimmy-Carter-attack-rabbit episode. Look for more anecdotes about Dean losing his cool and getting his facts mixed up, says Hart.

The Washington press corps can be like a gang of mean junior high school kids. But there is more than fickle dislike for a certain personality in the media tarring of Dean. Dean is an outsider. As the most identifiably progressive candidate-or at least the one with the most money, since Dennis Kucinich, who is running to the left of Dean, hasn't raised millions and has been almost completely ignored by the press-Dean sticks out. The "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," which Dean claims to represent, is not much in evidence in Washington these days.

To the inside-the-Beltway media, which lives and dies by connections, contacts, and conventional wisdom, "there is something appealing and at the same time unappealing about someone who comes from the outside," says Hart. "They need to take an extra look. They need to neutralize him by showing that this guy isn't ready for prime time." That's because, at bottom, what most stands out about Dean to Washington insiders is that he's not an insider himself. That threatens their sense of superiority-not just of the insider candidates in the field, but also of the press corps that follows and anoints them. "Political veterans, insiders, would never get a pop quiz," says Hart.

Can Dean survive the drubbing? Yes. After all, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush were all governors with little or no military experience. All had to face questions about their preparation for office. Carter even espoused some establishment-shaking ideas about regulation and reform. But Dean needs to do two things to protect himself from being fatally marginalized, one of which he is already doing. First, he needs to stop being needlessly prickly with the press. (He hasn't done that yet.) And second, he must keep on speaking directly to voters, through his remarkably successful website and in his more plentiful public appearances than the candidates with the inside track. The public, leaving aside gatekeepers like Tim Russert, are less interested in a candidate who can pass a rigged, on-the-spot civics test than they are in someone with the brains and guts to aggressively take on George W. Bush.

Ruth Conniff is Political Editor of The Progressive.

Copyright 2003 The Progressive

###

[VinceZeb]

Kerry and Edwards are too big on the national security end...

Oh man, because we know that you can be too big on protecting our country.

Do you wake up each morning thinking about what you can say that is totally fucking ignorant, or does it come naturally to ya?

[Miss Modular]

Do you wake up each morning thinking about what you can say that is totally fucking ignorant, or does it come naturally to ya?

You should be asking yourself that question.

[sspadowsky]

Oh man, because we know that you can be too big on protecting our country.

I assume you meant to type "can't," but I'll still run with this. Yes, you can be too big on protecting your country. When you "protect" your country by spying on your own law-abiding citizens, you are too big on protecting your country. I think it was Truman who said "You show me a completely secure nation, and I'll show you a dictatorship." For someone who claims to be such a Libertarian, lasseiz-faire kinda guy, you're awfully big on gov't intrusion upon our civil liberties. Oh, and $20 says you've never read the actual PATRIOT Act, which Kerry and Edwards both voted for. So why don't you just sort of go ahead and shut your pie-hole until you know what the hell you're talking about?

On the other hand, I suppose it's silly of me to debate someone who "talks in intelligent sentences."

[VinceZeb]

Blah blah blah.

Try and sound smart all you want. You know exactly what I meant. If it were up to you, we would probably use shell casings for flower pots, get rid of our nukes, and hold hands with murderous countries.

Total security never happens. I want security up into the point it infringes on my right to life, liberty and persuit of happiness. When it gets to that point, then there is "too much security" and the country becomes a dictatorship.

Since this is about the zillionth time I have explained this or something like this, I hope you understand it.

[sspadowsky]

Vince, translated:

Try and sound smart all you want.
"I don't know what "lasseiz-faire" means."
If it were up to you, we would probably use shell casings for flower pots, get rid of our nukes, and hold hands with murderous countries.
"I am appalled at the thought of a more peaceful world, because I would have less reason to get a stiffy thinking about bunker-busters and mini-nukes."
Total security never happens. I want security up into the point it infringes on my right to life, liberty and persuit of happiness.
"I want to have it both ways by claiming to be a Libertarian and wanting to get the gov't out of my pocketbook, while simultaneously believing that we need more intrusive laws and more tax dollars going to weapons instead of education. Because I am an incredible dumbass."
Since this is about the zillionth time I have explained this or something like this, I hope you understand it.
"Since I am routinely incoherent, I hoped that what I just typed qualifies as English."

[sspadowsky]

By the way, I wonder who you meant when you were talking about "murderous countries"? Would you mean countries who assassinate the democratically-elected leaders of other countries, so they can install puppet regimes in their place? Or maybe countries who create horrific lethal weapons and then sell them to other countries with unstable leaders? 'Cause man, I'd hate for us to be associated with a country like that. Especially if my tax dollars were contributing to it.

[VinceZeb]

:wah I'm sspadowsky, I can't argue any points so I will just whine and insult people :wah

I don't believe we need more laws. We need to ENFORCE the laws we have now. Do we need more rules about airport security? Or should we let airport screeners search and report people who look like they could present a problem? That would be an easier solution.


They federal govt should build highways, provide limited federal services, and build the best army in existance. Everything else should and could be private sector.


Now I know you are an idiot and it takes you about 20 times to understand the same thing said over and over, but I'll do it again.

[sspadowsky]

No, dingus. We need to get rid of some of the laws we have now. You, in your hopelessly narrow perspective, don't seem to understand that this goes beyond pulling people out of line at the airport. The PATRIOT Act lays the groundwork for some very nasty shit, and I don't want any more ardent supporters of it running our country.

I believe the federal government should be limited, too. Like, they shouldn't be able to violate the Constitution and ruin people's lives when they haven't done anything wrong. And don't you fucking tell me that doesn't happen, because it does, and has happened, and is happening. There were over 1,000 people that were arrested in the wake of 9-11 who were never charged with anything, but were held in jail, some for months at a time, without being told why, and without being allowed access to their families or to legal counsel. Which is, you know, illegal. Or at least it was, until the PATRIOT Act was passed.

The only idiot I see is the guy saying that he doesn't care too much about what the government does, so long as it doesn't fuck with his life too much, or give any of his money to the poor.

[VinceZeb]

I have said numerous times that I do not like the Patriot Act. You can look all throughout this board and see that.

[sspadowsky]

I want security up into the point it infringes on my right to life, liberty and persuit of happiness.
Oh man, because we know that you can be too big on protecting our country.
Do you wake up each morning thinking about what you can say that is totally fucking ignorant, or does it come naturally to ya?

If you're so against the PATRIOT Act, then why don't some of the things you say jibe with that? You're against the Act, but you think we should "get off our PC high horse" and pull people out of line? What about holding them indefinitely, without being charged for anything, with no contact with the outside world, just because they "looked suspicious," or had a suspicious name? Are you in favor of that?

Now I know that you wrote the above in response to my statement about Kerry and Edwards being "too big on the national security thing." It's possible to be too big on it. The people who are too into security are usually paranoid, and the general population suffers as a result.

We live in a soft, spoiled-rotten society that can no longer cope with the idea that bad things are going to happen no matter how many precautions we take, and they're all too willing to hand over individual liberties for a false sense of security. It's stupid, and I'm not going to vote for someone who favors that point of view.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/21999146.html

Kerry 'Gores' Dean

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts took another swing at Howard Dean last week, a week after accusing the former Vermont governor of supporting policy unbecoming of "real Democrats."

The comedic timing was admirable, but the jab left a reporter's question unanswered.

During a campaign stop in Des Moines Monday, Kerry was asked whether the Internet petition drive he was announcing in protest of President Bush's proposed overtime pay standards was in response to a similar effort Dean had launched a week earlier.

Dean staffers had stirred up the questions in advance of Kerry's event with union members at a Des Moines AFSCME office.

"The Dean campaign is saying you're kind of stealing their thunder on this on-line petition," Dave Price, a reporter for Des Moines-based WHO-TV 13, to which Kerry responded with a smirk: "Well, the last person I heard who claimed he had invented the Internet didn't do so well."

The response earned restrained yucks from the gaggle of reporters. But Dean's staff hadn't said they invented on-line petition drives, and Kerry didn't refute that Dean's drive started first.
###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8387

Dean And The Union


Stephen K. Medvic, assistant professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College, is the co-editor of Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaign Ethics (Brookings Institution Press, 2002).


Howard Dean has become the man to beat in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. As has been widely noted, he’s beginning to get the kind of intense scrutiny that front runners attract. But while most of the attention has been paid to Dean’s more trivial missteps there’s a profoundly important aspect of his broader philosophy that’s gone virtually undiscussed -- his stance on states’ rights.

The issue that illuminates this matter is gay rights and, in particular, same-sex civil unions. Of course, as governor of Vermont, Dean signed into law a bill recognizing such unions. The Vermont law grants gay and lesbian couples all the rights and privileges of heterosexual married couples (save the right to be married itself).

That action has prompted a few reporters to ask Dean about his support for such a law at the national level. His answer has been virtually the same in all cases -- he is opposed. Why would he oppose a national law that he felt justified in endorsing for his state? Because he apparently believes that the federal government has no right to intervene in state decision-making.

In a recent interview on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Dean said, "You can't propose [same-sex civil unions] as a national policy... That is not the prerogative of the federal government, that is the prerogative of the states." And in an appearance on Meet the Press in July of 2002, Dean said that he would "absolutely not" favor a national law establishing such unions. When host Tim Russert asked why not, he said that each state must come to "grips with civil rights" in its own way.

Russert followed up by asking Dean if his logic dictated that each state should determine the legality of abortion, to which Dean said "no." Why? Because the government has "no business practicing medicine," he retorted. Asked again for a distinction between gay rights and abortion rights, Dean replied, "Because we have [a] national law that says that abortion is a legal right and that women are entitled to make their own decisions about that." But that’s exactly what gay-rights advocates hope for -- a national law that entitles gay couples to make their own decisions about important matters in their lives.

Perhaps Dean doesn’t view gay rights as significant enough to warrant the same protection as reproductive choice. But in last year’s Meet the Press interview, Dean portrayed gay rights as part of a larger human rights agenda. He then attempted to clarify by saying, "The question I thought you were asking me was not 'do gays and lesbians have the same rights everywhere.' They should have the same rights everywhere. But the question is how to get to those rights. [Vermont] did civil unions. Maybe other states want to do it in some other way and they should be free to do so."

Russert raised the matter again when Dean appeared on his program on June 22 of this year. Again, Dean claimed to support equal rights for gays and, yet, argued that the federal government should not interfere with states’ decisions on this issue. Interestingly, he said he would oppose legislation like that passed in Canada, which recognizes gay marriage, but added that he also opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned gay marriages. What principle underlies both positions? "I do not think it’s the federal government’s business to get involved in what has traditionally been [a] matter for the states to deal with," said Dean. "That is not the province of the federal government."

Not surprisingly, Dean was just ambiguous enough to satisfy (or enrage) nearly everyone on this issue. He once again expressed commitment to equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. "What I will do as president of the United States," he pledged, "is insist that every state find a way to recognize the same legal rights for gay couples as they do for everybody else."

Leave aside for the moment the absurdity of encouraging the states to comply with what is essentially a civil rights mandate without using the weight of the federal government. Dean’s position is clear: The feds should mind their own business.

So is Howard Dean a states’ rightist? He should be asked whether he thinks African-American civil rights, or women’s rights, should be left to the states. The argument that a given policy area "has traditionally been a matter for the states to deal with" sounds like the justification offered by segregationists in opposition to civil rights legislation. Would Dean allow states to opt out of the Civil Rights Act? Of course not.

So why is he hedging on this issue? Perhaps -- can it be? -- he’s motivated by politics. After all, he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would trump state law on employment discrimination. But ENDA is a relatively popular piece of legislation, while civil unions and gay marriage have less support among the public. If Dean’s position on civil unions is based on nothing more than poll results, then his image as a McCain-like straight-shooter could be placed in serious jeopardy by the right opponent.

Let’s hope he’s guilty of nothing more than garden-variety ambiguity. His rhetoric, however, belies that possibility. So either he believes in states’ rights even on matters of equality -- or he’s snared in a not-so-forthright contradiction. Either way, Governor Dean needs to clarify his position before his suddenly hot campaign hits a cold spell.

Published: Jul 21 2003
----
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4086&sectionID=41

Dean Hopes and Green Dreams: The 2004 Presidential Race

by Norman Solomon; August 25, 2003


[Part I: Progressives and the Dean Campaign]



Let’s take Howard Dean at his word: “I was a triangulator before Clinton was a triangulator. In my soul, I’m a moderate.”



Plenty of evidence backs up that comment by the former Vermont governor to the New York Times Magazine a few months ago. The self-comparison with Clinton is apt. “During his five two-year terms as governor,” the magazine noted, “Dean was proud to be known as a pragmatic New Democrat, in the Clinton mold, boasting that neither the far right nor the far left had much use for him.”



Of course, what a mainstream publication is apt to call “the far left” often includes large progressive constituencies. In the battle for the ’04 Democratic presidential nomination, Dean clearly finds grassroots progressives to be quite useful for his purposes. But is he truly useful for ours?



This summer, many news stories have identified Howard Dean with the left. But Dean’s actual record verifies this assessment from University of Vermont political science professor Garrison Nelson: “He’s really a classic Rockefeller Republican -- a fiscal conservative and social liberal.” After seven years as governor, the Associated Press described Dean as “a clear conservative on fiscal issues” and added: “This is, after all, the governor who has at times tried to cut benefits for the aged, blind and disabled, whose No. 1 priority is a balanced budget.”



Economic justice has been a much lower priority. During the early 1990s, Dean spearheaded a new “workfare” state law requiring labor from welfare recipients. The Vermont program later won praise as more humane “welfare reform” than what occurred in most other states. But in the summer of 1996, Dean put his weight behind the final push for President Clinton’s national “welfare reform” law -- a draconian measure, slashing at an already shabby safety-net while forcing impoverished mothers to work low-wage jobs.



While some other Democrats angrily opposed Clinton’s welfare reform, it won avid support from Dean. “Liberals like Marian Wright Edelman are wrong,” he insisted. “The bill is strong on work, time limits assistance and provides adequate protection for children.” Dean co-signed a letter to Clinton calling the measure “a real step forward.”



Gov. Dean did not mind polarizing with poor people, but he got along better with the corporate sector. “Conservative Vermont business leaders praise Dean’s record and his unceasing efforts to balance the budget, even though Vermont is the only state where a balanced budget is not constitutionally required,” Business Week reported in its August 11 (2003) edition. “Moreover, they argue that the two most liberal policies adopted during Dean’s tenure -- the ‘civil unions’ law and a radical revamping of public school financing -- were instigated by Vermont’s ultraliberal Supreme Court rather than Dean.” The magazine added: “Business leaders were especially impressed with the way Dean went to bat for them if they got snarled in the state’s stringent environmental regulations.”



According to Business Week, “those who know him best believe Dean is moving to the left to boost his chances of winning the nomination.” A longtime Dean backer named Bill Stenger, a Vermont Republican who’s president of Jay Peak Resort, predicted: “If he gets the nomination, he’ll run back to the center and be more mainstream.”



Dean supporters can point to real pluses in his record; he accomplished some positive things in Vermont, including programs for the environment and health care. During the past year, on a wide range of issues, his tough criticisms of the Bush administration have often been articulate. And many Dean activists are glad to be supporting a candidate who came out against the war on Iraq.



Howard Dean does deserve some credit as a foe of the war. Yet it would be a mistake to view him as an opponent of militarism.



Dean seems to agree. During an August 23 interview with the Washington Post, he said: “I don’t even consider myself a dove.”



I found it conspicuous that Dean did not include the word “Iraq” in the 26-minute speech he gave at his official campaign kickoff in late June (at a time when criticism of the war was generally receding, just before the uproar over Bush’s State-of-the-Union deception on the Niger uranium forgery). But some Dean supporters pointed out that the speech had antiwar themes -- for example, declaring that “we are not to conquer and suppress other nations to submit to our will” and denouncing the Bush team for “a form of unilateralism that is even more dangerous than isolationism.” However, such rhetoric -- much of which has become boilerplate among several mainstream Democratic candidates -- is not as impressive as it might appear at first glance.



What if a Washington-driven war is not “unilateral”? What if the U.N. Security Council can be carrot-and-sticked into a supportive stance? What about “multilateral” wars -- on Iraq in 1991, on Yugoslavia in 1999, on Afghanistan -- that gained wide backing from other governments? Dean expresses support for such wars.



Meanwhile, Dean has declared his opposition to a pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq -- as though what the Pentagon is doing there now doesn’t amount to continuation of the war he opposed. “We cannot permit ourselves to lose the peace in Iraq,” Dean was saying in August. “We cannot withdraw from Iraq.” But given the illegitimacy of the war on Iraq, what legitimate right does the U.S. government have to keep military control of Iraq? And isn’t verbiage about not wanting to “lose the peace” a classic rhetorical way to rationalize continuation of war by the conquering army?



During a recent interview, reported in the Washington Post on August 25, Dean emphasized that his opposition to the war on Iraq should not be confused with opposing the current -- and future -- occupation of Iraq. “Now that we’re there, we’re stuck,” he said. While Dean reiterated that the war was “foolish” and “wrong,” he staked out a position that the Post described as “whoever will be elected in 2004 has to live with it.” Dean said: “We have no choice. It’s a matter of national security. If we leave and we don’t get a democracy in Iraq, the result is very significant danger to the United States.”



Dean does not give much indication that he wants to challenge Uncle Sam’s imperial capabilities. On the contrary: Dean has opposed cutting the budget for routine U.S. military expenditures that now add up to well over $1 billion per day. And while his campaign kickoff speech stated that “there is a fundamental difference between the defense of our nation and the doctrine of preemptive war espoused by this administration,” surely Dean knows -- or should know -- that much of the Pentagon’s budget has absolutely nothing to do with “defense of our nation.”



Actually, Dean has gone out of his way to distance himself from a straightforward cut-the-military-budget position that should be integral to any progressive candidacy. At a forum this summer, another presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, said that “the only way we’re really going to close the (digital) divide in this country is to start cutting the Pentagon budget and put that money into education.” Dean’s response was notable: “I don’t agree with Dennis about cutting the Pentagon budget when we’re in the middle of a difficulty with terror attacks.”



As if the huge Pentagon budget could not be appreciably cut without making us more vulnerable to “terror attacks”!



Overall, the problem with puffing up Dean -- or claiming that he represents progressive values -- goes beyond a failure of truth-in-labeling. It also involves an insidious redefinition, in public discourse, of what it means to be progressive in the first place.



Dean activists like to say that their man has the best chance of beating Bush next year. But supporters of almost every Democratic presidential hopeful say the same thing -- and, like Dean’s partisans, have scant basis for making the claim. In fact, it’s mere conjecture that Dean would be the nominee most likely to defeat Bush.



On a full range of issues -- from international trade to health care to labor rights to welfare to criminal justice and the drug war to federal spending priorities to environmental protection to gay rights to the death penalty to foreign policy -- Dean’s positions are markedly inferior to Kucinich’s platform. So why not battle to get as many Democratic convention delegates as possible for Kucinich? Granted, he’s very unlikely to be nominated. But a hefty Kucinich delegate count would be a strong progressive statement within the Democratic Party and would provide a louder national megaphone for the values that we share. Kucinich speaks for progressives on virtually every issue. In sharp contrast, Dean does not.



I admire the creativity and commitment that many activists have brought to their work for Dean. Yet his campaign for the nomination offers few benefits and major pitfalls. If Dean becomes the Democratic presidential candidate next year, at that point there would be many good reasons to see him as a practical tool for defeating Bush. But in the meantime, progressive energies and support should go elsewhere.



[Part II: The Green Party and the ’04 Presidential Campaign]



Activists have plenty of good reasons to challenge the liberal Democratic Party operatives who focus on election strategy while routinely betraying progressive ideals. Unfortunately, the national Green Party now shows appreciable signs of the flip side -- focusing on admirable ideals without plausible strategy. Running Ralph Nader for president is on the verge of becoming a kind of habitual crutch -- used even when the effect is more damaging than helpful.



It’s impossible to know whether the vote margin between Bush and his Democratic challenger will be narrow or wide in November 2004. I’ve never heard a credible argument that a Nader campaign might help to defeat Bush next year. A Nader campaign might have no significant effect on Bush’s chances -- or it could turn out to help Bush win. With so much at stake, do we really want to roll the dice this way?



We’re told that another Nader campaign will help to build the Green Party. But Nader’s prospects of coming near his nationwide 2000 vote total of 2.8 million are very slim; much more probable is that a 2004 campaign would win far fewer votes -- hardly an indicator of, or contributor to, a growing national party.



It appears to me that the entire project of running a Green presidential candidate in 2004 is counter-productive. Some faithful will be energized, with a number of predictably uplifting “super rallies” along the way, but many past and potential Green voters are likely to consciously drift away. Such a campaign will generate much alienation and bitterness from natural constituencies. Ironically, the current Green party-building agenda looks like a scenario for actually damaging the party.



Green organizers often insist that another presidential run is necessary so that the party can energize itself and stay on the ballot in various states. But it would be much better to find other ways to retain ballot access while running stronger Green campaigns in selected local races. Overall, I don’t believe that a Green Party presidential campaign in 2004 will help build a viable political alternative from below.



Some activists contend that the Greens will maintain leverage over the Democratic Party by conveying a firm intention to run a presidential candidate. I think that's basically an illusion. The prospect of a Green presidential campaign is having very little effect on the Democratic nomination contest, and there’s no reason to expect that to change. The Democrats are almost certain to nominate a “moderate” corporate flack (in which category Howard Dean should be included).



A few years ago, Nader and some others articulated the theory that throwing a scare into the Democrats would move them in a more progressive direction. That theory was disproved after November 2000. As a whole, congressional Democrats have not become more progressive since then.



There has been a disturbing tendency among some Greens to conflate the Democratic and Republican parties. Yes, the agendas of the two major parties overlap. But they also diverge. And in some important respects, any of the Democratic presidential contenders would be clearly better than Bush (with the exception of Joseph Lieberman, whose nomination appears to be quite unlikely). For the left to be “above the fray” would be a big mistake. It should be a matter of great concern -- not indifference or mild interest -- as to whether the Bush gang returns to power for four more years.



I’m not suggesting that progressives mute their voices about issues. The imperative remains to keep speaking out and organizing. As Martin Luther King Jr. said on April 30, 1967: “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.” <http://www.accuracy.org
/press_releases/PR011603.htm> The left should continue to denounce all destructive policies and proposals, whether being promoted by Republicans or Democrats.



At the same time, we should not gloss over the reality that the Bush team has neared some elements of fascism in its day-to-day operations -- and forces inside the Bush administration would be well-positioned to move it even farther to the right after 2004. We don’t want to find out how fascistic a second term of George W. Bush’s presidency could become. The current dire circumstances should bring us up short and cause us to re-evaluate approaches to ’04. The left has a responsibility to contribute toward a broad coalition to defeat Bush next year.



There are some Green Party proposals for a “safe states” strategy, with the party’s presidential nominee concentrating on states that seem sure to go for either Bush or the Democrat. But it’s not always clear whether a state is “safe” (for instance, how about California?). And the very act of a Green campaign focusing on some “safe states” might render a few of those states more susceptible to a Bush upset win. An additional factor is that presidential campaigns are largely nationwide.



In 2000, despite unfair exclusion from the debates and the vast majority of campaign news coverage, Nader did appear on national radio and TV to a significant extent. And of course, more than ever, the Internet is teeming with progressive websites, listservs and e-mail forwarding. It doesn’t seem very practical to run as a national candidate while effectively urging people in some states not to vote for you when they see your name on the ballot -- even if the candidate is inclined toward such a strategy. And that’s a big “if.”



For all its talk of democratic accountability, the Green Party is hooked into the old-fashioned notion that a candidate, once nominated, decides how and where to campaign. It’s ironic that the party is likely to end up with a presidential candidate who will conduct the campaign exactly as he chooses, with no built-in post-nomination accountability to any constituency or group decision-making. Kind of sounds like the major parties in that respect; choose the candidate and the candidate does whatever he wants from that point forward.



No doubt, too many Democratic Party officials have been arrogant toward Green Party supporters. “Democrats have to face reality and understand that if they move too far to the right, millions of voters will defect or vote for third-party candidates,” Tom Hayden pointed out in a recent article <http://www.alternet.org/
story.html?StoryID=16584>. “Democrats have to swallow hard and accept the right of the Green Party and Ralph Nader to exist and compete.” At the same time, Hayden added cogently, “Nader and the Greens need a reality check. The notion that the two major parties are somehow identical may be a rationale for building a third party, but it insults the intelligence of millions of blacks, Latinos, women, gays, environmentalists and trade unionists who can't afford the indulgence of Republican rule.”



The presidency of George W. Bush is not a garden-variety Republican administration. By unleashing its policies in this country and elsewhere in the world, the Bush gang has greatly raised the stakes of the next election. The incumbent regime’s blend of extreme militarism and repressive domestic policy should cause the left to take responsibility for helping to oust this far-right administration -- rather than deferring to dubious scenarios for Green party-building.



In an August essay, Michael Albert of Z Magazine wrote: “One post election result we want is Bush retired. However bad his replacement may turn out, replacing Bush will improve the subsequent mood of the world and its prospects of survival. Bush represents not the whole ruling class and political elite, but a pretty small sector of it. That sector, however, is trying to reorder events so that the world is run as a U.S. empire, and so that social programs and relations that have been won over the past century in the U.S. are rolled back as well. What these parallel international and domestic aims have in common is to further enrich and empower the already super rich and super powerful.”



Albert pointed out some of the foreseeable consequences of another Bush term: “Seeking international Empire means war and more war -- or at least violent coercion. Seeking domestic redistribution upward of wealth and power, most likely means assaulting the economy via cutbacks and deficits, and then entreating the public that the only way to restore functionality is to terminate government programs that serve sectors other than the rich, cutting health care, social services, education, etc.” And Albert added: “These twin scenarios will not be pursued so violently or aggressively by Democrats due to their historic constituency. More, the mere removal of Bush will mark a step toward their reversal.”



Looking past the election, Albert is also on target: “We want to have whatever administration is in power after Election Day saddled by a fired up movement of opposition that is not content with merely slowing Armageddon, but that instead seeks innovative and aggressive social gains. We want a post election movement to have more awareness, more hope, more infrastructure, and better organization by virtue of the approach it takes to the election process.”



I’m skeptical that the Green Party’s leadership is open to rigorously pursue a thoroughgoing safe-states approach along the lines that Albert has suggested in his essay <http://www.zmag.org/content/
showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=4041>. Few of the prominent Green organizers seem sufficiently flexible. For instance, one Green Party leader who advocates “a Strategic States Plan” for 2004 has gone only so far as to say that “most” of the party’s resources should be focused on states “where the Electoral College votes are not ‘in play.’” Generally the proposals coming from inside the Green Party seem equivocal, indicating that most party leaders are unwilling to really let go of traditional notions of running a national presidential campaign.



I’m a green. But these days, in the battle for the presidency, I’m not a Green. Here in the United States, the Green Party is dealing with an electoral structure that’s very different from the parliamentary systems that have provided fertile ground for Green parties in Europe. We’re up against the winner-take-all U.S. electoral system. Yes, there are efforts to implement “instant runoff voting,” but those efforts will not transform the electoral landscape in this decade. And we should focus on this decade precisely because it will lead the way to the next ones.



By now it’s an open secret that Ralph Nader is almost certain to run for president again next year. Nader has been a brilliant and inspirational progressive for several decades. I supported his presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000. I won’t in 2004. The reasons are not about the past but about the future.



Norman Solomon’s latest book, co-authored with Reese Erlich, is “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.”

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/6616925.htm

Posted on Tue, Aug. 26, 2003

Graham's stance on war risks harm at home

BY PETER WALLSTEN
pwallsten@herald.com

POLITICAL ANALYSIS

As Sen. Bob Graham's campaign for president struggles for a spark, Florida Republicans are gaining confidence that his antiwar message is gradually making the state's senior senator a more vulnerable target should he ultimately seek reelection back home.

Graham's sharp criticism of President Bush's handling of Iraq and the war on terrorism might play well with Democratic primary voters nationally, GOP strategists say, but it risks alienating the bipartisan base of moderates and independents that has turned Graham into one of the most formidable campaigners in Florida politics.

Specifically, they argue, Graham's talk of impeaching Bush over his potentially misleading assertions about weapons of mass destruction could hurt him in a state where both the president and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, are popular.

One recent survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research gives credence to the theory, showing Graham's job approval at its lowest point in a decade. The numbers also suggest that, as long as Graham's presidential campaign fails to show positive signs and his popularity in Florida lessens, he risks damaging his primary value as a running mate: winning his home state.

''He's not the Bob Graham that I know,'' said former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, an Orlando-area Republican and one of five GOP contenders lining up to take Graham's seat. ``His attacks on the president over the past few months have made a huge difference in the way people view him.''

Graham, whose third term expires after next year, has so far declined to say whether he would return to the Senate race if his White House bid fails.

But questions about Graham's future persist, especially given his continuing troubles on the road to the White House.

Recent polls of voters put Graham in the low single digits in the critical early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Polls in Florida show that he would lose to President Bush in a head-to-head matchup, and to date his fundraising has lagged far behind the race's top-tier contenders.

And while the antiwar theme may be haunting Graham at home, he is failing to reap the rewards among the more liberal primary voters who will elect the Democratic presidential nominee. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has swiped the antiwar message, riding it all the way to the front of the pack.

Graham campaign strategists, who huddled in Miami Lakes on Saturday to discuss potential shifts in strategy and plan a soon-to-be-unveiled television ad campaign, insist the senator remains strong -- no matter what job he is seeking.

STIFF FORMIDABLE

Indeed, despite Graham's dropping popularity, even the Mason-Dixon poll made it clear he remains a heavy favorite to win reelection to the Senate if he chooses to run.

''This is an academic discussion, because Bob Graham expects to win the presidency,'' said Mo Elleithee, a Graham spokesman. ``The people of Florida know Bob Graham, and they love Bob Graham and they know that he has served them well.''

While Graham's fundraising has lagged behind that of the major Democrats seeking the nomination -- he has raised only about $3 million -- he said in an interview while campaigning in Iowa that he expects to improve that total dramatically. Fundraisers planned in the coming weeks in California, New York and other cities will help him post a total of at least $15 million by year's end, he said.

The Mason-Dixon poll, conducted late last month, showed that Graham remains a relatively popular figure in Florida, with 53 percent of respondents rating his job performance as ''excellent'' or ``good.''

But that was a 10-percentage-point drop from 18 months earlier, and the lowest rating since 1992. Most significant for Graham, who has long carved out a niche as a get-along centrist: His approval among Republicans plunged from 54 percent to 28 percent.

With the GOP cradling a narrow majority in the U.S. Senate, the seat is sure to draw intense attention from both parties if Graham abandons it should he win the presidential nomination or -- the scenario many experts consider more likely -- if he is tapped next summer as a candidate for vice president.

None of the five Democrats vying to replace Graham -- Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, U.S. Reps. Peter Deutsch of Pembroke Pines, Alcee Hastings of Miramar and Allen Boyd of Monticello, and former Education Commissioner Betty Castor -- enjoys the kind of statewide political profile or popularity of Graham.

AN OPEN RACE

But now Republicans who once viewed Graham as unbeatable are saying the seat could be competitive even if Graham runs for reelection.

''Bob Graham's a talented person and he's capable,'' said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, a West Palm Beach Republican and another candidate for Graham's Senate seat, ``but I don't think he's got the same aura he had six months ago.''

Republican operatives point out that Graham has not faced a competitive campaign since 1986, when he ousted GOP incumbent Sen. Paula Hawkins. But since then, Florida has exploded with new population growth, and state government has transformed from an era of Democratic control to Republican dominance under Jeb Bush.

Without competitive races, Republicans contend, Graham was able to coast through campaigns without offending the conservatives who had backed him through years of elections.

''If you're not challenged, you can just do things that tend to be positive things,'' said state Sen. Daniel Webster, an Orlando-area Republican who joined the Senate race last week. ``Once you campaign, you have to take positions, and he's taking new positions that he's never taken before.''

Besides Foley, McCollum and Webster, the GOP field includes state House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon.

Democrats say they will benefit from a GOP field packed mostly with conservatives, all of whom will spend the primary pushing further to the right in an effort to woo their political base.

Byrd, for instance, is pushing hard to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to require parental notification and consent for a minor to receive an abortion.

Webster is popular among Christian conservatives -- a core group that will help him build what he says will be the biggest grass-roots campaign in statewide political history. Foley, a moderate on abortion and gay-rights issues, is portraying himself as a conservative at every turn.

###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,95714,00.html

Clark Alleges White House Pushed CNN to Fire Him

Tuesday, August 26, 2003


WASHINGTON — The White House pressured CNN to fire former military analyst Gen. Wesley Clark (search), the retired Army chief told a Phoenix radio station on Monday.

"The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war," Clark told Newsradio 620 KTAR. "Apparently they called CNN. I don't have all the proof on this because they didn't call me. I've only heard rumors about it."

CNN had no immediate comment on the general's allegations. White House officials told Fox News that they are "adamant" that they "never tried to get Wesley Clark kicked off the air in any way, shape or form." Beyond that, the White House "won't respond to rumors."

Clark was one of cable network CNN’s military analysts and commentators during the Iraq war. Frequently named as a possible presidential candidate, Clark has not said whether he is interested in seeking the Democratic nomination. But, in his comments on the "Drive Home With Preston Westmoreland Show," Clark indicated that he is debating a bid.

"I had a very clear understanding with CNN that if I ever decided to go forward in considering becoming a political candidate that I would at that point, leave CNN. That's what I did in June," he said.

Previously, Clark claimed publicly that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he was pressured by the Bush administration to link the attacks directly to Iraq. When pressed on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show, Clark refused to name White House names and instead fingered a public policy think tank in Canada.

"I personally got a call from a fellow in Canada who is part of a Middle Eastern think tank who gets inside intelligence information. He called me on 9/11," Clark said.

When asked who in the White House contacted him, Clark responded that he was "not going to go into those sources." Once again, the White House insisted they never applied any pressure.

Grassroots organizations have encouraged the former NATO (search) commander to make a run. The DraftWesleyClark.com group commissioned a Zogby poll in which those surveyed were asked to select a candidate based on his bio without knowing the candidate's name.

The poll, released Monday, showed Clark with 49 percent support in the "Blind Bio" survey compared to 40 percent for President Bush.

Matched up against six of the nine Democratic candidates, Clark polled in first place. That number dropped to fifth place among likely Democratic primary voters, however, when the candidates were named.

Clark backers still found this data encouraging, noting that he earned high marks "despite his low name recognition, and the fact that he has not spent a dime" on campaigning.

Clark, who is holding his decision close to the vest, told the radio station: "I still am not a candidate. I'm not affiliated with the party, and I haven't raised a penny of political money."

He said last week that he would decide on whether to run in the next few weeks.

Clark served as NATO's supreme allied commander and as commander in chief of the U.S. European Command between 1997 and 2000. In 1999, he led Operation Allied Force, NATO's military action in Kosovo (search).

Insisting on the accuracy of his military analysis of the Iraq War, Clark said, "No one ever complained about my analysis being partisan except for [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay and he's hardly an unbiased source," Clark told KTAR.

"I was anything but biased. I was 100 percent objective. I called it right and I stand by the results," he said.
###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/27/politics/campaigns/27DEAN.html?ei=5062&en=caeccc71707114cf&ex=1062561600&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=

August 27, 2003

In a Long Presidential Race, Dean Sprints
By JODI WILGOREN


Crisscrossing the country this week with Howard Dean, the underdog turned top dog who has surged toward the front of the Democratic presidential primary field, you would almost think there was an election coming up.

Five months before the first ballot is cast and 15 months before the last will be counted, Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, spent the past four days being ferried from rally to rally in a chartered jet as though in the heat of a head-to-head national campaign rather than in the nascent chapter of a long-shot bid in a crowded field. He hit states like Oregon that have little to do with nominations but could be crucial in a general election and all but ignored his Democratic rivals as he roused rabid audiences against their Republican nemesis, George W. Bush.

The staggering, seemingly spontaneous crowds turning up to meet him ?about 10,000 in Seattle on Sunday and a similar number in Bryant Park in Manhattan last night ?are unheard of in the days of the race when most candidates concentrate on the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire and would seem formidable even in October 2004.

Yesterday morning, the campaign took another audacious step, saying that it would broadcast television advertisements in six new states beginning on Friday, and that it expected to raise $10.3 million in the three months ending Sept. 30 ?more than any other Democrat in a similar period save for President Bill Clinton in 1995.

"We have to be in the president's face to win," Dr. Dean, 54, said aboard the ancient Boeing 737 his staff dubbed the Grassroots Express.

"When this president talks, sometimes the opposite of what he says is really the truth," he said yesterday in Chicago, between speaking to a tepid union convention and being embraced by about 1,500 supporters atop Navy Pier, "and if we don't call him on it, we can't win."

Billed as the Sleepless Summer Tour, Dr. Dean's 6,147-mile, 10-city rampage cost $200,000 and had its own rock-concert-style T-shirt listing places and dates. (The concept: Americans are sleepless over unemployment and the lack of jobs and health care, while President Bush sleeps soundly at his Texas ranch. The reality: Plane-riders are sleepless from crammed schedules that stretch from 5 a.m. to midnight.)

It was the flashiest and most expensive of a spate of gimmicky Democratic campaign swings this summer, from Grillin' with the Grahams (as in Bob, the Florida senator) to Get on the Bus With Dennis (as in Kucinich, the Ohio congressman) to the Real Solutions Express, featuring Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

The large and energetic crowds that followed Dr. Dean, and the meticulousness of his schedule and stage-managed events, prove he remains a phenomenon.

But the presidential-style trip could increase the risk of Dr. Dean peaking too early ?and revealed other potential pitfalls. Holding oceans of blue Dean placards at every stop were nearly all white hands, a homogeneity the campaign tried to counter with a rainbow of supporters on stage, which only drew more attention to the lack of diversity in the audience. The feisty crowds were filled with Birkenstock liberals whose loudest ovations always followed Dr. Dean's antiwar riff ?there were few union members, African-Americans, or immigrants.

It remains unclear how such untraditional rallies will translate into the nuts-and-bolts of nominations like endorsements, voter registration, fund-raising and debates. The campaign also may have trouble keeping people interested and preventing its events in coming weeks from seeming mundane.

"We have momentum," Dr. Dean said. "Keeping it is going to be a struggle."

Though polls taken this early in the race can be unreliable predictors, there are statistical signs to back up Dr. Dean's surge in popularity on the street. Zogby International, an independent firm, is scheduled to release Wednesday a poll showing Dr. Dean leading in New Hampshire with 38 percent of the vote to 17 percent for Senator John Kerry; in early July Senator Kerry had 25 percent to Dr. Dean's 22 percent. The poll has a margin of sampling error of 4.5 percentage points.

As the tour began its final day, Joe Trippi, the campaign manager, announced plans not only to match President Clinton's record $10.3 million quarter, but also to buy two weeks worth of advertisements, likely to cost $1 million, in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Washington. He and the candidate both refused to say whether the campaign would abide by spending limits to obtain federal matching funds, something they originally promised to do but later reconsidered.

"Running for president of the United States is a marathon," Mr. Trippi told reporters en route from San Antonio to Chicago. "We decided we were going to run the first four miles at a 100-yard-dash pace. We decided we're going to run the second four miles at a 100-yard-dash pace."

The new advertising plan came after the campaign spent four days soliciting its Internet supporters to match the $1 million President Bush collected last week in the Pacific Northwest, a goal it reached during the Bryant Park rally. (There were also $100- to $1,000-a-plate parties at most stops during the Sleepless tour.)

Linda Ornelas, 54, said she came to Portland State University on Sunday uncommitted but left planning to sign on to her computer and "give him some money."

"It's not that what he says is really so different from what anybody else says," said Ms. Ornelas, an administrator at a large athletic club. "It's that it doesn't feel like it's rhetoric."

After months of low-key question-and-answer sessions in small-town living rooms, Dr. Dean adapted to the masses by sprinkling call-and-response lines and defiant finger-pointing into his standard spiel.

"For the first time I realized the fate of the country might be in my hands," he said later. "Not just because I might become president of the United States of America. Because there were a very, very large number of people depending on me to change the course of this country."

In Spokane, Wash., organizers had cut a basketball court in half with a burlap curtain, expecting 250 people. Instead, several hundred had to watch an enormous television behind the curtain, and 100 more were left on folding chairs in the patio, surrounding a faceless microphone.

"He's not running a campaign, he's running a movement," wrote Natasha C., one of four people the Dean campaign invited to chronicle the trip on their Web logs. "These are protest-size crowds, these are not politics-size crowds, and that's the critical difference."

But it is unclear what the movement is for.

Dr. Dean's standard presentation is a smorgasbord of universal health insurance, opposition to the Iraq war, balanced budgets, tax-cut repeal, affirmative action, gay rights, early-childhood intervention and a broad appeal for "community." The defining theme is all about getting rid of the incumbent.

"What brought me here is Dean ?and George," said Karin Overbeck, an independent at her first political rally, in Spokane. "For the second time in my life, I'm ashamed of my nationality. I was born in Germany and I was ashamed; now I'm ashamed to be American."

Though Dr. Dean often says that his message is appealing to independent thinkers across the political spectrum, when he polled the crowd in Portland there were loud claps for the Green Party and Democrats, but sparse smatterings when he asked about supporters of Perot and McCain. And while the people introducing him included Hispanic teachers and black preachers, the people buying the "Doctor is in" buttons were mostly aging flower children and the tongue-studded next generation.

"We're working really hard to change that," Dr. Dean said. At the union convention yesterday in Chicago ?where the undecided audience offered mainly polite claps for the zingers that had delighted the devoted ?he tried one of his newer lines: "When white people and brown people and black people vote together, that's when we make social progress in this country."

Between stops, Dr. Dean had his first lengthy talks with a large press corps aboard the Grassroots Express. He rarely veered off-message, even when turbulence forced him into a seat between reporters from Rolling Stone and Modern Physician magazines, who traded questions on guitarists and prescription drugs.

Regardless of the record crowds, it is still August ?of 2003.

For each of the 800 people who skipped the Green Bay Packers game on Saturday night to chant "We want Dean" in a Milwaukee airplane hangar, there must be many like the young woman in the pink taffeta strapless bridesmaid's dress who went to the hotel bar where reporters and supporters were mingling over martinis and wondered, "What's going on here?"

Told it was the Dean campaign, she looked blank. Howard Dean, someone said. Running for president.

"President?" she asked. "President of what?"
---
http://www.newsday.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=sns-ap-democrats-poll&section=%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fwire

Dean Has 21-Point Lead Over Kerry in N.H.

By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

August 27, 2003, 3:28 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Howard Dean has grabbed a commanding 21-point lead over rival John Kerry in the latest New Hampshire poll in which voters said they prefer a take-no-prisoners Democrat to one who could oust President Bush.

The likely Democratic primary voters are realists who acknowledge that Bush is a formidable foe: Almost two-thirds -- 64 percent -- said they think the president likely will win re-election in 2004.

Dean, who trailed Kerry in polls earlier this year, led the Massachusetts senator 38 percent to 17 percent in the Zogby International poll conducted Aug. 23-26 and released Wednesday.

When asked whether it was more important to have a candidate willing to stand up for what they believe or a candidate who can win in November 2004, voters said they preferred the former by a 2-to-1 margin.

In his campaign against his top Democratic rivals, Dean has argued that they represent "Bush-lite," and he has assailed those lawmakers who have compromised with the president, particularly those who backed the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.

The August survey comes as Dean has shown political strength in his fund raising, drawn large crowds for his "Sleepless Summer" tour and appeared in ads on New Hampshire television. The state is slated to hold its primary Jan. 27.

"Dean has spent considerable resources on TV so it's not surprising he's increased his numbers in a very fluid electorate," said Kerry spokesman Robert Gibbs. "Kerry has long-term strengths that will stay with him throughout the winter when more voters are paying attention and making their final decisions."

Dean and Kerry were essentially tied in a Zogby poll in June, and the former Vermont governor held a single-digit lead in a recent survey. Still, the latest numbers were somewhat unexpected, even in the Dean campaign.

"We've noticed a definite increase in interest in Governor Dean and his message, but the new poll numbers were certainly a surprise," said Dorie Clark, a spokeswoman for Dean.

Pollster John Zogby said Dean's support was in all regions of the state, among men and women, Democrats and independents, liberals and moderates. Dean took support from another rival, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, and from undecided voters.

Gephardt, who was at 11 percent in February, dropped to 6 percent. Undecided voters fell from 29 percent to 23 percent.

Dean's ability to tap into Gephardt's support was evident in a separate New Hampshire poll. Gephardt has made health care coverage the centerpiece of his campaign, yet the survey found that almost three times as many likely primary voters -- 54 percent -- associate Dean, an internist, with a health care plan than Gephardt, 18 percent.

The bipartisan poll, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union and conducted by Republican Ed Goeas and Democrat Celinda Lake, found rising health care costs was the top campaign issue.

The rest of the Democratic field was in single digits in the Zogby poll. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut was at 6 percent, and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who also is running ads in New Hampshire, was at 4 percent.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who is considering a presidential bid, was at 2 percent, while Sen. Bob Graham of Florida and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio were at 1 percent. Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton were at 0 percent.

The Zogby poll of 501 likely primary voters has an error margin of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
###

[KevinTheOmnivore]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1031362,00.html

General poised to enter race for White House

Wesley Clark 'has made his choice'

Julian Borger in Washington

Friday August 29, 2003
The Guardian

General Wesley Clark, a former US general who commanded Nato's war in Kosovo, is poised to announce whether he will run for the White House next month and enter the Democratic primaries, party officials said yesterday.
Gen Clark has mounted a media blitz over the past few weeks, appearing on a string of television talk shows to discuss his critical views on US policy in Iraq.

He has also won his wife's approval, which had been a major hurdle to entering the race, a Democratic official, who supports a Clark candidacy, said.

"You're looking at someone who has already made his choice," the official said.

The New York Times yesterday quoted an unnamed friend of the ex-soldier as saying: "He is going to do it. He's just going back and forth as to when."

However, another official said Gen Clark was mulling over a final decision. He is said to be trying to assess his chances in the Democratic primary elections, particularly against Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, who has taken a similarly strong line in criticism of the administration's foreign policy and who has already raised a campaign fund of about $20m (£12.7m).

Two internet-based groups - draftclark.com and DraftWesleyClark.com - have been promoting his candidacy for several weeks, and the latter claims to have collected pledges of over $1m in campaign contributions.

The general has said he will make a final announcement in the next few weeks. One possible date for a declaration could be September 19, when he is due to make a speech in Iowa, the site next January of the first party caucuses to choose a Democratic presidential contender.

John Zogby, who runs a political polling organisation, said a survey suggested that a Clark candidacy would be well received."Believe it or not, it looks like it could be pretty good for him," Mr Zogby said.

"The major pre-declared frontrunners have generally not caught on in the national polls."

In one recent poll, Gen Clark won 5% support. However, when Mr Zogby presented would-be voters with a short description of the general's career, he beat George Bush in a poll by 49% to 40%.

Mr Dean has emerged as the frontrunner among the nine Democratic contenders in the race so far, both in terms of fundraising and popular support, but many Democratic centrists believe he is too radical to win in a head-on contest with President Bush.

Gen Clark has been outspoken in his criticism of the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq without broad international backing and on "false pretences".

He has had less to say about domestic policies, but has publicly supported affirmative action for minorities and criticised the Bush tax cuts as fiscally irresponsible and unfair.

He has stumbled occasionally under the increasingly intense media scrutiny, making claims that the administration had pressured him to change his line on Iraq and then prevent him appearing on CNN, but he refused to provide details to support the charges.
###

[pinky lee]

it doesnt matter, Bush wins in a walk. I hope Dean gets it so GWB can get a 49 state landslide and the Reps gain a filibuster proof majority in the Senate- will probably signal the splintering of the Dem party into several smaller factions- its so divided now they can't win a presidential election again this generation.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Thanks for your useless opinion.

[pinky lee]

Hello, SFB, anyone in there? Its a forum. Its a topic in the forum. Its on the internet. Every post in here is someone's worthless opinion. Of course, your's was more worthless than most since it didn't have shit to do with the topic.

Of course what can I expect from someone who immediately jumps on the dork train by using t33kid as his avatar, just like 20,000 other dorks I've seen in other forums today and yesterday.

Is everyone in this forum a moron or just the ones who've been responding to my posts?

[kellychaos]

All the major parties hold conventions to pick their candidates. This thread is opinion poll of the users for just one of them. If you don't like the party, then perhaps this isn't the post for you. Please obligeby leaving the thread and/or starting your own poll with your party of choice, K?

[pinky lee]

Yeah, God forfend anyone rain on your little puff party by suggesting that your hand-picked choices might have Gary Coleman's chance at actually getting elected. Let's not dilly dally with any tangential issues like electability, let's just stick with a meaningless exercise in clicking radio buttons. We wouldn't want intelligent political discourse to break out.

And by the way, why are Richard Gephardt, Carol Moseley-Braun and Bob Graham, not to mention Wesley Clarke left off that poll? You have some kind of unreasoning prejudice against the front runner in Iowa, the only woman running and the senior senator from Florida?

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Hello, SFB, anyone in there? Its a forum. Its a topic in the forum. Its on the internet. Every post in here is someone's worthless opinion. Of course, your's was more worthless than most since it didn't have shit to do with the topic.

It had everything to do with the topic, because when someone makes a ridiculous argument that they don't substantiate, then it's completely in-line with the topic to call you out on it.

Of course what can I expect from someone who immediately jumps on the dork train by using t33kid as his avatar, just like 20,000 other dorks I've seen in other forums today and yesterday.

Yeah, unlike the very original user pic of yourself or maybe your mall punk girlfriend looking all introspective and deep for the digital camera. :rolleyes

Is everyone in this forum a moron or just the ones who've been responding to my posts?

I dunno, keep making interesting and thought provoking interjections such as "it no matter, republicans so better."

Yeah, God forfend anyone rain on your little puff party by suggesting that your hand-picked choices might have Gary Coleman's chance at actually getting elected. Let's not dilly dally with any tangential issues like electability, let's just stick with a meaningless exercise in clicking radio buttons. We wouldn't want intelligent political discourse to break out.

It's very early in the game to insinuate who will or could win. All you can do is monitor polling data, see how certain candidates are doing compared to others in fundraising, look at who is giving them their support, etc.

So, if you want to make a serious contribution to this thread, why not define what it is you consider electability? Is it merely some partisan nonsense, or do you really have some objective analysis on what it takes to win the popular vote in 2004....?

And by the way, why are Richard Gephardt, Carol Moseley-Braun and Bob Graham, not to mention Wesley Clarke left off that poll? You have some kind of unreasoning prejudice against the front runner in Iowa, the only woman running and the senior senator from Florida?

Yeah, Check the date on the poll genius. Clarke announced he MIGHT run YESTERDAY, And by that point the other three were shakey on announcing their candidacies, if I recall correctly.

Nobody has contributed to the poll in days anyway, and if you read through the thread, I haven't discriminated against any of the candidates (providing they were actually making any headlines that day or week).

[pinky lee]

Yeah, Check the date on the poll genius. Clarke announced he MIGHT run YESTERDAY, And by that point the other three were shakey on announcing their candidacies, if I recall correctly.

Nobody has contributed to the poll in days anyway, and if you read through the thread, I haven't discriminated against any of the candidates (providing they were actually making any headlines that day or week).

you remember incorrectly t33kid fan:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004#Timeline

All the candidates you missed had announced a good 4-6 months before your little poll. Research first, then speak. Gephardt was a big blunder there t33boy, he may well win the nomination yet. And anyone who really follows politics knows Clarke has been jockeying for position since before the Gulf War. But perhaps you are just a dilettante, in that case you are excused.

As to the rest of your blather, its a fucking forum. If you put up a thread, don't think you can come bullying around telling people exactly what they can and can't discuss. If you are discussing candidates for president, their ability to take on the current president is not only relevant, its the ONLY relevant thing. Unless they are just talking to bring up policy points they hope the eventual winner, Bush, will have to respond and react to. That may be all they are doing, because basically this election is an exercise in futility for the Dems, who are treading water until 2008 when Hillary runs and takes the party down in flames. If this election doesn't, that liberal fest will mark the complete end of the Dem party as a national force. I predict it will break into various feuding components, much like it is now, but with less effect.

[glowbelly]

DENNIS!!

my hometown hero who will never win :(

pinky? you're a meanie. >:

[pinky lee]

DENNIS!!

my hometown hero who will never win :(

pinky? you're a meanie. >:

its my raison d' etre

[glowbelly]

how stylish and french of you :(

[pinky lee]

how stylish and french of you :(

well I do seem to be t33kid-avatarboy's bete noire

[glowbelly]

i bet you get that a lot.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

you remember incorrectly t33kid fan:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004#Timeline

All the candidates you missed had announced a good 4-6 months before your little poll. Research first, then speak.

You're correct. If it'll make you happy, I will include them all now....all of them:

Warren R. Ashe (D-Virginia) *
Donald P. Award (D-Connecticut) *
Jerry G. Beck (D-Missouri) *
Sanderson Beck (D-California) *
Jim Bollinger (D-Indiana) *
Willie Carter (D-Texas) *
Patrick Cazneau (D-California) *
Randy Crow (D-North Carolina) *
John Estrada (D-Nevada) *
Susan Fey (D-Colorado) *
James I. Glover (D-New Jersey) *
Al Hamburg (D-Wyoming) *
Amanda Lou Hardy (D-DC) *
Alfonzo Jones (D-New York) *
Lyndon LaRouche (D-New York) *
Glenn D. Leaverton (California) *
Sherry Meadows (D-Texas) *
Grady Dean Mollenhauer Jr. (D-New York) *
Fred Ogin (D-Oregon) *
Bill Pearman (D-Indiana) *
Fern Penna (D-New York) *
James J. Prattas (D-Hawaii) *
John Donald Rigazio (D-New Hampshire) *
Adam Safran (D-California) *
Ole S. Savior (D-Minnesota) *
Craig E. Sharp (D-Texas) *
Former Congressman Jim Traficant (D-Ohio) #*
Evelyn L. Vitullo (D-Arizona) *
Lucian J. "Louie" Wojciechowski (California) *

Happy now? Might wanna double check on when they all filed their paper work, too.


Gephardt was a big blunder there t33boy, he may well win the nomination yet.

I doubt it.

And anyone who really follows politics knows Clarke has been jockeying for position since before the Gulf War. But perhaps you are just a dilettante, in that case you are excused.

And anyone who really follows politics would know that Senators Clinton and Biden were both "jockeying for position" as well, and they have since ruled it out. Clarke would not be running were he not getting the grassroots/financial support he has, nor would he be running if he hadn't done well with some test sampling groups he sat down with. So he can "jockey" all he likes, but he just announced it this week.

As to the rest of your blather, its a fucking forum. If you put up a thread, don't think you can come bullying around telling people exactly what they can and can't discuss.

Never once have I told anyone in this thread what they can or can't discuss. The viability of any Democratic candidate is a fine discussion, and I wouldn't dismiss it. But what I ask is that you actually start the conversation, articulate the point, rather than posting some snide remark.

Saying something enough times doesn't necessarily make it true. Conservatives can say "Dean will be McGovern, Dean will be McGovern" all they like, but that doesn't make it true. Just like if I had said "Bush will be Goldwater, Bush will be Goldwater" over and over again, that doesn't make it true.

If you are discussing candidates for president, their ability to take on the current president is not only relevant, its the ONLY relevant thing. Unless they are just talking to bring up policy points they hope the eventual winner, Bush, will have to respond and react to.

I sincerely doubt that's what they are doing, but it's kind of why I started this thread. I disagree that the challenge the pose to Bush is the only relevant matter. Historically, it should be of interest to every Democrat/Liberal/Leftist just who gains Dem. popularity, and in contrast, who favors support from the Party operatives in the DLC. The Democratic Party IS in trouble, and that's what makes an internal debate just as relevant as the debate over who will be president (although the latter just might be a premature debate).

That may be all they are doing, because basically this election is an exercise in futility for the Dems, who are treading water until 2008 when Hillary runs and takes the party down in flames.

On what grounds do you make these claims? I'm not a Democrat, nor am I a Hillary fan, but I don't think your argument has any merit at all. It really sounds like partisan grumbling. You don't think Hillary would mobilize an apathetic voter, perhaps one eager to simply put a woman in the White House...? And further, on what grounds are the Dems "treading" right now??? Clearly, most of these candidates stand no chance, and some would represent a wrong path for the Democratic Party, IMO. However, Dean has mobilized immense popularity, considering the void he came from, where most citizens had no clue who he was.

If this election doesn't, that liberal fest will mark the complete end of the Dem party as a national force. I predict it will break into various feuding components, much like it is now, but with less effect.

This is a gross over-exaggeration. The Democratic Party is too monied, too much of a corporate-like institution to fracture like this. Our system can currently only sustain to major parties, and the two with the most investment will be the ones in the dance. The DLC, and all of its financial interests, have MUCH decision making power in the Party (which in part contributes to the popularity of a Dean campaign, or even a Kucinich campaign on a considerably lesser scale).

Can you at least expand upon your apocalyptic prediction here....?

[Perndog]

No matter how poor the Democratic party gets, there will still be plenty of voters for them, like me, simply because we hate the Republicans and will accept any alternative to them.

[pinky lee]

The Whig party was pretty monied too, and it met the same fate.

I'll tell you what I base it on- there is a hard core cadre of unrepentant tax-spend-socialist government program- politically correct- minority set aside- gay empowerment- anti-military- pro-abortion fanatics who are tired of sublimating their hard left ideology in order to win elections. Its not working anyway, the only years it worked and the only Dem is elected is Bill Clinton, and he was basically a liberal nightmare- he single handedly set back socialized health care, the welfare system and protectiionist union policies. So, they are rebellilng against the DLC with its Leibermanlst centrist policies and going on a liberal kamikaze mission. The only reason the Dem party is viable at all is that mostly they hide their far left agenda or pander to enough groups to mollify the lefties who dont really get any real power. Now, Dean and Co. are threatening to blow the lid off what the true agenda of the far left is: and they control the Dem activists who control the primaries. By and large the electorate DOESNT support the ideology of Commisar Rodham-Clinton and even she knows enough to make nice about the military and security. Dean has no such compunctions. His "surrender first' strategy will go over like a led zeppeliin and he could conceivably lose 49 states, even liberal NY and CA. On his coattails the Senate could go 60+ filibuster proof Republican.

On the heels of this, the centrist disgust at the far left's hari kari will split the party. The Greens will make up a 3rd sect. Once the rift begins, there will be scism after scism as various interest groups break off to consolidate what power they have left.

etc. ad nauseum

[pinky lee]

No matter how poor the Democratic party gets, there will still be plenty of voters for them, like me, simply because we hate the Republicans and will accept any alternative to them.

Therein lies your problem. Sane, rational and responsible voters don't vote on the basis of who they hate. They vote for men with values and core beliefs. The Dems are quite voluble about what they are against, very shaky on what they are for. Oh yes, there will always be a Communist party in the US too, they just don't elect Presidents. Welcome to 2nd tier party status, Mr. Democrat.

[Perndog]

I don't think you quite get it. Right now, there is no way we will have a 3rd party candidate. I am opposed to the Republican platform, and I feel that any Republican official will support policy that is detrimental to me and contrary to my personal beliefs. Therefore, I vote Democrat to keep Republicans out of office. Shove your sanity and rationale up your ass, I've demonstrated mine and it makes perfect sense to me.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

The Whig party was pretty monied too, and it met the same fate.

True, but different times.

I'll tell you what I base it on- there is a hard core cadre of unrepentant tax-spend-socialist government program- politically correct- minority set aside- gay empowerment- anti-military- pro-abortion fanatics who are tired of sublimating their hard left ideology in order to win elections. Its not working anyway, the only years it worked and the only Dem is elected is Bill Clinton, and he was basically a liberal nightmare- he single handedly set back socialized health care, the welfare system and protectiionist union policies.

He was also the chair of the DLC in 1990, and was never truly the champion of Leftist "fanatics" that you claim he was. He was more like Jimmy Carter than he was George McGovern, and just because he was an old pot smoking hippie, that doesn't mean he was really a Leftist, or even a traditional, national liberal in the Truman/Johnson sense....


So, they are rebellilng against the DLC with its Leibermanlst centrist policies and going on a liberal kamikaze mission. The only reason the Dem party is viable at all is that mostly they hide their far left agenda or pander to enough groups to mollify the lefties who dont really get any real power.

The Democratic hierarchy has no "far left agenda," at least not any more than the Republican Party has any "far right, seditious militia-supporting, harmful tax breaks, corporate welfare loving, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-environment, anti-womens choice, anti-SOLDIER" agenda....

You give far too much credit to the Left. It has tried working throughout the system to take over the Democratic Party, and it hasn't worked since the 1970s. The pieces left after the demise off the Citizens Party went into the Jackson presidential camp in the 80s, in an attempt to push him up. That didn't work, and it hasn't worked. The DLC are far too powerful, and far too many elected Democrats are in bed with big donors to push too far to the Left.

Now, Dean and Co. are threatening to blow the lid off what the true agenda of the far left is: and they control the Dem activists who control the primaries. By and large the electorate DOESNT support the ideology of Commisar Rodham-Clinton and even she knows enough to make nice about the military and security. Dean has no such compunctions. His "surrender first' strategy will go over like a led zeppeliin and he could conceivably lose 49 states, even liberal NY and CA. On his coattails the Senate could go 60+ filibuster proof Republican.

Again, unsubstantiated ideas. What makes Dean a leftist nut? The fact that he supports gay unions as opposed to gay marriage, and feels that the Federal government shouldn't even be discussing such issues of privacy and morality...? Perhaps you mean how he opposes measures such as medical marijuana, and calls universal health coverage "tipping at wind mills"??? Maybe you mean how he argues for a balanced federal budget, a traditionally conservative argument...? Wait, maybe you mean how he opposed a war with a nation that clearly posed no threat to us, yet another traditionally conservative standpoint...? Or MAYBE you mean how he supports the death penalty for specifically horrid crimes....? I'm "treading water" here, so you'll need to help me out (and I'm really gonna need help with Senator Clinton).

On the heels of this, the centrist disgust at the far left's hari kari will split the party. The Greens will make up a 3rd sect. Once the rift begins, there will be scism after scism as various interest groups break off to consolidate what power they have left.

Interesting argument, but not likely. I am a member of the Green Party, and they do not have the viability needed to maintain a national party (and in some ways, it's in fact contrary to the very premise of the party). When the going gets rough, third party and infdependent voters always flock back to one of the main two parties. Fact is, Clinton provided a certain degree of national comfort during the 90s, thus making the folks on the fringes of the spectrum more restless. We had high third party activity in the 90s, also because the two parties moved closer and closerto each other. But now in President Bush, folks on the Left see a clear and present danger. It isn't about building a party like in 2000, or electing a third option, this time it's about getting Bush out of office for many people.

The Lefties are flocking to Dean because he opposed the war, he was governor of Bernie Sanders' state, and he works on a so-called "grassroots" level. Truth is, he isn't that liberal, and he also has big money behind him, like from AOL Time-Warner. Now I'm certain that your view of what makes someone a "socialist" or a "fanatic" is different than mine, but I have a hard time seeing what makes Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton one of those things.

[pinky lee]

In brief, my opinion is the angry far lefties who control the primaries are going to drag the party to the left and ultimately break it up. I know the Greens aren't viable. I suspect in the next generation we'll see a dominant majority Republican party with a shifting coalition of smaller parties of varying degrees of liberal/socialist slates, much like in Parlimentary countries. The problem with the Dem party is, and has always been, its a competing group of special interests who are all chasing the same dime- the well has run dry so they have very little common interest, and each of their competing interests are going to make them tear at one another. On top of that is the real anger and impotence of the dying hippie left who bemoan the conservatism of today's youth. I think they are already a regional instead of a national party and the exodus of productive members of the blue states to the red states is going to exacerbate the situation. I'd link you to the article I read aobut that yesterday but I'm too busy.

later

[KevinTheOmnivore]

In brief, my opinion is the angry far lefties who control the primaries are going to drag the party to the left and ultimately break it up.

Or, perhaps mobilize an apathetic electorate that barely shows up at 50% for the presidential election...? If Dean can get all of the "typical" Dem. supporters, interest groups, unions, and on top of that garner the grassroots, far-left vote, he can create a base that can challenge Bush.

Both Dean and Kerry have dropped mentionings that Bob Graham would make a good runningmate. Is this because he's such a swell guy and a great senator? No. It's because he could possibly lock in Florida....learning from mistakes. Granted, recent polling data shows that Graham may not be a lock for Florida, but he is still fairly popular amongst the conservative Democrats in Florida. Dean can easily take NY, probably take California, probably home state Vermont, and probably other North Eastern bastions as well. This guy has a chance....


I know the Greens aren't viable. I suspect in the next generation we'll see a dominant majority Republican party with a shifting coalition of smaller parties of varying degrees of liberal/socialist slates, much like in Parlimentary countries.

This is unlikely, as I stated previously, because both parties have become too much of an institution with the electorate. The nation is far too stagnant, far too apathetic to truly will the demise of one of these parties.

And you give "Republican dominance" far too much credit. Republicans may have swept out the Federal level, but when you count win totals from the 2002 mid-cycle elections, AND include statewide offices, the Democrats did just peachy. Most places are still dominated by old machine and party boss style setups. I wouldn't anticipate any kind of sweeping "Republican revolution" any time soon...

The problem with the Dem party is, and has always been, its a competing group of special interests who are all chasing the same dime- the well has run dry so they have very little common interest, and each of their competing interests are going to make them tear at one another.

This has not always been the case, and probably only became really dominant during the New Left era of the 1970s. Prior to that, the Democratic Party (again) was moreparty machine based, like in Chicago, or like a lesser scenario in Albany, NY. People voted for the party that had intense, decentralized representation in their town. Granted, these systems were prone to corruption, so pick your poison.

However, this very same problem once burdened the Republican Party. "liberal Republicans," or "Rockefeller Republicans," or "Eisenhower Republicans" ran much of the 1st half of the century, while conservative ideologues and southern racists bounced around from party to party. Folks like Barry Goldwater helped shift the "solid South" though, and the Willie Buckley's of the party fought for more influence.

This again occurred in 1994, when guys like anti-semite Pat Robertson helped devise the "no enemies to the Right" policy. Oh, the conservative ideologues and populists are in the Republican Party, they just shut up when told to. You think guys like Pat Buchanan and Grover Norquist are happy with Medicare expansion and a sky rocketing deficit....? Both parties are considered "big tent" parties. Shouldn't internal debate, pulling-and-tugging, representation, etc. be encouraged with these broad parties, rather than stifled debate...?

On top of that is the real anger and impotence of the dying hippie left who bemoan the conservatism of today's youth.

More like the apathy......

Young people today are just as involved in community events, functions, aiding homeless shelters, etc. The thing they consistently do not do is vote. I don't know of any old leftists who "bemoan" the conservative youth, which is again a greatly overstated matter....

I think they are already a regional instead of a national party and the exodus of productive members of the blue states to the red states is going to exacerbate the situation.

Right, blue states which hold a predominant amount of the American voters. There certainly are more red states, but there are also lots of farms, trees, and dirt with no living, breathing voters. The Republican Party is JUST as regional, if not more so....

I'd link you to the article I read aobut that yesterday but I'm too busy.

I'd be glad to read it, and I apologize for biting your head off initially. I had mistake you for one of the many idiots who post garble and then move on, but you clearly have a solid interest and understanding of what you're talking about.

[pinky lee]

you misunderstand my point about the red and blue states

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110003942

explains it better- plus, blue states like CA and NY are losing electoral votes while red states are picking them up

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/wonderland.gif

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Fair enough, but that doesn't change the fact that the Republican Party is likewise a "regional" party.

And the exodus aside, states like California still comprise a large amount of the nation's population, and with our birth rate decreasing, and other factors in California, the state can oinly go down in population from there. And of course people and businesses are going to flock to the places with cheaper taxes....

[pinky lee]

CA lost 2 electoral votes and 2 seats in Congress last census.
The point is the Republicans are gaining in the areas of growth and prosperity.

Also, you were talking about local elections- the Republicans gained control of a majority of state legislatures for the first time since the Civil War. Despite losses, they still lead in Governorships. They control all 3 branches of the Federal Government and look to expand that advantage next election, by even Dem estimates- also, they performed a historical first when they picked up seats in an off-year elections in both Houses of Congress. It can only get batter. I'd hate to be a Dem in the coming decade, they are fighting a reactive battle to try to keep from losing power, and the big deficit will help contract government.

Everything further erodes the terrible burden FDR put on the average citizen with his disasterous New Deal- we are still dismantling it. GWB should have it pretty well reversed by 2008.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeser/cst-edt-roes30.html

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Also, you were talking about local elections- the Republicans gained control of a majority of state legislatures for the first time since the Civil War. Despite losses, they still lead in Governorships. They control all 3 branches of the Federal Government and look to expand that advantage next election, by even Dem estimates- also, they performed a historical first when they picked up seats in an off-year elections in both Houses of Congress. It can only get batter.

What I was referring to was an overall level of national, state, county, and local seats that were won. The trend at the top levels was not reflective on the local levels for the most part.....

And following your logic, I'd say it can only get worse if the Republicans gain more and more seats. They can't hold it all forever, right?



Everything further erodes the terrible burden FDR put on the average citizen with his disasterous New Deal- we are still dismantling it. GWB should have it pretty well reversed by 2008.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeser/cst-edt-roes30.html

The "terrible burden"?? Such as?? Such as social security, which has benefited millions of retired Americans? Maybe workfare programs that employed our great grandparents, including my own...? Granted, the New Deal was not perfect, but public policy never is.

The article was an interesting read, but I cringe at the selective use of history and information used by the libertarian extremists at the Cato Institute.

I'll have to read through it again, but here's one part that caught me: "New Deal relief programs were steered away from the South, the nation's poorest region. ''A reported 15,654 people were forced from their homes to make way for dams,'' Powell writes. ''Farm owners received cash settlements for their condemned property, but the thousands of black tenant farmers got nothing.''

And what the author neglects to mention is that it was racist southern Democrats who pushed to prevent the New Deal from extending too far into their own constituencies, because it would've provided blacks with work. Had FDR not yielded on this, the welfare policies may never have reached fruition in the first place. This was undoubtedly an unfortunate compromise, but certainly not FDR's intent, or his "folly."

In providing social nets and expanding government programs, FDR just may have saved us from the popularity of Communism and Socialst revolution that often resulted when countrires went into economic distress. I'm sure our friends at the Cato Institute wouldn't believe that....

And just how is President Bush contracting the size of government, by expanding medicare to cover elderly prescription plans?? This is a big government conservative if I have ever seen one....

[pinky lee]

well you should hope that Gephardt wins the nomination, and not Dean if you are a Democrat- Dean is going to cause a whole new wave of Reagan Democrats- conservative Dems who cant stomach a hard lefty like Dean and who might vote straight Rep ticket
Labor delivered the votes for Bill Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. But union members are much more conservative on issues like national security and gun control, and not likely to fall in line behind an old school peacenik like Dean.

If they go in big numbers to Bush and the GOP, it increases the possibility that Republicans will win super majorities in the Senate and House.

Some labor leaders are agitating to back a single Democratic candidate to offsett Dean. The Teamsters already endorsed Gephardt and several other unions are also backing Gephardt.

But Gephardt 's an uninspiring candidate. Union members may give him their vote but first they have to care enough to come to the polls. Dean can speak to the 25 percent of voters who hate Bush and will bring out college students who otherwise wouldn't vote. And in a primary with a lot of candidates, that could be all it takes to win. That would leave labor in using membership money to back a candidate its members can't stomach. Dean may talk the talk on trade and job protection, but union members are smart enough to know that jobs don't come from that far left. Privately, some union officials hint they may effectively sit out the general election if Dean wins the nomination.

[VinceZeb]

Pinky's politics are stupid, but he/she has single-handedly made Kevin look like a flaming idiotic homo. I thought only a posting of Kevin's picture would do that.

Good show.

[CaptainBubba]

:lol Vince, I think its time you started posting in other forums. You are an endless source of comedic value which is desperately needed in general blabber. And lets be honest here. You no longer have anything to add to any political disscusion.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Pinky's politics are stupid, but he/she has single-handedly made Kevin look like a flaming idiotic homo. I thought only a posting of Kevin's picture would do that.

Good show.

Why is it that you've never been able to say this of yourself...? It only seems like you get the chance when someone else comes in and holds a debate FOR you.

And pinky's politics certainly can't be any worse than yours, faux-libertarian-conservo boy....

[pinky lee]

who the fuck are you calling a he-she you anus with ears
Im female although that seems to be a bit threatening to some of the macho shitheads waving there tiny dicks around this entire forum

[CaptainBubba]

Pinky Lee obviously has this place figured out.

[O71394658]

I don't know if this has been said, as I've only mildly skimmed through the thread. I don't think the rise of the 3rd party is going to come too soon in this country. It just follows the lines of basic apathy. How many people come out to vote for President? 40%? 50%? 60%? The fact that people wouldn't bother spending the 5 minutes to vote for the person who is going to lead their nation for the next 4 years is rather upsetting. Among those who do vote, there are those that take the "Perndog" stance. They'll just follow the stereotypical roles of partisan politics and vote for the ones they hate less. Most would equate the Conservative to be a fat, rich, white man who likes to fuck over the poor. Most Americans don't even bother finding out the stances of their political candidates. They just choose the lesser of two evils. For example, no matter how far-left Dean turns out to be, he is still, if he gets the nomination, going to draw a substantial amount of voters towards him. Those merely dissatisfied with the Bush administration would take the stance that "anything is better than this guy" and pull the lever for Dean, not merely because they like him or support his policies, but only because they've developed a deep-seated hatred for the current President. For an example, I've pulled a quote from another thread.

dont like bush. he is bad. we deserve better.

See? Now do you think a character such as this (he didn't back up his stance either) is going to vote Bush again over Dean (or whoever)? I think not. Does this person know anything at all about Dean? I think not.

[VinceZeb]

We have raised a country of idiots that knows nothing of self-reliance or true indivudality. They only vote against Bush because a couple of celeberties and college-political scientist say he is bad.

[pinky lee]

"celeberties and college-political scientist"??
what the??

[glowbelly]

pinky? don't try to understand him. it's futile.

[VinceZeb]

I'll break it down:

If you ask most people why they wouldn't vote for Bush, they couldn't give you a real reason. The only reasons they have is because a celeberty said something or some so called "political expert" said something. They haven't done any research or even know shit about politics. I generally refer to these people as sheeple.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

well you should hope that Gephardt wins the nomination, and not Dean if you are a Democrat- Dean is going to cause a whole new wave of Reagan Democrats- conservative Dems who cant stomach a hard lefty like Dean and who might vote straight Rep ticket

Again, I ask you to prove to me what makes Howard Dean a "hard lefty." Gephardt is too synonymous with weakness to many on the left, and I think the grassroots base of the party will reject him on those grounds.

If some Dems. want to switch over temporarily or permanently, well that's theie perogative. It may be a good thing, cuz another realignment might be in order at this point in the game....

Labor delivered the votes for Bill Clinton in 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. But union members are much more conservative on issues like national security and gun control, and not likely to fall in line behind an old school peacenik like Dean.

Right criticism, wrong issue. If you've looked into Dean, or "Ho Ho" as he's called by Vermonters, you'd se that he is fairly conservative on gun matters. And as far as national security goes, he has taken cutting the defense budget off the table already. He believes in an investment in the "Star Wars" program, and his stance on the war was more conditional on a UN mandate than anything else. He has presented himself in a way to show that he doesn't oppose force or war, but he did oppose this war.

On the other hand, labor won't be stabbed in the back again like they were by Clinton. Dean has essentially endorsed the neo-liberal policies of Clinton on free trade and such, and that might cost him the labor vote.

However, once again, winning often becomes more important than idealism, and the current flocking of lefties to the Dean campaign serves as an excellent example....


Some labor leaders are agitating to back a single Democratic candidate to offsett Dean. The Teamsters already endorsed Gephardt and several other unions are also backing Gephardt.

This will mean nothing however if Gephardt bows out as a result of poor primary results. I'm not sure oif it was the article you linked me, but it mentioned the primaries working sort of like the NCAA tournament, producing regional candidates...? As I think you've mentioned, Gephardt is riding on Iowa.....

But Gephardt 's an uninspiring candidate.

I agree completely.

Union members may give him their vote but first they have to care enough to come to the polls. Dean can speak to the 25 percent of voters who hate Bush and will bring out college students who otherwise wouldn't vote. And in a primary with a lot of candidates, that could be all it takes to win. That would leave labor in using membership money to back a candidate its members can't stomach.

Again, the labor backlash against Dean may be just a bit overstated. As far as the sterotypical class traits of blue collar workers go, Dean is basically on the same page as them. Fair trade may be where he gets hit from them, but that's where the buzzing bee candidacies of Dennis Kucinich and maybe(?) even Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney come into play. Kucinich has consistently attacked Dean for not being the lefty he essentially promised to be (sort of). Kucinich realizes he has no shot in hell, I don't care what anybody tells ya. But he has essentially dismissed a run with the Green Party or as an independent, cuz again (back to the crux!), winning and anti-bushism has become more important than ideology. Kucinich will be the proverbial thorn in Dean's side, and that just might be what keeps Dean a possibility for the labor vote (see the Dem. debate before the AFL-CIO a few weeks ago).

Dean may talk the talk on trade and job protection, but union members are smart enough to know that jobs don't come from that far left. Privately, some union officials hint they may effectively sit out the general election if Dean wins the nomination.

This will never happen, it's a flat out bluff. They will support probably WHOEVER the Democrats run, period.

And pinky, please don't think I was patronizing you, I truly am grateful you aren't THIS:

I'll break it down:

If you ask most people why they wouldn't vote for Bush, they couldn't give you a real reason. The only reasons they have is because a celeberty said something or some so called "political expert" said something. They haven't done any research or even know shit about politics. I generally refer to these people as sheeple.

:suicide

And you're telling me that every person who voted for Bush in 2000, and every voter who will likely vote for him in 2004, understand COMPLETELY why they vote the way they do....?

Please, just, stop. Stop. No more.

[The One and Only...]

I don't know who the hell I would vote for, but it would NOT be John Kerry. I would much prefer taking a large shit on his mouth by claiming that the problem with Bush is that he's an "extreme libertarian".

I'm not saying his comment was foolish because there's nothing wrong with libertarianism, but because he called Bush one. WTF? Bush is most certainly not a libertarian, and never will be.

My guess was that he was trying to make libertarians look bad, even though he knows damn well he shouldn't claim Bush among them.

Probably the best Democrat I've seen isn't even running for president, and I didn't care enough to catch his name. He's a senator: the one that basically whooped Wolfowitz's ass during a debate; that's all I really remember. I liked him because he actually seemed to have a clue with what is going on, and was able to tell that Bush is basically bending over for the neocons. I'm not saying I agreed with his political views entirely, but he was at least honest. You might know him from Real Time will Bill Mahrer last night.