It's not my country but...

[Guest]

I've just noticed on my AIM newsfeed that George Bush has the edge over Gore at the moment. That scares me a bit. I don't relish seeing the Republicans getting back in power. I remember Ron the Cowboy's presidency all too well and, IMHO, another George Bush in the Whitehouse is about the last thing the Western World needs right about now.

There. That's my backseat politics over and done with.

 

[Dudley]

This Just In...

Hmm, most of the polls are showing Gore with as much as a ten-point lead over Shrub right now, saying that his "post-convention bounce" has solidified. However, in American politics you can generally find a poll that will tell you anything you want to hear.

 

[Skitten]

Having either one in the whitehouse is scary regardless who we choose they will do whatever they want. All we can do is hope that the best one gets in whomever that may be.

 

[Dreamer1]

Anyone who has enough money, political clout and connections to become President of the United States is someone the citizenry truly does not want to be President of the United States.

 

[Ezzy]

"No matter who you vote for; the goverment still gets in!"
quote ANON ( well ok I'll admitt it I'm just to lazy to find out who said it first).


EZ http://smilecwm.tripod.com/cwm2/sleep.gif

 

[Bobtoad777]

a

[Edited by bobtoad777 on 09-03-2000 at 11:26 PM]

 

[Never]

I believe you're thinking about Jessie 'the Mind' Ventura.
No, he is not running.

 

[sallygirl]

I think the U.S. really needs to crack the two-party system. Alternatives are good. In Canada we have four main parties. I suppose the only two that would ever win federally both lean towards the centre, but the other two provide a few provincial leaders (Premiers).

Which reminds me of a story. (Going off on a tangent here.)
Not too long ago my roommate argued with me about the name of our Prime Minister. She insisted it was Mike Harris (the Premier of Ontario). Of course she was wrong, it's Jean Chretien, but she argued nonetheless. I guess it's because Mike the Knife gets a lot of bad press, while Chretien rarely does anything of note. But how the Hell can anyone be so ignorant of such basic facts? Even if you have absolutely no interest in politics, how can you not know the name of the leader of your country?? Do you think there are any Americans who don't know the name of the President? I doubt it. Bill's not a politician, he's a damn celebrity.

Anywho. What was my point? Oh, yes. Alternatives. Then you can pick the lesser evil among several instead of just two.

 

[Guest]

I agree with the general consensus here that all politicians are pretty scary but the Republicans have always seemed the scariest of them all to me.

The two party system does seem kind of limiting now you mention it, Sally Girl. Not a lot that can be done about it though. Maybe it gives some kind of stability to American politics only having two parties. Don't know.

BTW - hope you're all having a pleasant Labor Day.

 

[Merelan]

Last night, at the start of the Jerry Lewis Telethon, Norm Crosby, a comedian, did part of his act.
Now the man is great, one of the best. He is intelligent, insightful and funny all at the same time, a rare quality these days. I was laughing along with him when he said saomething that made me pause and think.
"This is the first presidential election where the American public hopes no one wins."

Think about it.

 

[Magic Merlin]

"This is the first presidential election where the American public hopes no one wins."

Think about it.

This is so true for me this year. The quality of the persons running for office seem to degrade further with every election. More and more it seems that the ones running and getting elected for political office are the persons with the most money and least ethics..

Granted their are some decent people that run for office, but the higher the office and the greater power associated with the office, the more they seem to attract people of lesser moral quality.

But I will keep on voting and keep on hoping, and keep on participating in the system. I am determined that some day the two party system will be cracked and their will be some morals and ethics in the people that are elected.

However, I don't see that in Bush or Gore....

 

[Siren]

What the focus should be on is .....

 

[Sonora]

Thank you for pointing that out Siren. I agree with you. A supreme court judge will have more influence on this country (and more time in 'office') than a pres.

Regardless of who he might appoint if elected, Bush just plain scares the hell out of me. I'm not all that happy with Gore, but I think I would worry less if he were elected.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Do you have to take SATs to get into the Electoral College?

Siren my sweet, you are obviously laboring under the impression that the voting public chooses the president. We never have before, and we will certainly not do it this time. Does your vote for President count? Hardly.

Before all ya'll start with the "Oh muffin, you HAVE to vote for president, your vote counts!" rhetoric, consider the following:

Excerpted from the Constitution of the United States of America:

Article II, Section 1, Part 2.

Each State] ( Altered by 23rd Amendment) shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector [The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.] (Altered by 12th Amendment)

The 12th Amendment:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; -- the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; -- The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. [And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. --]* The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

*Superseded by section 3 of the 20th amendment.

The 23rd Amendment:

Passed by Congress June 16, 1960. Ratified March 29, 1961.

Section 1.
The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation

end

Now where does it say that "we the people" actually vote for our own President? Am I the only person who sees a problem here? YOUR VOTE FOR PRESIDENT DOES NOT COUNT. Read the Constitution. It says so.

 

[RonG]

KM, of course you vote for your president. The Electoral College is a device for affirming the vote, not a device for superseding it. Yes, in theory, these guys and gals could decide to do something crazy and vote for someone other than who they are a delegate for, but the electoral college is a way to avoid extremism on a state by state level from swaying the election too far if you went just by total popular vote. All the advertising aside, we will vote pretty close to 50/50 for dems and repubs. Suppose a state the size of Texas voted 100% for their native son who promised to use the federal government to cover all bad debts run up by Texans (an approach used to a limited extent by his father in the S&L scandal). This would have the effect of one state determining the fate of the country due to moderation elsewhere. The electoral college method acts like a brake to prevent that.

KM, you are too smart an individual to let this argument over the electoral college get in the way of voting. This election does matter for the Supreme Court and for staying the financial and diplomatic course that we are on. We had twenty years of Republican presidents who couldn't submit a balanced budget and three consecutive Democratic balanced budgets so if anyone thinks Bush will help manage spending better than Gore needs to look at some recent history.

I am not a democrat and wouldn't have imagined they would have done as well as they have. But I will vote for Gore since I see no good reason to toss the incumbents out, and certainly not for a candidate as weak and insincere as Bush.

 

[Bliss]

We had twenty years of Republican presidents

12 actually. Jimmy Carter is in no way, shape or form a Republican.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Interestingly enough, in the 1992 election the person with the popular vote wasn't elected president. How ever so odd.

 

[Guest]

Jimmy Carter wasn't president in 1988.

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

I think you're mistaken, Muffin. Clinton did have the plurality of popular vote. What you may be thinking is that he didn't have a majority of the popular vote due to Ross Perot getting approx. 20%. You're right, though, that Clinton won the majority of electoral votes without the majority of popular votes.

RonG is right. The electoral college is a formality. There has never been an election in which the the winner of the popular election hasn't been the winner of the electoral college and I don't see it happening in the future...

[Edited by Oliver Clozoff on 09-04-2000 at 02:04 PM]

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

Jimmy Carter wasn't president in 1988.

No he wasn't, but RonG said that we had 20 years of Republican presidents and Bliss is correct to point out his mistake. Carter was elected in 1976 and served until Jan. '81. Clinton's term started in 1993.

And to address the subject of this thread, the republicans aren't the villains people are portraying them as on this board. Communism and the cold war ended on their watch. They liberated Kuwait. (just a few of their accomplishments)

The two American parties are virtually indistinguishable now. They're both so driven by polling that the differences between them are a matter of degree, not substance. They each want to reform and/or preserve the same programs. Their only differences come in the details of how to best accomplish it.

Contrast this to many of your European nations, Roger, who still have Communist parties, extremely liberal green-parties, and right-wing parties just left of the nazis.

That's what's scary to me.

 

[Laurel]

I don't normally like to go around quoting other people, but a guy (think it's a guy) named stgilljr who posts on the FuckedCompany board posted this, and it's an interesting angle:

I was talking to my network consulting friend last night. Former Army officer, had e-mail in 1986. This topic came up.

There are two parts of the job of being president. One is the political stuff, who gets on the court, that kind of stuff.

Then there is the other part, the 3 AM part.

The president gets a call from the Joint Chiefs. The ambassador in Sierra Leone is taken hostage and they killed a bunch of Brits to make their point.

The president has to send in the Marines to get him back. Do you think Ralph Nader and his advisors are up to that job? Is he going to be the one to send your kid into combat?

GW Bush thinks he's up to the job, but we know he's done everything, everything on daddy's back.

Gore is up to that job.

See, the problem is that you don't get to pick which part of the job you want to do. You may want to make all these changes, but at some point, the 3 AM call comes and you have to act.

I think GW Bush would fuck that up in a heartbeat. When all of daddies gophers are screaming at each other, one man gets to make that choice. GW Bush has never stood a day on his own.

But Nader? God almighty, could you trust him to do that? Provide for the common defense? Think hard about it. Because while the Greens may be pacifists, Osama Bin Laden is not. And he hates America and Americans.

And that call will come, it always does.

You can talk politics all day long, but when it comes down to it, that is the first and most important job of the president. And Bush ain't up to it and neither is Nader.

Now GW is ducking debates and getting hammered for it. Gore will beat his ass into the ground. He's a former reporter/policy wonk.

The Bush campaigns internal polls must be beeping like a radar detector on the New Jersey Turnpike. They are in trouble going negative so early. Which is why he's playing with debates.

Their numbers are as bad or worse than the public polls and their focus groups in key states is making them nervous as hell. Bush has lost California and New York. He's gonna lose the midwest real soon. Gore's populism hit a note in a land where 50-60 hour weeks are common.

People may have more money, but they now work harder and longer than the Japanese.

Gore knows he gets Bush on a debate podium and this election is over. Gore was a journalist longer than Bush has been in office. Bush likes to be vague in an era where Clinton and Gore read budget lines.

Reagan is gone, Bush can't just say trust me any more. He has to explain why he deserves to be president and the fact that he'll only get blow jobs from his wife isn't enough.

This sucker may be done by the first debate.

 

[Sonora]

The news is on here. I was in the kitchen only half paying attention to it when a story on the campaign came on. It was something about a candidate not realizing the mike was on and saying something inappropriate and if that wasn't bad enough, his running mate agreed with him. They silenced what was said and by the time I got in here they were showing Bush and Chaney. I don't know what was said or who said it.

Does anybody know?

 

[Guest]

Contrast this to many of your European nations, Roger, who still have Communist parties, extremely liberal green-parties, and right-wing parties just left of the nazis.

That's what's scary to me.

Are you saying you disapprove of democracy there, Oliver? LOL.

BTW - I wasn't making any kind of political point with the Jimmy Carter thing. I was just amused that Bliss's figures were wrong when telling Ron that his figures were wrong.

Also - although Sally made me question the two party system, I did also add this disclaimer:

Maybe it gives some kind of stability to American politics only having two parties.

which isn't a million miles from what you say here:

The two American parties are virtually indistinguishable now. They're both so driven by polling that the differences between them are a matter of degree, not substance. They each want to reform and/or preserve the same programs. Their only differences come in the details of how to best accomplish it.

Basically, you're saying that the two-party system seems to weed out overt extremism, which I'd agree with.

 

[Gingersnap]

ROGER HELLO sorry everyone but we were supposed to be on Springer today and he forgot

 

[Guest]

"Jerry, My Man Won't Stop Talking Politics..."

Ooops! I'm on my way to the back-stage area as we speak, Snapster.

xx