Obamarama

[bright eyed]

Hey guys and gals, can we call a truce on this subject for a little while? Why don't we debate the Civil War or something else equally as useful.

Only 21 months to go before the next presidential election.

hey rewahoo, sorry for contributing to the negativity- i had a tough day at work and started getting punchy

 

[Cut-Throat]

I am not a Bush supporter. I'll be glad when he's gone from the office. I just live in hope we won't get something worse. He's doing the job.

Well, I'm guessing you voted for the turkey! - Probably even twice!

- And yeah he's doing the job alright, if you consider running the U.S.A's financial and world status into the ditch 'doing the job'!

 

[2B]

Well, I'm guessing you voted for the turkey! - Probably even twice!

- And yeah he's doing the job alright, if you consider running the U.S.A's financial and world status into the ditch 'doing the job'!

In fact I voted for him four times, twice for president and twice for governor. Everytime it involved holding my nose.

In Texas the dems have been reduced to switching to the repub party to get elected. There are no dems in any statewide Texas elected office. We're now into the same problem Texas had when the dems had one party control of the state. We have the lib repubs and the conservative repubs. Our budget is out of control, our current governor amazes everyone and we've just about reached critical mass for another reversal.

Bush was a middle-to-fair governor but certainly nothing exciting. He did much I didn't agree with. The dems ran no name, nobody losers against him. I can't even remember who they were now. None of the governor elections were even close which is why he looked so strong as a repub presidential candidate.

In the presidency, Texas was going to vote for Bush so it didn't really matter who I voted for. The dems, however, picked poor candidates that I actually felt it was better to have the mediocre Bush II rather than them. With what I've seen of the world since both elections, I don't feel Gore or Kerry would be doing as well as Bush is despite Bush doing pretty poor. I see no need for specifics. But, I tend to focus more on what, how and why things were done and not judge solely on outcomes.

I think I've said all this before but maybe not at the same time.

I'll also repeat my Obama opinion. He is clearly articulate, personable and intelligent. He also has next to no experience. Where's the "gravitas" for him? If he was a white repub with 2 years of senate experience, he would be laughed at if he announced he was running for the presidency.

Madam Hillary is only modestly better. She's a 1 term senator with her only other experience being hatchet man for Bill. Where's the "she's only running because she was married to Bill" outcry that the Bush father-son evoked.

Edwards falls in between them. He is a one term senator that didn't even try to run for reelection in the senate because his poll numbers were so low. His contribution to the Kerry ticket was probably a negative in the southern states. Now if the dems really want to prove no repub can win in 2008, they need to nominate him.

The strongest qualified dem is Bill Richardson. He has the background to possibly be a good president. He doesn't have the poll numbers to be in contention and may never get them.

I can't see me voting for Edwards, Clinton or Obama. Richarson is a good "possible." Of course, the repubs still have their chance to pick someone so laughable that even Obama looks like the best qualified.

Personally, I am fiscally conservative and believe in less government. That carries over into government staying out of our personal lives so that generally makes me a social liberal. I keep looking for the government program that eventually doesn't cause more problems than it was supposed to fix but I have not found it.

For those unfamiliar with Texas politics, a big block of repub support is in the form of anti-abortion/big government types. That gets meaningless anti-abortion actions done in the Texas legislature and higher spending. Hence, I sense a dem-repub reversal coming so get ready for a big block of anti-abortion Texas dems flooding the national dem party.

 

[lets-retire]

the State police are under the county's authority? The company from Texas that removed names from eligible voter's lists was under county jurisdiction? Katherine Harrris was a Demorcrat from those counties?

The thrust of your argument seems to be that it is the Dems fault that they were the victims of a crooked election, crooked government, and biased supreme court.

try again.

How's this the Dems were complaining that the butterfly ballot caused so many errors and was the reason the count was screwed up. Who decided to use the butterfly ballot? The county election commission, who happen to be Dems in the counties causing the problems. If it was so bad, they should not have used it. The Dems controlled the legislature AND the Mansion prior to Jeb. If state policy was so bad, then they should have changed it. They didn't try to change it so obviously they thought it was fine, as did Jeb, until the election of 2000.

As far as Katherine Harris, she was doing what state law required. If the Dems didn't like it they should have tried to change the law prior to the election not after, by using the courts. The Dems did control the state legislature, you know. As far as the rest, it sounds like typical politics. How about all of the military absentee votes, who typically vote Republican, that were thrown out, because they were mailed from a ship and didn't have a date stamped on them. If Bush wanted to be the dink that Gore was, he would have demanded a recount in the conservative counties to off set the recounts in the liberal ones. He rose above the B.S. and let Gore look like the cry baby he is.

 

[bright eyed]

The dems ran no name, nobody losers against him. I can't even remember who they were now. None of the governor elections were even close which is why he looked so strong as a repub presidential candidate.

I have to agree with you on that one - there was a huge glut for several years with terrible candidates on both sides - dull dull dull - hey i'm from california where we had Gray Davis who got recalled in a heavily democrat state cuz he was so lame...

i think in part, that election reform is needed because in order to stomach or have the desire to be involved with running for public office you have to have certain ambitions that tend to over-ride your other ethics or priorities and a lot of good people do not find that worth their time.

whatever the case is - not enough will change with a president -that is one person (ok, with a lot of control/power) in a broken ship.

 

[2B]

I have to agree with you on that one - there was a huge glut for several years with terrible candidates on both sides - dull dull dull - hey i'm from california where we had Gray Davis who got recalled in a heavily democrat state cuz he was so lame...

California, from what I can tell, is seriously screwed up politically. That spills over into the finances which is where the wheels fall off first. I read an article not long ago that said last years state budget was "saved" by the Google IPO. All the new billionaires paid almost $400MM in state income tax on their big gains. From my w***king life I know they are putting high levels of regulation and taxes on industry and are wondering why they are leaving the state or reluctant to make new investments. The whole Enron fiasco was encouraged by California's deregulation which was designed to give Californians the absolute cheapest power. Unfortunately, people found the ways around the system and stole billions -- totally legal for the most part. So much for my rambling....

If Texas had the ability to recall, Perry would be toast. He's done some stunts since the election that have just made our collective jaws drop.

 

[greg]

This is on-topic--really. I watched the last 15 minutes of Tim Russert on MSNBC last nite. Interesting show. They had a Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, who recently wrote a book called Words that Work: It's not what you say, it's what people hear. He's the fellow that came up with the phrase "Death Tax."

I caught the last part where he was commenting on Democratic candidates for president. He thinks that Hillary and Obama are direct opposites, that Hillary is very planned and controlling and intellectual; Obama is more like Reagan : in that he tells wonderful, personal stories that folks can directly relate to. Luntz thinks that if Obama doesn't stumble too hard, too early, he may have a real chance.

Luntz had lots of interesting observations about voters, candidates, and politics. He said that Howard Dean fell not so much because he got caught shouting, but rather because he was a one note candidate, all he would talk about was the war. Luntz said that if he had gone to the New Hampshire primary in a doctor's smock and a stethoscope around his neck and talked about health care, he could have kept his momentum going. (Who would better understand than a doctor-president?).

Anyway, It appears that Tim Russert will air again tonite at 6PM ET (and maybe 1AM for you nite owls). To my mind, all political junkies should watch it.

 

[bosco]

The fact of the matter is that those Florida Dems didn't care enough to put forth an effort to win. It's really shameful. They don't have the time or inclination to get things organized, control the jobs, the economy, the votes, like they should. Yet they have lots of time to whine and cry afterwards. What's the matter with them?

The whole concept that you can have a major urban area not controlled by Dems just dazzles me. Too much energy spent whining and crying and too little effort spent controlling the votes.

Totally out of control.

translation--if the Rebulicans cheat, it's the dems fault because they didn't try hard enough.

I never brought up butterfly ballots. I'm not even talking about the supposed recount effort (which was mostly pr). I'm taking about Jeb Bush using the state police as goon squads to deny voters, move polling places without notice, closing polling places etc., and fraudulent dirty tricks with the voter registration lists. All the hoopla about butterfly ballots was just the tip of the iceberg and mostly a smokescreen.

I'm as pissed off at the dems as anyone. I think a senator should have stepped up to the plate and signed the election challange. I think there should have been federal martials in Florida investigating irregularities in polling and complaints by blacks. I think people should have gone to jail. But the dems were too frightened to defend the voting rights of citizens, and politics won as usual.

If you want to defend this stuff, go right ahead. But don't turn around and say you believe in demorcacy. Just admit that cheating is ok (I guess you call it "controling the votes"), and the best cheater deserves to be in office.

 

[USK Coastie]

So lets make sure everyone who votes is entitled to vote. No picture id no vote, or better yet no proof of citizenship no vote. I get real tired of the yahoos in King County deciding what the rest of WA. State will do. seems in the '04 election they continued to recount and "find" votes until the results were what the Dems wanted. Everybody wants a fair election just that one party in this country wants everyone to vote legally or not, just vote and vote democrat.

 

[2B]

So lets make sure everyone who votes is entitled to vote. No picture id no vote, or better yet no proof of citizenship no vote. I get real tired of the yahoos in King County deciding what the rest of WA. State will do. seems in the '04 election they continued to recount and "find" votes until the results were what the Dems wanted. Everybody wants a fair election just that one party in this country wants everyone to vote legally or not, just vote and vote democrat.

The sudden "discovery" of several thousand absentee ballots in King County was certainly able to get my attention. I can't help but think that, voter fraud or not, everyone associated with that needs to be out of the election business. If fraud my answer for all politcal stripes is the same -- jail, jail and more jail. If it was an oversight, those people were either too lazy to count the votes which disenfranchised the voters or too incompetent to do their jobs.

I'm sure they were declared "heroes" and rewarded.

I find the fight against enhancing voter documentation pathetic. You have to have more ID to get a drivers licence or cash a check than to vote. Somehow asking someone to prove who they are is violating their "civil rights." I doubt any legal voter doesn't have to cash a check.

Actually, I take that back. My MIL's drivers license expired and I know she won't be cashing any checks. Of course, she has dementia and is confined to a bed/wheel chair.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

So who'd she vote for?

 

[2B]

So who'd she vote for?

Harry Truman

 

[youbet]

translation--if the Rebulicans cheat, it's the dems fault because they didn't try hard enough.

No........ Dems and Reps both try to control elections. If the whimpy Florida Dems would get things organized like they are in Chicago/Cook County and most other major urban areas, you wouldn't have to worry about the Reps.

I never brought up butterfly ballots.

I never said you did. Did you read my post?

If you want to defend this stuff, go right ahead.

I didn't defend anything the Reps did. Did you read my post? But I am disgusted that the Dems didn't have a major urban area with a high percentage of minorities properly organized and under control. It should have been a Dem landslide. I'm sorry, but I just can't sign off on spending 100% of your energy whining about the other guy leaving no energy to do anything about it.

 

[lets-retire]

Katherine Harrris was a Demorcrat from those counties?

bosco-- You complain that Katherine Harris was part of the problem. All she did was certify the election in accordance with the law. The Dems complained that because they used the butterfly ballot it could have caused confusion with the voters. Because they believed the voter were confused they felt they had to determine voter intent and it was taking much longer for them to conduct the recounts. Then they blame Harris because she did not give them more time, which would have violated state law. If it was a possible problem they should have chosen a different format, but they didn't so it is their fault, not Katherine Harris' for certifying the election in accordance with state law.

The biggest hole in you argument about Jeb conducting the elections illegally, is the DEMS still controlled the White House and the U.S. Marshals. If Clinton didn't feel it was necessary to send down the Marshals, then there are only a couple conclusions. 1) He saw through the B.S. also and knew nothing would be found. 2) He knew the Dems did just as many dirty things as the Reps and didn't want the skeletons in their closets to get out. Or 3) None of your supposed violations actually happened. Why would 2 be so important? Maybe because the skeletons in the Dems closet are bigger then what you assert happened in 2000. Personally, I think 2 is the most probable.

 

[bosco]

The biggest hole in you argument about Jeb conducting the elections illegally, is the DEMS still controlled the White House and the U.S. Marshals. If Clinton didn't feel it was necessary to send down the Marshals, then there are only a couple conclusions. 1) He saw through the B.S. also and knew nothing would be found. 2) He knew the Dems did just as many dirty things as the Reps and didn't want the skeletons in their closets to get out. Or 3) None of your supposed violations actually happened. Why would 2 be so important? Maybe because the skeletons in the Dems closet are bigger then what you assert happened in 2000. Personally, I think 2 is the most probable.

Nothing you said changes the fact that there were numerous documented cases of election malfeasance in Florida, and these went well beyond the bogus recount. If there was election tampering, I don't care which party did it. I think the Marshals should have been sent, and let the chips fall. And let's let every registered voter vote and let's count their votes. And I think that a fair election and vote count is more important than some bogus deadline cited by a party minion.

I'm not defending the Dems conduct--they brought it on themselves. But it's a little much to hear Bush squawking about Yassar Arafat and "regime change" a few months later when Yassar was elected with 90+ percent. Any idea how the US lecturing other countries about democracy plays in the world these days?

 

[lets-retire]

Nothing you said changes the fact that there were numerous documented cases of election malfeasance in Florida, and these went well beyond the bogus recount. If there was election tampering, I don't care which party did it. I think the Marshals should have been sent, and let the chips fall. And let's let every registered voter vote and let's count their votes. And I think that a fair election and vote count is more important than some bogus deadline cited by a party minion.

I'm not defending the Dems conduct--they brought it on themselves. But it's a little much to hear Bush squawking about Yassar Arafat and "regime change" a few months later when Yassar was elected with 90+ percent. Any idea how the US lecturing other countries about democracy plays in the world these days?

Nothing you say changes the fact that nobody was arrested, so there is nothing to support your position except wild speculation and rumor. The Dems had a vested interest in seeing Bush defeated (they would have kept the White House), since they controlled the police powers at the federal level and the US Supreme Court ruled there was a federal issue that gave Clinton the go ahead, he didn't so your position is simply sour grapes, hate for the right side of the aisle, or conspiracy theory.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

There was probably a lot more at stake than simply having the ability and electing (sorry) to not exercise it.

How does it look in the long term if the federal government, headed by a party that appears to be losing an election, sends the storm troopers in to "correct" a huge failure or execution of malfeasance in the election process?

Having carefully reviewed a lot of the materials around some of the election issues in florida, it sure looks to me like there were a bunch of goofs, most of them probably procedural shirking and incompetence rather than criminal intentions. And I'm sure a bunch of minor drift, errors and whatnot occurs in every election...its just not usually that close to matter.

Having said all that, it appears that Gore might very well have won the state and the election, had everything been 100% accurate. Having said that, I dont think he'd have made for a great president, but i'm not that thrilled with the one we got either.

But sending in the cops to 'straighten it out'? I doubt that was a good idea and I'm quite sure that it was discussed and rejected to maintain the good status quo of a fairly lucrative system.

 

[youbet]

And I'm sure a bunch of minor drift, errors and whatnot occurs in every election...its just not usually that close to matter.

And that's the key right there. For example, Chicago/Cook County has been so overwhelmingly Dem controlled for so long, that when the normal 100 - 200 ghost voters registered with addresses that turn out to be Wrigley Field are detected, it's just a source of humor and much fond recollection of notorious similar situations from the past, even in the conservative media. If elections ever become closer, I suppose those attitudes might change. But for now, a few tens of thousands of ghost votes, patronage systems, city services delivered in trade for votes, etc., mean little with the vote being so one-sided.

 

[HFWR]

...his policies took a lower priority than his "cowboy brash."

"The hundred-and-forty-second fastest gun, in the west..."

 

[Nords]

This debate about a six-year-old election reminds me of James Kilpatrick & Jane Curtin on Saturday Night Live. Even Al Gore thinks it's over.

Next up on "Face the Natives": "Who really won the Civil War?"

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Catch that HBO special on election irregularities. Pretty eye opening. Especially the part where the guy poked at the election machine for a minute using ordinary PC stuff and made it produce the vote counts he wanted it to. And the part where they caught one of the election officials throwing out trash bags full of uncounted ballots and the original tapes from the voting machines, which differed from the ones handed over to the media.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/synopsis.html
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/interview_filmmakers.html

I'm a little less worried about the election from six years ago than I am about the one two years from now.

 

[bright eyed]

I saw that documentary and it was clear that there were huge failures on the part of the elections officials - whether intentional or not - and a huge failure by any party to follow up and ensure it was investigated properly.

in any election there is a small percentage of votes that get miscounted for whatever reason - but when you see things like elections officials "precounting" a "random" sample, you know funny business is going on.

i think that john kerry dropped the ball as an active senator by not calling the election to question - there is a huge level of complacency and unwillingness to shake things up lest they ultimately lose their position in society for standing up for the rest of us!

 

[bosco]

Nothing you say changes the fact that nobody was arrested, so there is nothing to support your position except wild speculation and rumor.

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04needs/voting04.htm
http://afrocubaweb.com/bananarepublic.htm

There are plenty of other sources, but as somebody pointed out, the Dems were paralyzed by how partisan it would look if they attempted to enforce the law. How that's different than a partisan supreme court changing all it's past policies to render a partisan decision (in the past, the Supreme court had never ever meddled in a state's right to conduct elections) is beyond me, except that the supreme court isn't elected.

If you choose to believe that you live in a country where democracy actually works without active efforts being made to ensure it does, that's up to you. Keep whistling in the dark, and don't forget to bow down to your corporate masters. I won't be able to convince you. Much easier to point the finger at other countries, and invade them to bolster the self-image. Sort of like the alcoholic that decides he doesn't have a problem because "Bill there drinks more than I do".

 

[eridanus]

I'll also repeat my Obama opinion. He is clearly articulate, personable and intelligent. He also has next to no experience. Where's the "gravitas" for him? If he was a white repub with 2 years of senate experience, he would be laughed at if he announced he was running for the presidency.

Bush held 6 years as governor of a state where the governor holds little authority.

Obama held 7 years in the Illinois Senate and is now a US Senator.

Were you concerned about Bush's lack of "gravitas" in 2000?

Did Abe Lincoln lack "gravitas"? He had 8 years in the IL Senate and 2 years as a US Senator before becoming President.

 

[lets-retire]

bosco--reports of this, witnesses of that, without DETAILS of where mean it cannot be verified and has to placed in the pile of wild speculation and rumors. The only specific places mentioned were on the EAST side of the state, where, you guessed, it the DEMS controlled. : So I guess your correct the DEMS screwed it up so we must blame the Reps, because the Reps are mean and hateful.