If McCain became the token republican on the democratic ticket, it would just be tokenism. He would not be given the right to choose a portion of the cabinet and would only be important if there was a split senate (50-50) because he would be the tie breaking vote. His selection would only be a ploy to get Kerry the votes of the republicans who hate Bush (there are a lot of them).
As far as Alaska goes (and the electoral college), no one is really aware of what happened in New Mexico (or even cared) four years ago. The state has only five electoral votes. Because of some mishandling of ballots, the final vote changed three or four times, with a different winner announced each time. The final, official, count had Gore winning by (I think) 234 votes. The count before that one had bush winning by only 5 votes. Had the electoral college been closer (and not just hinged on Florida), people might have cared. In a popular vote, however, neither would lose sleep over a difference of less than 250 votes.
Posts: 279 | Registered: May 2004
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I don't see what's so bad about Kerry. Sure, he isn't a charasmatic wizard, but he seems like an intellectually eager, decent and competent leader, with the capacity to surprise me with innovative approaches to domestic issues. I honestly feel that a Kerry presidency will improve the quality of life for all but the top 1 percent of wage earners in the nation, and hopefully inspire more than our pocketbooks.
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Dagonee: probably. Me, I'll be the one updating election results all night on our website. Last presidential election I tried to hang around until it was decided. Got a lot of overtime...
This year we'll have electronic booths that have already been shown to be unreliable, with no way to go back and recount, in an election that looks to be hotly contested again. I really don't want to see another month of legal infighting and partisan screaming with elections officials who have close ties to the candidates, disputes over felon voting lists, or the other joys of living in Florida during election season. After seeing how both sides handled themselves last time, if I hadn't already been Independant I would have switched on the spot.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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If anyone honestly thinks that the voting machines are accurate representations of people voting, please take a moment to research this.
One place to start is Wiki Diebold which has a brief summary and many external links describing the current and past controversies concerning voting machines.
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How will a Kerry presidency improve my quality of life in any measurable way? Will he lower my taxes? Give me free stuff that is actually useful to me?
If I do vote, it will likely be for him, but he is still just another politician. All they do is make more useless and/or harmful laws while spending the money they stole from me. The most that might happen would be the Republicans having control of Congress by a slim majority with Kerry in office, which if we are lucky might result in too much friction to pass any bills. On the other hand, a second Bush term with a slim Democrat majority would give a better chance for a deadlock, but the risk of the Republicans having control of both branches is a horrible thing to think about.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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