posted
I know I made a case before that Bush would have to make a serious mistake to lose the election, and since then Bush's ratings dropped intensely. It looked like a Democratic candidate had a chance, as long as they could get out the vote. Well, it looks like things are going to change back to my earlier prediction. Be prepared for a repeat of the 2000 election, at the very best.
posted
Nader ticked off a significant portion of the people who voted for him last time. And he's not even a strong 3rd party candidate this time. He's independent.
Plus, he probably won't even be on the ballot in all 50 states.
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posted
I also think a lot of people who live in "close" states will worry about "throwing" their vote away. I suspect Nader won't have quite the same impact as he did in the last election.
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I thought the Bush second term was supposed to be some kind of crushing landslide the likes of which the country had never seen, Argent?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Nader's perceived strength was actually Gore's weakness at work. A number of Democrats decided before the last election that Gore was going to win the day and they'd put their votes to Nader because he stood closer to their ideals than any other candidates. They did that in full wisdom that Gore was going to walk away with a victory no matter where they placed their votes.
And then, Gore didn't. He posted one of the worst showings of a Vice President after two terms of office running for president. The real swing voters (not those who went to Nader -- those were never votes in danger of going over to the Republicans) never warmed to Gore's wooden personality and instead went to George W. Bush who might not have been an intellectual ball of fire, but at least he had looked a little less plastic.
Now, it's going on four years later and the most extreme liberal side of the Democratic party (those who had cast ballots for Nader before) aren't going to even think of toying with anything but a vote for a Democrat. They don't want to chance Bush in a second term.
And that leaves the swing voters. Nader isn't going to appeal to them in the least. Swing voters are those caught squarely between the two parties and who will tend to vote for the candidate not to a particular party. The Dems have a much better shot at swaying these this time around than the last, but it's still no shoe in.
Nader will receive some of the fringe vote, but no longer stands as anything of a third party threat to either party. Perot's second try had more punch and promise in it than Nader's second whirl on the dance floor.
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posted
I don't think it will matter. As much as I think the American people can be goofy, I still can't believe they would reelect someone who has turned a large surplus into a massive deficit, destroyed America's reputation among our allies, curtailed important civil liberties like due process, based a unilateral, unjustified war on false evidence that he portrayed as certain, etc., and yet has virtually nothing to show for it. The terror threat is no less than it was originally and the economy has been extremely slow to recover. He has even lost ground in his battle to advocate conservative social values for America, which is so important to his most loyal followers.
I have to think that ultimately, Ameicans are going to have to think of some reason to vote for the person they vote for, beyond "he's Republican" or "he seems like a nice guy." And hence, I cannot see Bush winning.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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All the polls of the democrats voting in the primaries show the #1 thing they want--to oust President George Bush.
Most moderate to liberal voters are afraid of what 4 more years of President Bush's attempts at conservatism will do.
(And many true conservatives are still waiting for President Bush to do the conservative thing's they hoped. He hasn't so they won't go flocking to the polls to vote for him.)
They won't turn to Nader. They will want to make sure somebody (anybody?) replaces President Bush.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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If anything, I like Nader more this time around since he's not tied to the Green Party. They used each other, but I don't think either of them really fit well together.
Out from under the Green platform, I find Nader a far more sympathetic candidate than either of the nitwits the parties are throwing up. Did anyone see him on Meet the Press the other day?
As for swinging the election, I don't think he'll really do much, anyway. He doesn't have the Green's money this time around, and that's what US politics really hinges on, when you get down to it.
As it is, I'm just preparing to bunker down for the next four years and try to weather whatever joker gets elected this go round - all the corporately backed "contenders" are equally distasteful to me.
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posted
Xap, you think most Americans care about those things? People for the most part are greedy, and it's sad. Even though the government can't afford the tax cuts, people like money. Look at threads like that one David Bowles started. Americans don't seem to care that because of Bush the dollar will be 30% weaker over the next 8 years.
Posts: 369 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Which do I believe in more? Third party or that Nader is crazy for saying Bush should be impeached?
From a conservative talk station story:
quote: In 2000, Nader drew 2.7 percent of the vote nationally. But that was enough, potentially, to make a decisive difference in several hard-fought states, notably New Hampshire and Florida. Victory in any of them would have given Al Gore the presidency.
Could NH have swung the election also? I was under the impression it was either Florida or the conglomeration of several other close states?
Being that I live deep in Bush territory, I can burn my vote in protest. But there are some things I'm just not willing to put my name on.
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quote:Xap, you think most Americans care about those things?
Yeah, I do. I just think they don't realize long-term stuff like that immediately. As more and more time passes, I think the long-term impact of Bush's policies become clearer and clearer.
I'm not even sure this election will be close enough for Nader to matter. Unless Bush can either significantly shift attention away from his record or can produce some event shortly before the election to boost his popularity like 9/11 or the declaration of war did, I see the centrists eventually in a landslide against Bush. And that's where it counts, because the Democrats and Republicans are about even.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
As for the snide comments about me, the several thousand extra dollars we'll be receiving is going to go into starting a business that will feed tax revenue into the freaking government coffers, so there.
:grumbles about people not appreciating a good joke:
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posted
Voting for Bush isn't something you should even joke about. Who knows how many elderly lurkers keeled over with a heart attack?
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Tresopax, it is so good to hear your shrill voice of extremism!
quote:I still can't believe they would reelect someone who has turned a large surplus into a massive deficit
19 :cough: 84, anyone?
quote:destroyed America's reputation among our allies
Americans are notoriously unconcerned with world opinion of our country (on average).
quote:curtailed important civil liberties like due process
Very few people actually feel the effects of this (arguably temporary) curtailment, and probably few will change sides because of it... it'll be a big deal to liberals and less of a concern for conservatives
quote:based a unilateral, unjustified war on false evidence that he portrayed as certain, etc., and yet has virtually nothing to show for it
This may be a weakness, but as nearly everone who saw the evidence reached the same conclusions, there will be less fallout that you might imagine... plus, Bush has already begun to spin the situation as best as he can... supporters will stand by him, I'm betting.
quote:The terror threat is no less than it was originally
Many would beg to differ.
quote: and the economy has been extremely slow to recover
But it has been recovering, and continues to do so.
quote:He has even lost ground in his battle to advocate conservative social values for America, which is so important to his most loyal followers
But against Kerry, he'll seem positively old skewl.
Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote: As much as I think the American people can be goofy, I still can't believe they would reelect someone who
You're wrong there. They are that goofy. Aren't David Bowles and half the rest of the posters here proof of that?
David,
quote:
"destroyed America's reputation among our allies"
Americans are notoriously unconcerned with world opinion of our country (on average).
Not only that, they are so pathetic they don't even know that the world could possibly have anything but a great opinion of us and wonder, if they accidentally hear opinions to the contrary, why those people would think that about us.
quote:
"curtailed important civil liberties like due process"
Very few people actually feel the effects of this (arguably temporary) curtailment, and probably few will change sides because of it... it'll be a big deal to liberals and less of a concern for conservatives
That's because we all know that the conservatives are law abiding citizens for whom the Patriot Act changes nothing. Those pesky liberals, on the other hand, are the ones who'll we'll be locking up and throwing away the key on. Without charges or a trial, to boot!
Posts: 171 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Just a minor nitpick, I don't think Reagan started out with a surplus. Also, Reagan's tax plan was far more evenly weighted, and focused a lot on closing corporate loopholes, which resulted in it not causing that much of a problem income wise. It was his spending that sent this country deep into deficit and debt, unlike in the current situation (take out all the war expenditures and we've still got a fiscal problem, today. Not so with Reagan).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Also, I find the "arguably temporary" argument amusing. Bush is already asking Congress to make the PATRIOT act permanent, and Ashcroft has more than shown his willingness to apply it in non-terrorist related cases.
edit: in other words, any temporariness is dependent upon the Bush administration leaving office.
quote:Very few people actually feel the effects of this (arguably temporary) curtailment, and probably few will change sides because of it... it'll be a big deal to liberals and less of a concern for conservatives
Incidently, I thought keeping fundamental American rights was supposed to be a core value of conservatives. There's always a lot of talk about 2nd amendment rights, and state's rights, and so on - but apperently not due process. I'm beginning to think the brochure was misleading...
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
While Nader took 2,702,648 votes that might have gone to Gore in the 2000 election, Pat Buchanan also took 438,346 votes of religious conservatives, who might otherwise have gone for Bush. Pat Buchanan is not running this year. So even if Nader does not do as well this time without Green Party support, there is no one to counterbalance him and split off significant amounts of votes for Bush. And the Green Party is putting up its own candidate, who might also draw off a few votes that otherwise would go for the Democrat nominee.
[ February 23, 2004, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
When Carter left office, the National Debt was less than a trillion dollars. Eight years later, it was over two and a half trillion.
The Federal deficit in 1980 was 13 billion. Reagan's first year in office, it was 14 billion. In 1988, the year he left office, it was 130 billion. (Down from a historical high of 214 billion.)
Bush Sr. wasn't much better, and Clinton's first 4 years weren't a shining example of how to balance a budget. However, he did run a surplus for two years and had one year with only a 3 billion dollar surplus.
You know, after the civil war, it took us about 50 years, but we reduced the National Debt from 30% of the National Income to 3%. Then came WWI and deficit outlays for that. Up and down after that, then WWII. The ratio after WWII was 100%. Still, by 1974, we managed it back down to 25%. By March of 1999, it was back up to 50%
Just in case you wanted to know.
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NPR had two people discussing Ralph Nader's election. One was from a liberal magazine, who felt sorry for Nader, and asked him no to run.
The other was Pat Robertson, who called him heroic, fantastic, and suggested that everyone back him. Sure, they disagreed on most issues, but here was a man offering a fresh look on the world. DOn't vote Democratic, he suggested. Vote Independent, or Libertarian, or some other (not Communist) other party. Anything but Democratic.
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